Arthur C. Clarke believed America’s smartest people were wasting their time on banking instead of the space program

There ’s a fascinating profile of Arthur C. Clarke over at the Sri Lanka Guardian , a newspaper in the land where Clarke spend the 2d one-half of his liveliness . There are tons of insights into Clarke ’s life-time , writing and technological foresight .

But the most interesting bit might be this plane section , about Clarke ’s belief that American capitalist economy was divert too much talent into useless occupations , or else of into the work of colonizing other planets :

While research for this clause I came across a searing indictment by Clarke on the American capitalist system . After observing that the structure of American society may be disqualify for the effort that the subjection of blank demands he continued , “ No res publica can afford to amuse its ablest man into essentially non - creative and on occasion parasitic occupations such as law , insurance and banking ” . He also referred to a photograph in Life Magazine show 7,000 railroad engineer mass behind a new model car they had produced as ‘ a horrible social document ’ . He was appalled by the squandering of expert manpower it represented .

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