| BUSINESSWEEK ONLINE : MARCH 15, 1999 ISSUE | ||||||||
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| INTERNATIONAL -- READERS REPORT
Welcome to the New Feudalism (int'l edition) Luxury spending is part of the mechanism that will lead to the disappearance of democratic capitalism and the coming of Feudalism II (''A $50,000 car and you're still not happy,'' Books, Feb. 15). The new Middle Ages will be worse for most of humanity than the older ones were for the serfs; the latter were at least needed in productive processes and thus received employment and a certain amount of maintenance. So-called progress in technology and management methods is reducing this need, a fact currently masked by migration of formerly productive employees to service sectors, which, in the long run, are unsustainable. For the moment, the lords of the manor still depend on the population at large as the consuming element, but there are indications that their problem is being resolved. The pleasure boat industry, for example, has in recent years increased its dollar sales while reducing the number of boats built. In general terms, tomorrow's serf will find himself not only sub- or unemployed, but socially excluded from state-of-the-art living, be it in communications, transportation, health care, education, or recreation. Tossing the entire population into one statistical pot can be used to refute this argument today. But no amount of neoliberal propaganda can hide the ongoing economic cleansing, perhaps more fastidious but in truth as cold-blooded and as destructive to mankind as ethnic cleansing. Hanns John Maier Ubatuba, Brazil _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ BACK TO TOP |
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