‘Mega-Optimists’ Are Part of a ‘Con Act’

It seems to me that inanities like “Mega-Optimists” (Jan. 17) ought to be relegated to the astrology column where they belong. While people like the Naisbitts (“Megatrends 2000” authors John Naisbitt and Patricia Aburdene) try to put a veneer of respectability on their crystal ball by using computers to make their predictions sound like science, anyone who knows anything about computers or science knows that futurism is a con act.

The reason people like the Naisbitts are popular is the same reason ancient kings hired prophets and modern rulers hire “experts.” They tell them what they like to hear, and they help them sell their policies to their constituencies by supplying an aura of wisdom and inevitability to whatever nonsense they want the people to believe.

Most of the forecasts are rather banal stuff that any thinking person can predict, but let us consider a couple of the “trend” items that these people are so optimistic about.

The first “trend” item that Naisbitt is trying to sell us is the idea that some great cosmic evolutionary force is moving us in a direction that will shift us from being an industrial society into one of service that is based on the creation and distribution of information. He even wants us to believe that we will benefit from this change.

Of all the inane ideas that have been sold to the American people, the one that tells us that we can prosper as an economic power without making things is the dumbest. Information is not an end, except at universities, and information without a purpose is just useless gossip.

People who think that it is OK to turn us into a service economy haven’t thought about what a service economy really is. A trip to Mexico will make the issue very clear. The Mexicans know the real meaning of a service economy: They live in one. It means waiting on tables and shining the shoes of rich foreigners who can afford to do things in your own country that you can’t.

The other optimistic trend that these people keep pushing is the notion of a “world economy” instead of a “national economy.” Again, people who think that this is a good direction haven’t thought about the implications involved. While it is true that turning the world into one gigantic free market benefits multinational corporations because it provides them with bigger markets and a cheaper labor pool, it is hard to see how it can possibly be good for the rest of us who end up trading good paying production jobs for minimum wage work at fast-food stores.

Contrary to what Naisbitt claims, these trends are neither inevitable nor are they good for most of us.

SANFORD THIER, Irvine