Modern Materialism

No one in his senses favours inefficiency. But that doesn’t make efficiency a piece of cake or an attractive, let alone, sexy, subject. On the contrary. The whole concept is narrowed to management literature and practice. It relates only to the material side of things, to the supply side of economics and the ultimate goal of all business people: to make the highest possible profit.

‘Operational excellence,’ (managers’ term for milking out redundant expenses) has nothing to do with demand, planet, or people. ‘Operational excellence’ only has to do with profit. What we need is a whole new concept of efficiency.

Stop rushing for a moment and take some time for reflection. What is business doing with and to people? Daddies and Mammies go to the office or to a factory early in the morning. Their labour is treated as input of useful energy by bookkeepers and mainstream economists. Their bodies are just instruments.

The output of the office or factory is dead matter (paperwork, e-mails, improved commodities, signed documents), whereas the pappas and mammies at the machines get more worn out bit by bit every day. This entropy is labelled: heroic participation in a social-economic adventure, or something like that. Everybody has to shine, even when it is a fake glow.

The prevailing systems (energy, transport, environment, economy) have one thing in common: they are shaped by a technology that drives them into the direction of constantly bigger, more of the same, standardisation, infinite complexity, vast expensiveness, inscrutability and fierce competition.

New social network technology pushes the prevailing systems in the opposite direction, towards smallness, diversity, simplicity, cheapness, transparancy and cooperation. Internet technology supports systems that serve man instead of enslaving him. A kind of modern materialism, that brings organisations, politics and policymaking back to the human scale.

Modern Materialism suggests simple, small and smart solutions for complex environmental issues like the abundant and constantly growing energy-use, as can be seen in this video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LcjgRms6ShQ

The message in three words: BACK TO BASICS.
QUESTION: DO YOU HAVE OTHER SUGGESTIONS?
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