Reflections on the Welfare State

The New Utopia

The technicians claim that a general use of nuclear energy in industry could bring about a reduction of the work day to two or three hours. It is not easy to predict how men will use the resulting surplus of energy. Strangely, no politician has so far given his opinion as to the social consequences of this possibility. Even those politicians who are traditionally tied to nineteenth-century utopias prefer not to think about it. Their perplexity is easily understood, for one is able to imagine how it would be possible to keep alive the Order and the Hierarchies (even the New Order and the New Class) in a society where the whole population is free from the burden of physical labor and is idle twentytwo hours out of twenty-four. Nuclear energy for public welfare may be as frightening a perspective as the atomic war.

The Negation of the Negation

One can never be wary enough of the illusion of logical and consequentia...