Dr. Martin Hash Podcast

Productivity is the secret of societal bliss, resulting in a vibrant society focused on progress and scientific knowledge. When people have a motive to work, normally they can produce at least enough to survive, and because of specialization & mechanical leverage, the productivity of a single individual far exceeds their basic needs. In fact, members of our society are so productive that we can consume amounts in vast excess of the food, heat, and shelter we actually need to sustain us which allows us to spread around the excess. We have multiples of everything, and collect superfluous accouterments in unwieldy quantities, so-much-so that capitalism and consumerism have become synonymous. There is nothing innately wrong with consumerism based on productivity: to-the-contrary, it uniquely satisfies our base cravings for accumulation of wealth & the luxury of ambition, both based on motives of greed, vanity & covetousness.

Technology is the primary multiplier of productivity because, if anything, America's productivity through labor has decreased: fewer hours, a shorter work week, and more vacation & sick days. But that's actually a good thing because it leaves more time for leisure, which creates its own industry that employees people who no longer can get a job doing what machines do. This ever-increasing amount of leisure & pursuit of personal satisfaction fits right into our national goal of “the pursuit of happiness,” and contrary to all the hand-wringing about unemployment, the future is bright.

And as long as America produces more than it consumes, our standard of living will increase & a redistributive society is possible, but the threat exists where our population is trained to be consumers without being at least as productive. This can easily occur if the ideology becomes that people are owed rather owing, the basic tenet behind Marxism. This reversal of responsibility & control stifles motivation & suppresses productivity. Lowered productivity means fewer goods are available, which drives up demand & prices, and if inflation is not allowed because of a government mandate to ensure “equality” then the goods will simply cease to become available at all, and more draconian measures will need to be implemented. Obviously, liberty requires productivity.