Heard this before?

After more than a decade of A-grade economic performance and rising prosperity, the question a lot of people are asking is: if we're so rich, why aren't we happy? Tanner's answer is that developments in the modern world - not just economic reforms, but changing technology and our move to more liberated, individualistic lives - are causing our relationships to break down.

Humans are social beings. Our lives have meaning essentially in the context of our relationships with other human beings. So relationships are central to the wellbeing of individuals and society as a whole.

I've heard the argument before. It's a not-atypical screed against materialism and how it eats away at our souls and all that tired jazz.

As a generally free-market capitalist, I reject the notion that this is all "inherent" in the capitalist system. As a techie, I reject the notion that the technology pulls us apart. I'd go a step further and say that capitalism has, in many ways, increased the quantity and the quality of time families spend together.

The idea that capitalism is inherently isolating hails all the way back to Marx who repeatedly stressed the alienation of man from himself, his peers, and his labor. The authors of both the article and the book are both liberal sorts, so while they may not be Marxist, they are at least sympathetic to at least the problems that he identifies.

In some ways, commerce brings us together. It takes me out to the store, where I'll greet the vendor and maybe share a word with him while we wait for my credit card to clear. When I have a job, it gets me to this place where I work with other people towards a common goal. At my last job, I attended a couple of trade shows where we talked with competitors. We were generally friendly and, being in the same business, had a lot to talk about.

Of course, Gittins would argue that this doesn't qualify as "quality time." As compared to family and friend time, generally not, but it's just about as worthwhile (and more productive in many ways) than talking about sports or the latest movie playing at the cinema.

As Gittins points out, time spent at the office does indeed cut in to family and friend time. Capitalism encourages work and work (generally) encourages people to stay away from home. If someone works an 80-hour week, they're depriving their family of quality time. In some cases, they have to work 80 hours to get by. In other cases, they don't have to but choose to because they feel pressured. In yet other cases, they don't have to but choose to so that they can afford nicer things.

"We've built a society in which we have less time for our children, less interaction with our neighbours, less involvement in the community, and less participation in collective activities," he says. "Longer working hours, greater dispersion of families, more solitary entertainment options and more formalised links between government and citizens have all contributed to this pattern."

Much of the stuff we buy - microwaves, fast food, for instance - is intended to save time. But, Tanner says, we're on a treadmill that's always imperceptibly gaining speed.

I do agree that something has been lost in the age of TV dinners, but I was raised by a stay-at-home Mom who cooked and it was generally a solitairy task. I think there is a certain romanticism attached by elements of both the left and right to the notion of a family working and playing together in some Waltonesque way.

But for most people, there is an element of choice involved. If a person is not so inclined, as likely as not they can get home before six or seven PM and the family can eat their TV dinners together. There is nothing inherent in capitalism that makes this not possible.

Except, of course, that many people don't. Some fathers (and mothers) retreat to the office either to avoid their families or in some misguided notion that they must provide to the same degree that the Joneses do.

Capitalism may encourage this mindset, which is both for good (spurs innovation) and ill (people work too long), but capitalism does not (as opposed to, say, capital-c Communism) force anyone at gunpoint to work later hours. It may entice them with goodies if they do, but at any point they can step back and say "I've worked enough here" and take whatever measures they need to in order to have a job that can provide more balance.

Before they had my brother and I, Dad chose to work for the federal government in part for that specific reason.

That's the thing about capitalism. It provides a choice. That people are often inclined to make the wrong choice is not so much a function of capitalism as it is of the way people work. Capitalism on paper is perfect, but then so is Communism and socialism. Each, however, fall prey to human tendencies and of the three, it's my belief that capitalism accomodates them the best.

One could argue that capitalism begets corporate conglomerates which then turn around and limit choice, and to a degree that's true. However, that's as much a matter of tweaking capitalism (anti-trust and anti-monopoly laws) to keep the game as fair as possible, it doesn't justify the repudiation of the entire system as it's given here.

The same can be said of technology. A computer gives someone the option of entering an isolation chamber, but itg gives the same person the option of entering a chat room or IMing someone. Far from disconnecting me, it allowed me to stay connected to some of my best friends while we lived long distances apart.

Mobile phones are another good example.

"My mobile phone might help me stay in touch, but it also interrupts face-to-face conversation and personal interaction," Tanner says. "Mobile phones can seriously detract from the quality - and quantity - of time we spend with our children."

Yeah, it does interrupt face-to-face conversation if you let it. On the other hand, it also enables it by allowing people to leave the house without having to wait around all day for a phone call.

To blame the isolation on technology is to blame the tool instead of user that's operating it.

I'm not arguing that technology is perfect and that there aren't costs, but rather that most of these costs can be minimalized by the user of they so choose. If they don't so choose, that's their choice.

The thing is, I can't entirely disagree with it.

Where I part company with the (liberal) author is in the nature of what's being lost and where the blame lies.

"Our closest and deepest relationships are being eroded by a rising tide of wider personal interaction, and by isolating involvement with individual technologies," Tanner says. "Our crowded lives are cluttered with contact but diminishing in connection."

How do you define "connection"?

Can "connection" not occur over the Internet? My experience tells me very much otherwise. Can "connection" not occur while talking business? Sports?

There are many ways of communication and I think that certain people (liberal-minded folks and women) often fail to appreciate, for instance, male-to-male conversation. Men bond by watching sports, by talking shop, discussing politics and other tangental things. We are less inclined to sit around and talk about how everything makes us feel and there's nothing wrong with that.

There's a certain dichotomy in their argument that quantity of time is being diminished and then turning around and being more concerned with quality of time. It's choice of which is quality (cooking together) and which isn't (working on a work-related project together). It's concerned with family communication when it's occuring between coworkers and peer communication when it's communication about the wrong thing (which is ill-defined).

None of this is to say that parents spend enough time with their kids or each other, but rather that the reasons they cite are more tools that people don't have to use if they don't want to and that a top-down view on what the government can do to change this (which it somehow views as being responsible for it to begin with) is the correct way to go about it.

The author of the article and book in question are both liberal-minded folks. Conservatives with the same concerns often advocate "legislating morality."

The problem is that benign and voluntary action and communications are the product of free will. Take away the free will by way of legislation and the actions become involuntarily thrust upon the people, and their attitude is rarely benign, enforcement is contentious and sporadic, and the results are unfortunate.