Does the improved quality of life get locked up? Americans have developed pretty staggering wealth inequality in the last 3 or 4 decades, for example, but the material quality of life has greatly improved in the same period of time. More people own homes, more people have more and better cars, everyone has access to more entertainment outlets, etc. Yeah, Steve Jobs gets a diamond studded speedboat, but everyone else gets Iphones. It's not equal, but it does represent a significant improvement in material quality of life.
Lewis Mumford talks about that as well in the book, in earlier chapters. He says that mass production focused on quantity rather than quality of life. More of something doesn't necessarily improve quality of life.
Mumford actually argues for more automation; and it makes sense. Why are there still cleaning crews and construction crews that work insane hours for not the best pay in the world? Why haven't we automated that so those people can pursue happiness? Giving them more TVs or iPhones won't improve their quality of life substantially. My favourite example is computers in the classroom; they haven't really increased the education of students, only made certain things more convenient; we still have classroom sizes that are too large to teach effectively, we don't cover the material properly, we teach to the standardized tests, etc. Those are all quality problems that can't be fixed with quantity of material goods.
It's "life liberty and the pursuit of happiness", not "life and the pursuit of wealth". Materially we're doing great and we could be going further with more automation, but in the mind, we have huge issues that have been swept under the rug and are only seriously looked at by academics.
The U.S. homeownership rate fell to 63.4 percent in the second quarter of 2015, according to the U.S. Census. That is down from 63.7 percent in the first quarter and from 64.7 percent in the same quarter of 2014. It marks the lowest homeownership rate since 1967.
Homeownership peaked at 69.2 percent at the end of 2004, when the housing market was in the midst of an epic boom. The 50-year average is 65.3 percent.
Key word: Material quality of life. So we're saving money on plastic deck chairs and pringles cans. But the cost of health insurance, real estate, and higher education has gone up.
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Does the improved quality of life get locked up? Americans have developed pretty staggering wealth inequality in the last 3 or 4 decades, for example, but the material quality of life has greatly improved in the same period of time. More people own homes, more people have more and better cars, everyone has access to more entertainment outlets, etc. Yeah, Steve Jobs gets a diamond studded speedboat, but everyone else gets Iphones. It's not equal, but it does represent a significant improvement in material quality of life.
Lewis Mumford talks about that as well in the book, in earlier chapters. He says that mass production focused on quantity rather than quality of life. More of something doesn't necessarily improve quality of life.
Mumford actually argues for more automation; and it makes sense. Why are there still cleaning crews and construction crews that work insane hours for not the best pay in the world? Why haven't we automated that so those people can pursue happiness? Giving them more TVs or iPhones won't improve their quality of life substantially. My favourite example is computers in the classroom; they haven't really increased the education of students, only made certain things more convenient; we still have classroom sizes that are too large to teach effectively, we don't cover the material properly, we teach to the standardized tests, etc. Those are all quality problems that can't be fixed with quantity of material goods.
It's "life liberty and the pursuit of happiness", not "life and the pursuit of wealth". Materially we're doing great and we could be going further with more automation, but in the mind, we have huge issues that have been swept under the rug and are only seriously looked at by academics.
Source? My guess would be that in fact, more people are homeless, jobless, living on food stamps and/or without health insurance.
http://www.cnbc.com/2015/07/28/home-ownership-rates-drop-to-...
The key is that you have to qualify it by repeatedly stating the word 'material'.
There can be arbitrary amounts of psychological suffering that we trade for this material benefit and these are typically just discounted.
Key word: Material quality of life. So we're saving money on plastic deck chairs and pringles cans. But the cost of health insurance, real estate, and higher education has gone up.
Do you have any data on how the ratio of homeless-to-not-homeless has evolved?