centralizing and scaling down production units in such a way that each community was able to meet at least half of its needs. The source of the waste and frustration of modern life, thePrime Minister noted, was that "no one consumes what he or she p~oduces and no one produces what he or she consumes." As a first step in the new direction, the government had negotiated with the bicycle industry an immediate thirty percent in- • crease in production, but with at least half of all the bicycles and motorcycles being provided as kits to be put together by the users themselves. Detailed instruction sheets had been printed up, and assembly shops with all the necessary tools would be installed without delay in town halls, schools, police stations, army barracks, and in parks and parking lots ... • The Prime Minister voiced the hope that in the future local communities would develop this kind of initiative themselves: each neighborhood, each town, indeed each apartment block, should set up studios and workshops for free creative work and production; places where, during their free time~ people could produce whatever they wished thanks to the increasingly sophisticated arr§l.y of tools which they would find at their disposal (including stereo equipment or closed-:circuit television). The 24-hour week and the fact that income would no longer depend on holding a job would permit people to organize so as to create neighborhood services (caring for children, helping the old and the sick, teaching each other new skills) on a cooperative or mutual-aid basis, and to install convenient neighborhood facilities and equipment. "Stop asking, whenever you have a problem, 'What is the government doing about it?"' the Prime Minister exclaimed. "The government;s vocation is to abdicate into the hands of the people." . "Economic growth has brought US_ neither greatereqµity nor greater social harmony and appreciation of life." The cornerstone of the ne'w society, thePrime Minister continued, was the rethinking of education. It was essential that, as part of their schooling, all young people learn to cultivate the soil, to w'ork with metal, wood, fabrics, and stone, and that they learn history, science, mathematics, and literature in conjunction with these activities. After completing compulsory education, the Prime Minister went on, each individual would.be required to put in twenty hours of work each week (for whjch he or she would earn a full salary), in addition to continuing with whate~er studies or training he or she October 1980 RAIN. Page 19 desired. The required social labor would be done in one or more of the four main sectors: agriculture; mining and steelworks; construction, public works, and public hygiene; care of the sick, of the aged, and of children. • The Prime Minister specified that no student-worker would, however, have to perform the most disagreeable jobs"such as collecting garbage, being a nurse's aide, or doing maintenance work, for more than three months at ;:i. time. Conversely, everyone up to the age of forty-five would be expected to pe_rform these tasks for an average of twelve days a year (12 days a year could mean one day per month or one hour per week). "There will be neither nabobs nor pariahs in this country any more," ht:: remarked. In a matter of two years, six hundred multi-disciplinary centers of self-learning and self-teaching, open day and night, would be put within easy reach of everyone, even of people living in rural areas, so that no one would be imprisoned in a menial occupation against his or her choice. • The student-workers would also be expected, during their last year of wor_k-education, to organize themselves into small autonomous groups to design and carry out an original initiative of some kind, which would be discussed beforehand with the local community. The Prime Minister expressed the hope that many of these initiatives would seek to give new life to the declining rural regions of France, and serve to reintroduce agricultural practices more in harmony with the ecosystem. Many people, he said, were unduly worried by the fact that France depends on foreign sources for gasoline arid industrial fuel, when it was far more serious to be dependent on American soybean meal to raise beef, or on petrochemical fertilizers to grow grains and vegetables. -"Defending our territory," the Prime Minister said, "requires ' first of all that we occupy it. National sovereignty depends first of all on our capacity to grow our own food." For this reason the government would do everything possible to encourage a hundred thousand people a year to establish themselves in the depopulated regions of the country, and to reintroduce and 1mprove organicfarming methods and other "soft" technologies. All necessary scientific and technical assistance would be provided free for five years to newly established rural communities. This would do more to overcome world hunger, he added, than the export 0£ nuclear power stations or insecticide factories. - The Prime Minister concluded by saying that, in order to encourage the exercise of imagination ·and the greater exchange of ideas, no television programs would be broadcast on Fridays and Saturdays. . DD Reprinted with permission from Ecology As Politics by Andre Gorz. Published 1980 by South End Press, Box 68 Astor Station, Boston, MA 02123..
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