Shmoo

I recently reviewed a novel (Rabbit and Robot), set about 50 years from now, when, for the great bulk of society, automation had eliminated all job choices except those of coders (for programing robots) and soldiers (for fighting wars that had become essentially a form of fatal recreation).  It was a dysfunctional version of an ideal world that I've often enjoyed discussing with willing and unwilling listeners.

In my version, however, life becomes a paradise.  The most creative members of society still have opportunities to advance civilization, and are rewarded for their accomplishments.  For the great majority of citizens, however, the folks who used to man assembly lines, employment would no longer exist.  Automation would produce with little human input all the goods and services that were needed, and all members of society would share in those goods and services.  A minimum standard of living would be guaranteed everyone.

Interestingly enough, almost everyone is furious at this idea. Capitalists hate seeing anyone get something for nothing, of course. But it's also resisted by the intended beneficiaries.  Maybe because they can't figure out how they would spend their lives if not required to work 9 to 5.  Or maybe because of the biblical injunction that fallen man must live by the sweat of  his brow.  (Not many American brows sweat much anymore, actually.)

The hostile reaction by capitalists was anticipated back in 1948 by the cartoonist Al Capp in his popular satirical comic strip Li'l Abner.  In that year, he drew a sequence of strips dealing with a new topic, a topic to which he frequently returned in subsequent years -- the shmoo.   Everyone talked about shmoos. In my family, when one of us kids worried about the poor little piggy or lamb whose meat we were eating for dinner, my dad assured us that it had been a "shmoo piglet" or a "shmoo lamb."  We read the comics, and we understood the allusion.

Wikipedia reminds me that Abner discovered the shmoos in the Valley of the Shmoon.  They were a strange and versatile animal.

They reproduce asexually and are incredibly prolific, multiplying exponentially faster than rabbits. They require no sustenance other than air.

Shmoos are delicious to eat, and are eager to be eaten. If a human looks at one hungrily, it will happily immolate itself—either by jumping into a frying pan, after which they taste like chicken, or into a broiling pan, after which they taste like steak. When roasted they taste like pork, and when baked they taste like catfish. (Raw, they taste like oysters on the half-shell.)

They also produce eggs (neatly packaged), milk (bottled, grade-A), and butter—no churning required. Their pelts make perfect bootleather or house timbers, depending on how thick one slices them.

They have no bones, so there's absolutely no waste. Their eyes make the best suspender buttons, and their whiskers make perfect toothpicks. In short, they are simply the perfect ideal of a subsistence agricultural herd animal.

Naturally gentle, they require minimal care, and are ideal playmates for young children. The frolicking of shmoon is so entertaining (such as their staged "shmoosical comedies") that people no longer feel the need to watch television or go to the movies.

The use of "shmoon" for the plural is a bit pedantic.  Everyone I knew called them "shmoos."

Their most interesting quality, and the one to which my dad referred, was their joy at being eaten.  Without this craving for self-immolation, their tasty qualities would be heart-breaking, because of their lovable personalities.  Eating Bambi would have been easy by comparison.

The critics -- political, economic, philosophical, moral -- were enraged by the way in which the plot developed.  Once the world learned of the excellent quality of the shmoos, the world is turned upside down.  Li'l Abner is quick to understand the consequences: ("Wif these around, nobody won't nevah havta work no more!!")  The traditional economy collapses.  Everyone has everything he needs.  No one buys anything.  Folks just embrace the lovable shmoos, and eat them.  The Malefactors of Great Wealth were no different in 1948 from today -- relentless.  The capitalists hired "Shmoo Squads" to exterminate the shmoos and eliminate this threat to "The American Way." 

As automation turns the economy upside down, I doubt if we'll see corporate-created "Robot Squads," because automation, unlike shmoos, is the creation, the tool of the capitalists.  Robots enhance corporate profits, rather than undermine them. 

But for the average working stiff, the question remains:  Would automation/shmoos bring a worker's paradise, where every citizen can become a painter, a novelist, a singer, a hobbyist?  Or would we all be bored out of our minds and, like the citizens in Rabbit and Robot enlist in the military and go to war, out of a sheer sense of ennui?  

Or choose a third alternative, perhaps the most likely, one that's becoming increasingly prevalent wherever jobs become scarce -- live life on drugs. 

I hope not.  I don't think our little shmoo friends would like it.

Tasty little devils.