We don't have to wait around for this to happen perfectly for everyone.
There are whole classes today for whom this is effectively true. For many,
market signals all point towards taking up space in somebody's cubicle farm.
This is called Knowledge Work.
The only incentive to really get off your butt (not literally of course)
is to be able consume excess goods and services comprising the next
level conceived of by marketers and desired by a television-addicted
population. (or is it?)
What's your point? Is this an ideal: to sit on your butt? I would argue
that a little extrapolation seems to indicate that the abundance of goods
and services you speak about (at least as they are provided in our
current economic system) is predicated on a life of subtle slavery
for many of the most "productive" (==predictable) citizens whose
economic lives (production and consumption patterns) are hardly
matters of conscious choice or will. What does it mean to "do what
we like" when the requirements for life are so easy to obtain at even
the most modest levels of modern American society and most of the
visible production and consumption is driven by marketing?
-Steven Talcott Smith
steven.t.smith@pobox.com
PS: hello, I'm new to the list.