Player Piano Review

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Player Piano ReviewThis year is the 50th anniversary of this novel. I remember that I was working as an engineer back when I first read it. This was appropriate since most of the main characters are engineers. I remember being struck at how close Vonnegut's predictions about society actually were. Now that I've reexamined them 20 years later, I am even more impressed.
The basic premise of the story is that American industry is run by a tiny group of wealthy and powerful managers and engineers, while the vast majority of the population are stripped of their well-paying industrial jobs and forced to live as poor, powerless menials.

This elite of managers and engineers live in closed, gated Orwellian communities, where they watch each other closely for the slightest hint of nonconformity or disloyalty to the system.
Vonnegut shows how most managers and engineers have always had a contempt for the average American worker and have been looking for a way to replace them even before WW2. He thought that this would primarily be by automation (as opposed to simply shipping the jobs out of the country.)
Vonnegut also assumed that agriculture would be totally mechanised by large corporations and the small farmer made extinct.
There is also the eerie prediction that the President would be a man of low intelligence who would get elected on the basis of a "three hour television show." It would make no difference because there would be no connection between who was elected and who actually ran the country. Remenber, this was in 1952....
Oh yes, he also predicted that no one would be able to get any job worth having without a graduate degree.
I know that some people will say that this novel is dated based simply on the repeated mention of vacuum tubes (transistors were not in commercial use in 1952.) However, if you substiute "integrated circuit" or "computer chip" for every place he uses vacuum tube the obsolescence vanishes. Simularly, a modern reader may laugh at the idea of a computer large enough to fill Carlesbad caverns. Believe me, even today the Cray supercomputers and their support equipment take up quite abit of space.
My only real criticism with Vonnegut's projections is that he thought that engineers would have alot more power and influence than they actually have. From my own experience MBA's, CPA's, and lawyers have much more power.Player Piano Overview

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