Prosperity in modern industrial society is absolutely and economically linked to “more,” more production of goods, more use of services, higher levels of profits, and so forth. And when “more” is not forthcoming, the problems begin. For example, due to the higher prices of gasoline, Americans have cut back on driving by more than 40 billion miles over the past year, and by almost 4% last May. That meant they bought less gasoline, and lower gasoline sales meant fewer tax revenues, and for the first time ever, tax revenues that go to the Highway Trust Fund will be more than $5 billion less than projected federal spending on construction, maintenance and repairs in the coming year, resulting in either cutbacks in maintenance [already well-behind replacement requirements] or an addition to the already burgeoning federal debt. Consumers are cutting back on purchases, resulting in layoffs in all manner of industrial areas. Even nail salons are seeing less business. Housing sales have dropped to something like a quarter of what they were last year at this time, and it appears likely that more than a million construction workers are no longer working in that area. It’s very likely that these cuts in employment and earnings will also create more of a drain on Social Security revenues.

All the various policy remedies being suggested are variations on getting more funds into the hands of consumers and creating a climate of opinion that will encourage them to spend those funds in order to maintain a demand that will support the production of “more.”

In short, if economic prosperity depends on producing “more,” what happens when we either can’t physically produce more, or when we can’t afford to buy more in order to pay for producing more? Is there any way to maintain economic prosperity without always having to produce more? Or do we as humans instinctively define prosperity in terms of “more?”

Certainly, there’s a general sense of rejection of life as a zero-sum game, where, for everyone who succeeds or exceeds the societal average in terms of income, accumulation of resources, or prestige and power, there are others who fail and fall below the “average.” That rejection, however, is based on the experience of the post-Renaissance era, where, in the industrialized world, at least, the ability to produce goods and services on a scale always exceeding past years created the impression that a continual supply of “more” was not only possible, but a societal right.

But is production of “more” possible on a global and sustained basis? Even if it is, for a time, is it a “right?”

And… since science fiction is supposed to explore the future, why haven’t more novelists taken on this challenge? Or taken it on without falling back on a government-controlled or tradition-bound solution [as in Le Guin’s The Dispossessed]. Is there a practical and politically acceptable economic and technical approach to maintaining prosperity? Or are humans hard-wired into “more” as the definition of prosperity?

What are the implications if one society insists on “more” and another insists on “balance?” Is that the resource equivalent of Heinlein’s observation in Starship Troopers that peace achieved through pacificism is impossible because any culture that practices it will soon be wiped out by those who don’t?

For what seemed the millionth time, I opened a bill and was confronted with the invitation to “go paperless.” Instead of tracking down the idiots and fraudsters who generated the idea and assassinating them, which would prove an endless chore, given how many institutions have bought into this sham, I decided to write this blog. Going “paperless” is NOT cost-saving, space-spacing, or time-saving for most of us; it is cost-saving, space-saving, and time-saving for all of the institutions who promulgate the idea.

Of course, they don’t want to print out monthly statements for hundreds or thousands of customers. Nor do they want to pay to mail them out. Instead, they want to maintain an electronic database that they already have, and they want you and me and all the other customers to spend our time and electricity to access the data and print out what we need. In practice, this is known as “cost-shifting.” “Going paperless” shifts costs and time from them to me and you.

Because writing is my business, I need receipts and documents, both to compile my taxes and to retain as “evidence” should I ever be audited. So when my bank cheerfully informs me that no longer can I get back canceled checks, but only miniature photocopies, which take a microscope to read, this is anything but time-saving or efficient for me, and because they’re printed on both sides of the paper, I end up having to make copies just to be able to sort things into the right folders. Of course, I could purchase some electronic bookkeeping system. But I once had one of those systems and, guess what, it took more time and effort to use and maintain it than to simply keep a set of file folders… and I still need the documentary evidence anyway.

Just the other day my wife received a frantic email from the editor of a scholastic publication to whom she had submitted a report. The editor’s computer had crashed, wiping out everything, and for some reason, so had the back-up. This is far from the first time these sorts of events have occurred, but the frequency is far greater in the electronic age than it ever was in the typewriter age. And that puts a greater burden on the author… in this case, my wife.

In the past three years, I’ve had three credit cards canceled and re-issued by financial institutions, not because I lost a card or had one stolen, but because someone had hacked into or compromised the institution’s systems or databases. Of course, this probability, backed by experience, means we carry more credit cards than we need, which increases our costs and potential exposure.

And as for the vaunted savings and efficiency provided by the electronic age… they’re vastly overstated, and the costs are vastly understated. The internet is highly useful for people and professions who need one discrete piece of information at a time and sometimes for those who belong to corporations and institutions who can afford and pay for access to all the various data-bases extent. But, for the rest of us, trying to find detailed, in depth information on the net without paying a fortune is an exercise in frustration and exasperation. Also, if you have to compare, charts, statistics, and the like, you end up having to print them out because you can’t [not on any system I know] call all of them up and put them side by side on the screen.

For most names, I can find out general information more quickly and with less exasperation by picking up my handy Wordsworth Dictionary of Biography [$2.50 at Half-Price Books] than Googling it. The same is true in a number of other areas… which is why I have a short shelf of quick reference books close to the computer.

But it’s not just in information. Take gasoline stations. When I was very young, and even when I started driving, they were known as service stations. You drove in, and an attendant pumped the gas, washed the windows, even checked the oil. Now… we do it all, and it certainly doesn’t seem to have reduced the costs.

Today the majority of “restaurants” are fast-food based, and the customers wait in line, carry their food to their table, gather their own straws, napkins, and necessary utensils, and presumably dispose of their waste, thereby transferring costs from the provider to the customer. The same principle applies to “big-box” stores as well.

Another example is telephone information. It used to be free. Now, most local service providers charge the customer to find telephone numbers that aren’t listed or are in distant cities. Think about it. We pay for the service, and then we pay again to find the number we’re going to call, for which we’ll be charged a third time.

These changes haven’t come overnight. They’ve crept into society, bit by bit, but they all have one thing in common, they shift time and costs from those providing goods and services to those paying for and receiving them… and Americans wonder why they have less time than ever before?

That’s because, and in the name of so-called convenience, we’ve allowed ourselves to become the unpaid employees of others… and while each little bit of service we do isn’t much, the sum total is anything but insignificant.

Many long years ago, a political science professor educated me to the law he termed the “revolution of rising aspirations.” By that, he meant that once people learned what was possible, they always wanted more. Once they had a bicycle, so to speak, they wanted a motor scooter, and then a car, and then two. The downside of rising aspirations is that, being aspirations, they’re insatiable. No matter how much most people have, they always aspire to more.

This tends to create problems in a modern industrial society, especially when combined with a mass-production society and “economies of scale,” where the more of a good is produced, the lower the unit cost [up to the limit of the equipment], and the more profit per unit [again, up to the limit of the equipment and assuming you can sell that many]. This structure leads to decisions that are often uneconomic for society as a whole as well as inappropriate.

Take hamburgers. A fast food restaurant must pay for the building, the equipment, the insurance, and the staff before it sells a single hamburger. And there’s very little difference in staff time and effort between creating a single patty hamburger and a triple colossal cheeseburger deluxe. Likewise the difference in the costs of ingredients is not nearly so great as the difference in the prices that the restaurant can charge. So… in terms of profits and pricing, the restaurant has every incentive possible to maximize the sale of its most expensive — and most caloric — burgers. Is this to the advantage of the health of the consumer? Is it the best use of resources overall for society? I’d say not, but it does maximize profits, and that’s the bottom line.

Now… apply that same model to automobiles. For years, everyone associated with the automotive field has known that “big” cars and SUVs had sometimes twice the profit of smaller and more efficient automobiles. Americans could get “more car for each dollar” spent on a large vehicle, and so long as fuel prices stayed low, the operational costs didn’t dissuade them, and the automakers made higher profits. As a practical matter, not everyone needs a three-ton SUV to commute one person to work, but the short-term profit motive, low gasoline prices, and production economies of scale resulted in American manufacturers concentrating on “big” cars. Then when the 1970s gasoline crunch and high prices came along, they were anything but prepared… and they lost market share, most of which they never regained even when big cars became popular again. Now, with the latest gas crunch, the gas-guzzlers are sitting on the dealer lots, and Ford has posted a quarterly loss of close to nine billion dollars, and Toyota looks poised to become the largest automobile manufacturer in the world.

Because people aspire to more, they want bigger hamburgers, bigger or more luxurious vehicles, and since bigger is easier and more profitable in an “industrial” economy than truly better or what is appropriate, more and more resources get wasted, because “economies of scale” don’t allow for great diversification. Yes, you can get a car in a range of colors, and trims, and limited and set accessories. Try getting a four-door, four-wheel drive, fuel-efficient, moderate-sized SUV with a stick shift. You can’t, not in the good old USA. That’s because economies of scale aren’t all that economical in meeting anything more than cosmetic ranges of choice. They’re a form of one-size-fits-all with cosmetic cover, and that’s not suitable for the future.

Why? Because over time, one size does not fit all needs and requirements — except maximizing profits. It’s also wasteful and inefficient in terms of resources, and those who espouse the approach are ignoring the growing problems facing the world today created by the unrecognized conflict between “economies of scale,” the revolution of rising aspirations, and the law of appropriateness.

For years, my wife has been irritated with various educational bureaucrats and politicians who mandate broad and sweeping policies and laws that are highly inappropriate to what she does. I’ve seen the same thing occur time and time again in environmental and economic regulations and in corporate planning. And most of it arises from trying to fit everything into the same mold, or as my wife puts it, failing to understand that “one size does not fit all.”

When an educational bureaucrat decrees that all classes taught in a university must have the same cost/credit hour efficiency, he demonstrates that fallacy of assuming one size fits all. Science classes need more equipment, and that’s more costly per credit hour than lecture classes in literature or economics or political science… or business. Many music classes require one-on-one instruction. They can’t be taught effectively any other way, and that’s “inefficient” because it doesn’t fit the old industrial/business model of economies of scale.

In nature, evolution has demonstrated over millions of years that there is an “appropriate” size for every ecological niche. If a predator gets too big for its prey, it becomes extinct. Prey that’s too large or too slow does as well. In nature, one size does not fit all, nor do aspirations that exceed one’s abilities.

Those are lessons that an intelligent species should learn, but will we?

While I may not be the only writer to do so, I’m certainly one of the very few to present the taxation problem from the viewpoint of a ruler in a fantasy novel. For those interested, the character is Creslin, in The Towers of the Sunset. The entire issue of taxation, both in fantasy worlds and in real worlds, seems to be stereotyped in terms of “taxes are bad for the poor and too low for the rich.”

The problem with this viewpoint is that it tends to ignore the entire reason for taxes, which is to raise revenue in order to provide services for the society as a whole that it would be uneconomic or impossible for the majority of individuals to provide for themselves. National defense is often cited as one of those services, perhaps because it’s fairly obvious that very few of us could afford to build or buy even one aircraft or tank or ship. Other obvious “communal” services are road-building, water and sewers, ports, harbors, and canals. And some services, once regarded as best provided privately, are now considered public in most industrialized nations, such as education, old-age income security, banking regulation, food and medical oversight and regulation.

The underlying problem with taxation is that people have differing levels of income, but many of the services provided are the same, regardless of income. Each individual generally gets the “same” amount of national defense, roads built, availability to water and sewer or education as any other. And given socio-economic trends, often certain services are used disproportionately by those who have little or no income and pay little or no taxes. Thus, even with a “flat” percentage tax, in essence a certain amount of redistribution of social assets takes place. With a “so-called” progressive income tax system, where those with greater income pay a higher share of taxes, even more income and asset redistribution takes place. And when one adds in programs to aid the poor and disadvantaged, or direct subsidies to businesses, an even greater amount of redistribution occurs.

Now… even in fantasy novels, when taxes or tariffs are discussed, usually they’re imposed by the evil ruler, and they’re far too high. What’s overlooked in fantasy and reality is that taxes are in essence fees for services provided, and the social question becomes who pays how much for what, and who receives what in return for what.

The United States is running a massive deficit, financed these days primarily by the Chinese, simply because we have voted for more services than we are willing to pay for, including funding an unpopular war and income redistribution through Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and various welfare programs, not to mention farm and other “corporate” subsidies [not to be confused with tax concessions, which are NOT income redistribution, whether they are justifiable or not]. Oh, every American will say, “I don’t mind my taxes going for ‘X,’ but I don’t think we should be spending on ‘Y’ or ‘Z.'”

In The Towers of the Sunset, Creslin is faced with the unenviable problem of needing to raise revenue to build and pay for enough of an armed forces and navy to defend his people against outside attacks. If he taxes too highly, he will destroy his young nation’s economy, and if he taxes too little, he won’t have a nation left. But, at least, as the head of a ruling council, he didn’t have to deal with trying to explain to every citizen why he or she all couldn’t have more in services than they wanted to pay for.

There’s a very personal side to the Red Queen’s Race, and that’s what happens to individuals. For example, to people like my wife. As a professor of music and an opera director, she’s theoretically on a nine month contract — except theory is far different from practice. Admittedly, instead of working the 60-80 hour weeks, and weekends, she works during the school year, she’s only working 40 plus hours pretty much every week of her “vacation,” just to handle all the aspects of her job that don’t fit into the year, as well as: (1) counsel incoming freshmen during the three one-week sessions the university has scheduled in order to compete for students; (2) develop three new courses to help implement the new degrees offered by the University and the Music Department; (3) write the two scholarly papers due before school starts again in August; (4) track and assign incoming students; (5) develop the ground plans, staging, and rehearsal schedules for the coming year’s opera productions… and about ten other things, all during her theoretical vacation. She’s far from the only one at the university. In fact, dozens of them all laugh, and not cheerfully, at what they call “the myth of the nine month contract,” because it really amounts to the equivalent of a 25% pay cut, or 25% more in work for no more pay.

But they’re certainly not the only ones with this kind of problem. There’s a doctor I know well, who’s a surgeon and a researcher, as well as a department head, at a major medical center and who spent the last year carrying not only her job, but that of her non-existent assistant [also a doctor’s position], because budgetary constraints meant holding off filling the position for a year. The director of human resources at a major chemical company has told me that the company is always juggling these issues, because of cost and resource constraints.

Certainly, the effect has also hit the fiction publishing field. Writers whose work has won critical plaudits have been forced to move to small presses… or not have their work published at all because of the ever-increasing pressure for efficiency and profitability. Other writers are told that certain kinds of books can’t be accepted because they’re unlikely to meet expected financial and sales goals.

All across the United States, those in management and professional positions are finding themselves handling both their jobs and those once held by subordinates. Middle management positions have been trimmed everywhere, in the name of efficiency. But the work load hasn’t been cut anywhere close to commensurately. On a other economic levels, everyone has heard about all the renegotiated salaries across industry after industry, from pay cuts for pilots and flight attendants, to bankruptcy-forced pay cuts, to the replacement of full-time employees with part-timers without benefits. In fact, the only area where this hasn’t hit is CEO compensation, which for the moment seems to remain above the effect of the Red Queen’s race.

And the bottom line still remains… run faster, because running as hard as you can only leaves you in the same place.