Date: Mon, 15 Aug 1994 23:13:59 -0400 (EDT)
From: Alex Trotter <uburoi-AT-panix.com>
Subject: Overproduction crisis, an SF view



"In the early twentieth century the problem of production had been 
solved; after that it was the problem of consumption that plagued 
society. In the 1950's and '60's, consumer commodities and farm products 
began to pile up in vast towering mountains all over the Western World. 
As much as possible was given away--but that threatened to subvert the 
open market. By 1980, the pro tem solution was to heap up the products 
and burn them: billions of dollars worth, week after week.
	"Each Saturday, townspeople had collected in sullen, resentful 
crowds to watch the troops squirt gasoline on the cars and toasters and 
clothes and oranges and coffee and cigarettes that nobody could buy, 
igniting them in a blinding conflagration. In each town there was a 
burning-place, fenced off, a kind of rubbish and ash heap, where the fine 
things that could not be purchased were systematically destroyed."

						Philip K. Dick, from 
						_Solar Lottery_ (1955)


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