People are best described from a societal point of view as single use machines programmed, excuse me, "educated" for single purposes much like kitchen appliances. For the purpose of this article, I will use a toaster as an example of an occupation, though any other appliance can be substituted, a blender, a coffee maker, a popcorn maker, yet the original, the toaster, to me seemed the obvious place to start.

          All societies have need for a variety of people to perform various jobs or functions, in this case, need a variety of certain numbers of appliances to keep things running smoothly; an X number of toasters, a Y number of waffle makers, and a Z number of crock pots. Though so-called "planned" economies such as Cuba, China, and the former Soviet Union tried to manage this, supposedly making sure there were always the right ratio of toasters to quizenarts, they were not all successful at it.

          The number of toasters became more important in the Soviet Union than the quality of the toasters. Some toasters didn't toast at all. Others were more likely to short-out your electricity, start a fire, or burn your toast, than to give you nicely toasted bread products. Though not without modest improvements, such as toasters which did not need electricity at all but could run almost completely on alcohol, there was little concern about whether or not most of their toasters were world-class competitive, state of the art,  particularly low-maintenance, or could even just make toast, just so long as you had enough of them to overcome the fact many of them could not consistantly make toast to save their own lives.

          It is erroneously viewed that so-called "market" economies don't care as much whether they have enough toasters. We think that these governments don't care if people have toast or not, and that if there is a market demand for toast, someone inevitably will find a way to provide toast to them regardless of government policies, kind of like illegal drugs. This is a mistaken assumption. Even the most Darwinian Conservative governments keep tabs on whether or not they have enough toasters, how much toast people are eating, what they put on their toast, and if those substances are legal or not. They remember well what the toaster shortages did to the planned economies and are determined that they will never get caught with their pants down like the communist countries, and never have shortages of anything people can be convinced they need to buy, unless to drive up prices by manufacturing shortages like Cabbage Patch dolls, Beanie Babies, Talking Elmos, or crude oil.

          So even in market economies, the number of toasters is heavily scrutinized. In the good old days, governments would increase funding to schools if they thought they would have a toaster shortage coming soon. This would benefit their own economies, as not only more toasters would help them overall, increasing their wealth and GDP, but they would need to have more toaster makers as well, new schools just for training new toasters could be built, and more construction projects, all to make sure no one ever has to worry about searching for decent toast.

          Nowadays though, the world is globalized. Countries that actually try to make sure they are creating enough toasters to service their own economies by increasing spending are now doing something bad by that, they are "subsidizing" an inefficient toaster making capability. If other countries can make toasters cheaper, it is better to move your economies focus to allowing your companies to import more foreign toasters, and lay off or retrain your toasters which require more electricity. When this leads to political problems with your toasters or other kitchen appliances worried about being replaced in the kitchen with foreign made brands, they find it easier just to outsource the toasting altogether. The toasting is still being done by foreign toasters, but it is not as in-your-face and no one has to see or think about that because they never actually will meet the toasters that are now making their toast.

          The question then becomes, what do we do with all our existing toasters which require more electricity? Toasters were made to be toasters, and many cannot simply be reinvented into something similar and toaster-like, such as mitten warmers or cigarette lighters. They often need to be completely recycled, reprogrammed, and made into something else entirely.

          The perceived obligation to do this by governments varies from an accepted duty as in European countries to downright laughability at any obligation whatsoever in countries like the United States. It is true that a market economy gives a government a barrier of accountability. They can simply say, "Who asked you to be a toaster anyway?" This of course overlooks the fact that becoming toasters often required for many thousands of dollars of training, years of sacrifices, all to become a certified toaster in a country that sudden decides it can afford to send all its bread elsewhere, and take back the toast to sell to the magically retrained former toasters, now banished to working other rooms, such as electric toothbrushes.

          Former planned economies of Eastern Europe and even the market economies of Western Europe have a greater sense of obligation to help working, functional toasters who, through no fault of their own, suddenly find they have nothing to toast. Unlike the United States, they have laws which say they cannot simply cut off everyone's benefits after two years and let them starve if they have not managed to reinvent themselves into a more useful appliance (which may well also soon become unnecessary). In former communist countries, this obligation is justified by the fact many can rightly say, "I never wanted to be a toaster in the first place. You made me a toaster and now it is your fault if you don't need toasters anymore. Deal with it!"

          The attitudes of any given society towards the financial needs of its former toasters (and other kitchen appliances) I feel is the best indicator of the value and morality of that society. It is analogous to how they treat their elderly. Once deemed no longer useful or valued by a society, many societies will simply turn their back on you and hope you go quietly away from sight. The Soviet Union was by and large a horrible country that treated people like garbage, yet because it was short on people compared with its aspirations (not coincidentally from killing off tens of millions of them pointlessly), it actually tried to make sure people had something to do and a way to survive if they could work. Not caring what they wanted to be doing, nor if their aptitudes were best being utilized, or if their toasters could in fact actually make toast, all were good reasons for that government to be replaced.

          Unfortunately it has not been replaced with ones that have any better idea of what to do with the toasters they no longer need, but unlike the United States, have to pretend at least to care even if they do not care. For like the Soviet Union, Russia and other new states have too few people and are too poor to simply waste their human resources by assuming it will all take care of itself without need to have their idle toasters cooking again, and soon, or their governments will function more like revolving doors, coalitions constantly collapsing in more democratic countries, and coups and counter-coups in less democratic ones.