Re: how does a western services-based capitalist society survive..
> By going massively hi-tech. And having the arms to defend its wealth against those who would seek to take it from them.
This doesn't solve the economic problem though. We live in a society where we have more people than jobs, population nationally and globally is increasing, and everyone in the UK wants to get paid more. "Going high tech" just means you need even less people to do the same amount of work. It's good on paper for the companies involved, but what does the country do with the burgeoning supply of unemployed (or at least underemployed). If you just tax the companies or people in work then you take away all incentives to going high tech in the first place, as you are effectively paying for the staff you lost anyway as the state has to support them, and the only way to do that is via taxation.
What wealth? We have no natural resources, and burgeoning national debt which is still increasing, albeit at a lesser rate. The only "resource" in Britain is a large supply of people, which as per the above argument is increasingly an economic cost not a benefit in a massively mechanised society.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
