EXPIRES: 1930

WRITTEN: 1930

[...] we have been expressly evolved by nature-with all our impulses and deepest instincts-for the purpose of solving the economic problem. If the economic problem is solved, mankind will be deprived of its traditional purpose. Will this be a benefit? If one believes at all in the real values of life, the prospect at least opens up the possibility of benefit. Yet I think with dread of the readjustment of the habits and instincts of the ordinary man, bred into him for countless generations, which he may be asked to discard within a few decades.

John Maynard Keynes

Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren

Written: 1930

Addressed to: 1930-1970

Source: Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren

Author: John Maynard Keynes

Category: Culture & Society

Annotation

2000

In the three short decades between now and the twenty-first century, millions of ordinary, psychologically normal people will face an abrupt collision with the future. Citizens of the world's richest and most technically advanced nations will find it increasingly painful to keep up with the incessant demand for change.

Alvin Toffler

2014

Indeed, the most somber speculation I can make about A.D. 2014 is that in a society of enforced leisure, the most glorious single word in the vocabulary will have become work!

Isaac Asimov

1975

There is a quality even meaner than outright ugliness or disorder, and this meaner quality is the dishonest mask of pretended order, achieved by ignoring or suppressing the real order that is struggling to exist and to be served... Low-income projects that become worse centers of delinquency, vandalism and general social hopelessness than the slums they were supposed to replace.

Jane Jacobs