Technology, Work and Leisure : Reflections on the Gains and Costs of Abundance

A technology that permits a heavy flow of military and consumer goods, a mass education system producing a mass audience, untrained to higher tastes, a cultural é elite more heterogeneous in background and functions, more open to mass culture, these are all gains of abundance, but to what cost? The following text is drawn from an address presented at the last meeting of CIRRI and from the discussion which took place.