Dr. Martin Hash Podcast

Isn't the goal for everybody to live like the Jetsons, working 3 hours per week, and spending the rest of the time pursuing your own muse. There's only one way to get there and that's through an economic system that increases productivity, specifically a Market-based system that relies on greed for motivation. No one makes a new machine that replaces hundreds of jobs out of altruism; they do it so that they can increase their own little nest-egg. If greed is made unpalatable by the politics of envy, increases in productivity stop; in fact, productivity decreases.

Almost all increases in productivity come from progress; scientific, technical, information, managerial; but no one can ever forget that somewhere someone is pushing the button or the broom. No matter how fancy the machinery gets, people still have to work, at least enough so that production equals consumption. Producing implies consuming so the connection between work ethic and buying a new 4-wheeler or iPhone must be clear, and it needs to be on a personal level; your productivity equals your consumption. Work ethic is so important to society that it must be instilled at youth, as it used to be; clean your room, do your homework, go to practice. A society that does not ingrain in its citizens the relationship between consuming and producing is doomed.