In the former life from which Li Chen had transmigrated, Earth's technology alone had actually been enough to feed everyone and provide all manner of necessities, bringing the beginnings of a utopia into being.
Yet blind production and repetitive consumption had steered human intelligence and energy toward the abyss of degradation.
Class divisions and the gulf between rich and poor had concentrated the vast majority of wealth in the hands of a tiny few, leaving people too busy fighting over resources to concern themselves with civilization as a whole.
In a prosperous modern society, some sat in office buildings, preparing reports and typing code; some traveled on business and entertained clients; others rushed about toiling.
Others worked in the fields with their faces to the yellow earth and their backs to the sky, sweated like rain on construction sites, dug in illegal coal mines, or risked their lives aboard illicit ships at sea and on high-voltage power lines.
These occupations seemed as unrelated as wind, horses, and oxen, yet real, systematic exploitation existed between them.
This certainly had something to do with individual circumstances, abilities, and education, but even more of it arose from imbalanced social development and the alienation of labor.
People often guarded against obvious exploitation, yet turned a blind eye to one industry exploiting another, one region exploiting another, one kind of ability exploiting another, and other such forms of exploitation, even regarding them as perfectly natural.
In essence, the entire world humanity had created had become something alien, something opposed to humanity itself.
The products of labor became alienated from the laborer, as did the act of labor itself, severing the necessary connection between human labor and value while also creating numerous problems involving institutions, environments, and resources.
This arose because humanity had kept developing its