"All right," said Long with some asperity that even the professional mask couldn't hide, "but I warn you that it's strictly a minor point." "So it's a minor," said Blik. "Tell us." "The point is," said Long, after a short pause to collect his thoughts, "that EL fills a need for some people. You see, with the big upsurge in automation years ago, it got harder and harder for a production-oriented economy to survive. Jobs got fewer and easier. People were thrown out of work. During the early years of automation, there was a lot of population displacement because of a lack of jobs, and this made for a lot of economic juggling which really didn't help matters. "It wasn't until some ten years ago that people finally came to the conclusion that production was outstripping the need for labor and that, in fact, production was beginning to become a burden on the economy. And so they turned things around a bit. Instead of giving rewards and subsidies to the production end of the economy, they began giving it to the consuming end. That was really the only way out of the hole. "But it was soon found that people are not merely organisms geared to consume. At first it was grand and glorious, but after a bit the urge to create, to work, to think began to assert itself strongly, and that's where EL came along. EL was developed to give unsatisfied people satisfactions that they couldn't get anywhere else. They couldn't be allowed to produce because that was what was wrecking things. So they had to be provided with a synthetic 'production-fulfillment.' "Today these producer-minded people can get any sort of satisfaction they need from EL, and it keeps them from wandering around trying to produce something that would just be a hindrance. After all, what we need is consumership, not production. "But that's a relatively minor point, as I said earlier," Long concluded looking at me with a superior air. "It's such a minor point, it won't even bear discussion." * * * * * His manner, underneath the slick facade, implied that he wouldn't deign to discuss it with two peasants like Blik and me under any circumstances. "Just a minute," I said. "It's _not_ a minor point at all. It seems to me that you've hit the core of the problem." "A minor point," insisted Long, his eyes blazing, although his face retained the mask of the smiling salesman. "Perhaps I didn't make myself clear," I said. "Have you ever stopped to think that if you take EL into the larger picture, it does serve a purpose, and perhaps we are all here for a different reason than I had originally discussed? Maybe the thing to be is a super-consumer--maybe definitive consumership is the most vital thing in our life, not the production of things."