Repetitive and mechanical tasks will be taken over by machinery. The idea is not to propose programmes taking refuge in technology, with the intention of blotting out and forgetting the real difficulties which people face in their daily lives. Modern means of measurement, forecasting and communication allow the input of schemes to be evaluated and social dialogue to occur where previously one used force, secrecy or surprise to get one's way. Each period had its own, the pyramids of Antiquity, the cathedrals of the Middle Ages, the palaces of royalty. They express themselves at all levels from the individual to the species as a whole.
Past experience shows that finance is made available on an all or nothing basis.
Either money is brusquely refused or on the contrary the floodgates are opened without any restraint so as to provide without delay huge amounts of money for projects which have suddenly become urgent. In the latter case, if the groundwork has not been prepared then politicians are liable to be swayed by illusions and finance poorly planned projects just to give the appearance of doing something. Now there is a logic to infrastructures which is neither that of the market nor that of prestigious projects, like castles in days gone by. This is the logic of public utility which consists in providing the necessary public services in appropriate conditions of availability at optimum cost to the community. This logic applies at a municipal level for public transport and other local services and at a global level for the protection of whales, lemurs, bears, parrots and other endangered species, for satellite weather forecasts and the standardization of industrial products.