Similar War Veteran, Captive Market, The Crawlers, The Turning Wheel, The Little Black Box | ||
Pay for the Printer is a science fiction short story by Philip K. Dick. First published in Satellite Science Fiction, October 1956.
Contents
Plot
In a war-ravaged future, humanity has come to depend on an alien species known as the Biltongs, possessed of the ability to replicate items identically - although the copies only last for a short time. When the Biltongs become decrepit, the humans are forced to rediscover the skill of building.
Interpretation
Bradley Robert Arthur Congdon makes the case that Pay for the Printer is a critique "of the culture of consumerism and mass production." Congdon connects Dick's story to a left wing analysis of the failings of capitalism, writing that, "it is not much of a stretch to see that a Marxian idea of alienation is at work, where mankind is so alienated from its labour that the possibility of survival is hamstrung."