Gail I don't think I can go as far as you have here and call for the abolition of employment. I certainly have called both for the abolition of unemployment and for a broadening of our understanding of work to place employment in its proper (not dominant) place.
However, to abolish employment goes too far. I do think that heirarchies and power structures are inevitable, and that people can and will only play a partial role in these (which is for me the same thing as saying that they will work for someone else) - a bit like Ed's comment about Microsoft. I am sure many Microsoft employees feel like they are working with Microsoft (which reflects their enlightened approach to human relationships) but ultimately they are working for Microsoft. Where I believe we have gone wrong - which goes part of the way you go - is providing primacy to employment as the way in which people 'earn' the right to participate in the rest of society. That seems too much like slavery for my liking. However, if we create sufficient viable options for people that they never HAVE to work for someone if they don't want to, then we provide them with options to move whenever they feel the need and that doesn't feel like slavery. So, I am all for creating options for people - but I do believe that these options will include employment - hopefully more of the enlightened kind than the slavery kind, but ultimately I believe that the creation of sufficient viable options for everyone (based on abundance not on scarcity) will ensure enlightenment on behalf of those in employment power. regards Charles Brass Quoting Gail Stewart <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>: > The Future of Work > > Modernizing the Market Economy > > 1. Human relations > > Draft 1.0. Comments would be appreciated. > > > > 1. Our future is deeply uncertain: plausible possibilities -- environmental, > social, economic, cultural -- range widely. > > > > 2. In such circumstances, each of us, in preparing for future work, might > best engage also in risk containment by acquiring and sustaining versatile > capabilities including skills in teamwork. > > > > 3. A major a society-wide initiative may be desirable however to address an > existing risk -- the prevailing lag within the market economy in modernizing > its structures of human relationships. > > > > 4. The structures of human relationships in the economy have not kept pace > with the personal, social and political enfranchisement prevailing in the > surrounding society. > > > > 5. This failure not only affects the economy, heightening discontent within > it, but adversely affects the broader matter of social and political > stability and flexibility > > > > 6. The lag also adversely affects the health and productivity of participants > at all levels in the economy and the productivity of the economy itself. > > > > 7. A major step toward the modernization of human relations was taken two > hundred years ago by the abolition of slavery in Great Britain, thanks to > William Wilberforce and others who led the campaign against the slave trade. > > > > 8. A similar major step toward a modernization of human relations is > currently overdue: the abolition of employment, i.e., of situations where one > person works "for" rather than "with" another, each freely self-governing as > they already are in their capacity as citizens. > > > > 9. Many participants in the current market economy, perhaps as many as 25%, > already work as independent contractors including senior executives who, > almost universally, have already made this transition. > > > > 10. Such emancipation is however more difficult and costly to achieve at the > individual personal or corporate level and might be more readily accomplished > through mutual society-wide agreement that the employment of one person by > another should end. > > > > 11. This suggests that a campaign against the employment trade, toward > universal emancipation from employment, might be timely. > > > > 12. The abolition of employment could usefully be accompanied by public > policies supportive of the new working conditions, increasing their benefit > to the economy and to the participants involved. > > > > 13. The abolition of employment (and with it the roles of employer and > employee) and the resulting greater flexibility and dignity in the world of > work may be expected, over time, to change the perception of "work." > > > > 14. Commonly perceived today as a functional disutility, work may become a > social and personal practice, a developmental element in the lives of each of > us as we more entrepreneurially allocate our personal resources of time and > energy and skills. > > > > 15. Co-evolving within and among ourselves and with our social and natural > environment with greater human dignity than is now involved in being either > an "employer" or "employee" (both roles being now rather embarrassing, a sure > sign of their passing, their growing decadence), we will also better enabled > to develop our human capacities. > > > > 16. Similarly, our shared hopes may better prosper, for life, liberty and > happiness, peace, order and good government, etc., and our capacities to > function as citizens responsible for our own self-governance and for our > governments. > > > > 17. Who will step up to become today's Wilberforces: it will not be easy, > e.g., can the economy survive without employment, as it had to be argued it > could survive without slavery? > > > > 19. The path will be strewn with misunderstandings but, as William James > said, "First a new theory is attached as absurd; then it is admitted to be > true, but obvious and insignificant; finally it is seen to be so important > that its adversaries claim they themselves discovered it." > > > > 20. So it will be, I predict, with the notion of extending enfranchisement > through abolishing the "employment trade," i.e., abolishing the employment of > one person by another so that rather than being worked for or working for > another person or persons, we may more consistently work with each other > and have the personal and economic (and also environmental) benefits of doing > so and of conceiving of our work in this way. > > > > Gail Stewart > > Ottawa > > August 20, 2007 > > > > > > > _______________________________________________ Futurework mailing list Futurework@fes.uwaterloo.ca http://fes.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework
