Re: The Bill of Gates fallacy
Bravo! Self service is no service at all. We just access part of the bank's (or supermarket, or gas station, etc.) mainframe, and doing the work ourselves, complicate our day and put people out of work. Amazing. And we call it progress. arthur cordell -- From: Victor Milne To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: The Bill of Gates fallacy Date: Saturday, February 12, 2000 12:22AM - Original Message - From: Bob McDaniel To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: February 11, 2000 6:58 PM Subject: Re: The Bill of Gates fallacy [snip] In this way may evolve a rationale for paying people for consuming. This is where some similarity with the Tobin tax perhaps becomes most explicit. We may see emerge what some writers have already anticipated: micropayments on numerous purchases, i.e. payments based on bits of information. While individually miniscule, in the aggregate the pay out may be substantial. I think we should also be paid when we do the corporation's work for them--as in self-serve gas stations, wading through voice menus, and the soon-to-come automated supermarket checkout.
Re: The Bill of Gates fallacy, Odysseus and the Cyclops, the invisible hand....
"Cordell, Arthur: #ECOM - COMÉ" wrote:
Bravo! Self service is no service at all. We just access part of the
bank's (or supermarket, or gas station, etc.) mainframe, and doing the work
ourselves, complicate our day and put people out of work. Amazing. And we
call it progress.
[snip]
Self-service sometimes is a *big* service. If I had a
car I liked (e.g., the BMW 318ti I lusted after when
I had a long commute to work -- You had better believe I
would pay *more* to pump the gas myself instead of letting
some Who-cares? bring that sharp piece of
metal near my enamel!
But, no doubt about it, more often it is the other way
around. In August my wife committed the almost
mortal sin of getting a cash advance from a non-Fleet
ATM machine (we bank with Fleet because they
bought out Nat West...).
We always pay our credit
card balances in full each month [I like the "float",
and not carrying cash]. Somehow this little
financial cancer cell got into our bank accounts
*without showing up in the monthly balance*. So we
start getting *FINANCE CHARGES!* Christmas Eve,
I call up the bank to try to get the thing straightened
out. To make a long story short: (1) I found out that
anything you pay on your credit card account is
applied *TO THE LOWEST INTEREST BALANCE FIRST*, so that
(2) The only way to kill the cancer was to: (A) Pay
off *everything on the account including anything
we had charged after the latest statement in full +
the cash advance*, and also *not use the card
until the check cleared*. A first line supervisor
told me the magic number, which was a couple
hundred dollars over the balance due. (B) we
did as we were told. [Oh, yes, the supervisor told
me she was not allowed to give me her supervisor's
name, and threatened me about my verbal abuse of her!]
(C) We got our new monthly statement - WITH
ANOTHER FINANCE CHARGE.
So yesterday I go to my neighborhood Fleet branch,
and the manager, after about half an hour of herself
having trouble getting anywhere, finally gets
the finance charges cancelled and the tumor
removed and also she gives me the name of the
person to bring back to the branch if my next bill
is not right.
Needless to say: (1) I went in the branch making
it very clear I was very angry [because I felt *helpless*!].
And (2) I thanked the manager profusely for her help.
So there's the two sides of "self-serve", in my
opinion.
"Capitalism" is one of mankind's greatest
inventions: It enabled exploiters to claim
they were only hurting you because thay had to
hurt you to not hurt you and lots of other
people worse ("the invisible hand"). Computers
added a second good reason why nobody
is to blame for your (i.e., in each case: my)
getting hurt -- because the computer does it that
way to *everybody*. Stalin and Hitler were idiots: If you
didn't like what they were doing to you,
you at least had a target to try to
shoot at.
As Odysseus would have answered the Cyclops if
he was alive today:
Cyclops: "Who put out my eye?"
Odysseus: "The invisible hand of the market did it!"
Cyclops [calling his colleagues for aid]: "Help!
The invisible hand of the market put out my eye!"
And, of course, none of his colleagues come to his
aid, because they all know that that's just what the
invisible hand of the market does to Cyclopses --
so there is no problem [Odysseus's real answer,
of course, was: "Nobody" -- and, when the Cyclops
yelled: "Nobopdy has hurt me!", all his colleagues
figured he did not have a problem, because he told
them so himself!]
\brad mccormick
--
Let your light so shine before men,
that they may see your good works (Matt 5:16)
Prove all things; hold fast that which is good. (1 Thes 5:21)
Brad McCormick, Ed.D. / [EMAIL PROTECTED]
914.238.0788 / 27 Poillon Rd, Chappaqua NY 10514-3403 USA
---
![%THINK;[XML]] Visit my website: http://www.cloud9.net/~bradmcc/
BOOK ANNOUNCEMENT
_Values at Work Employee Participation Meets Market Pressure at Mondragón_ By George Cheney _Values at Work_ is an analysis of organizational dynamics with wide-ranging implications in an age of market globalization. It looks at the challenges businesses face to maintain people-oriented work systems while remaining successful in the larger economy. George Cheney revisits the famous Mondragón worker-owned-and-governed cooperatives in the Basque Country of Spain to examine how that collection of innovative and democratic businesses is responding to the broad trend of "marketization." The Mondragón cooperatives are changing in important ways as a direct result of both external pressures to be more competitive and the rise of consumerism, as well as through the modification of internal policies toward greater efficiency. One of the most remarkable aspects of the changes is that some of the same business slogans now heard around the globe are being adopted in this set of organizations renowned for its strongly held internal values, such as participatory democracy, solidarity, and equality. Ironically, while the cooperatives are reconfiguring themselves as market-driven and customer-focused firms, they may be sacrificing the very internal integrity that has been crucial to their success for over four decades. Instead of emphasizing the special or unique qualities of the Mondragón experience, this book demonstrates the case's relevance to trends in all sectors and across the industrialized world. Cheney argues that serious ironies and risks are associated with the shift in business policy, at Mondragón and elsewhere, despite the short-term maximization of profit it brings. Also, his analysis reveals how talk about business values is important in the life of the organization. The book offers practical recommendations for value-based organizations that seek to maintain their social integrity while engaging today's market. "_Values at Work_ is a provocative read on the prospects for workplace democracy in today's hypercompetitive global economy. George Cheney excels in showing how both cooperatives and conventional corporations must reconcile relentless marketization of our cultural and economic life with the democratic spirit." --Charles Derber, Sociologist and author of _Corporation Nation: How Corporations Are Taking over Our Lives and What We Can Do about It_ George Cheney is Professor in the Department of Communication Studies at The University of Montana-Missoula and Adjunct Professor in the Department of Management Communication at The University of Waikato, Hamilton, New Zealand. He is the author of _Rhetoric in an Organizational Society: Managing Multiple Identities_, winner of the award for best book of 1992 from the Organizational Communication Division of the National Communication Association. He has published widely in journals and has lectured in North America, Western Europe, Latin America, and Australasia. _Values at Work_ is available now in hardback for US$35.00, from: Cornell University Press, P.O. Box 6525, Ithaca, NY 14851-6525 USA; OR by phone at: 607-277-2211; or by e-mail at: [EMAIL PROTECTED] . George Cheney Professor and Director of Graduate Studies Department of Communication Studies The University of Montana-Missoula Missoula, MT 59812 USA tel.: 406-243-4426 fax: 406-243-6136 e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Fw: French to sue US/UK over Echelon spying
- Original Message - From: MichaelP [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Sunday, February 13, 2000 9:08 AM Subject: French to sue US/UK over Echelon spying The Times ( London ) February 10 2000 EUROPE French to sue US and Britain over network of spies FROM ADAM SAGE IN PARIS THE British and US Governments are to be sued in France after claims that they have spied on French companies, diplomats and Cabinet ministers. Lawyers are planning a class action after confirmation last week that a global anglophone spy network exists. Codenamed P-415 Echelon, the world's most powerful electronic spy system was revealed in declassified US National Security Agency documents published on the Internet, and is capable of intercepting telephone conversations, faxes and e-mails. The system was established in the 1980s by the UKUSA alliance, which unites the British, American, Australian, New Zealand and Canadian secret services. In Europe, its listening devices are at Menwith Hill defence base in Yorkshire. French MPs claim to have evidence that the European Airbus consortium lost a Fr35 billion (3.5 billion) contract in 1995 after its offer was overheard and passed to Boeing. Georges Sarre, a left-wing MP, said: "The participation of the United Kingdom in spying on its European partners for and with the US raises serious and legitimate concerns in that it creates a particularly acute conflict of interest within the European Union." The European Parliament's Civil Liberties Committee will study a report on the Echelon network on February 23. The debate is certain to fuel criticism of Britain's role. Until this month, the network was an official secret recognised by none of the members of the UKUSA alliance. But the documents published by the George Washington University prove its existence and its capacity to intercept civilian satellite communications. Jean-Pierre Millet, a Parisian lawyer, said that Echelon tracked every mobile and satellite call, but only decoded those involving a key figure. "You can bet that every time a French government minister makes a mobile phone call, it is recorded," he said. M Millet said that Echelon's system leaves it open to legal challenge under French privacy laws. "The simple fact that an attempt has been made to intercept a communication is against the law in France, however the information is exploited." Yesterday he said that he would bring an action on behalf of French civil liberty groups. = *** NOTICE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. ***
Hegemony
There was an interview with someone from Sun Microsystems on the syndicated radio program, "Newsweek on Air," Sunday morning. Although I was taking a shower at the time and not listening with full attention, the comments this person made frightened me deeply. The interview concerned the recent "Denial of Service" Internet attack. The person from Sun Microsystems commented that one of the reasons such an attack was possible was the low cost or no-cost of e-mail communication. The Sun Microsystems person suggested that if the e-mail cost were increased, by charging customers in a way similar to how cell phone calls are billed, with people paying for both receiving and sending messages, then the conditions that permit a "denial of service" attack would be eliminated. At the moment this comment was made, I was paralyzed with fear. There is no doubt that those who control the economic and political levers of power have noticed the success NGOs and other protest groups are having using e-mail to mobilize their adherents, and the healthy global civic culture that has been developing. These elites are also aware of how destabilizing a healthy civic culture can be for a plutocratic, patronizing, narrow-based, corporate power structure. I began to wonder how long it will be before communication such as through listserv lists is restricted by increasing its economic cost. Right now we can send and receive an unlimited number of messages of any length at either a low fixed monthly cost or no cost. That is what permits the NGOs and listserv lists to proliferate and expand. If the Internet is envisioned by the political and economic elites as solely a commercial medium, like television, then there is little reason for them to allow us to continue eng! ! aging in non-commercial conversations at no cost. We have two political traditions in the United States. The first is republicanism that was created in New England and that involved participation in public affairs among most adults, subsistence yeoman farmers, and merchant capitalists. The second tradition is a narrow-based aristocracy created in the South, which controls the best land and most of the other economic resources, distributes economic benefits through patronage, and discourages mass public education in order to preserve a compliant lower income population. Both traditions continue to this day in the United States. Cynthia M. Duncan's book, "Worlds Apart", gives an excellent analysis of how this plutocratic power structure from the early days of coal mining and plantation agriculture, coal operators and plantation bossmen maintained tight control over workersnot just in the workplace but in every dimension of social and political life. The danger, today, is that with the bifurcation of economic wealth into two social-classes, both political and economic power will be absorbed by the upper twenty percent of wealth holders, and the model by which this can be achieved is the history of power distribution in the American South. Antonio Gramsci, an Italian socialist in the 1930s who died in one of Mussolini's prisons, identified two distinct forms of political control: domination, which referred to direct physical coercion by police and armed forces, and hegemony which referred to both ideological control and more crucially, consent. For Gramsci, hegemony is shared ideas or beliefs which serve to justify the interests of dominant groups. The unique achievement of the southern Bourbon class was that they were able to dominate the economic life of the South without having to resort to physical coercion or oppression. By reducing the opportunities for the development of a healthy civic culture, economic elites can control the conditions that perpetuate their own hegemony. Hugh McGuire
Re: Re Knowledge society and values at work
Dear f/w friends Time to set up a co-operative bookstore (to stock the stuff that others hide away? e-hugs j *** -- From: Melanie Milanich [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: FW:Re Knowledge society and values at work Date: Sun, Feb 13, 2000, 3:04 pm In the last year in Toronto I perceive something happening to our knowledge society and values at work that disturbs me. First Britnell's book store closed (after some 100 years of service and knowing its devoted patrons), then the Children's bookstore, then the W.H. Smith's bookstore, then the Village bookstore, then the Third World Bookstore and last week Elderhostel Canada annouced it will be closing this spring--with them go the specialized collections and specialized service and knowledge not obtainable elsewhere, the staff that could know individual customers and tell them about authors, publishers and events that would be of interest to them. Staff that would take the time to value the people coming in their doors as unique individuals and sometimes even become friends sharing neighborhood anecdotes and current events (as well as gossip) and enlisting their support for shared causes. These were often the stores that would have bulletin boards with flyers and posters of local interest and related organizations. This was the place where you could take your flyer for your organization's event. Now of course there have come in the HUGE CHAPTERS STORES with their escalators and coffee shops and lectures on financial management and rows and rows of finance and management and business books and software, but try to find something from a small Canadian publisher or something a little esoteric or try to talk to someone about puppetry or Ontario politics or Indonesian religion or the local neighborhood and you get a blank stare and a fumble with the computer screen. Of course there are the " dot coms" taking over as well, but I don't see that they could ever fulfill the functions that were lost, they may have the technical knowledge but where is the wisdom? Melanie
Re: WorkForce Investment Act - A Report from the Field
Dear Tom (and f/w friends) Hurrah for your work. One weekly resource for your ced work might be the UK magazine 'Newstart' - launched last year - www.newstartmag.co.uk I've no direct involvement with it, but you might pick up some new UK-base angles. Another though is to suggest that you encourage new business starts to set up as co-operatives - new worker co-ops seem to have a better survival rate than conventional ones. I'm on two co-op listservs co-operative-bus and co-opnet both have a lot of grassroutes / grassroots material. HTH e-hugs j -- From: Tom Christoffel [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: WorkForce Investment Act - A Report from the Field Date: Sun, Feb 13, 2000, 5:14 am Hello To the List: I don't remember exactly how I began receiving this list, but I've never posted to it. I'm offering a post I made to the Learning Org list hosted by Rick Karash [EMAIL PROTECTED] Public Dialog on Learning Organizations -- http://www.learning-org.com. It includes some introductory material and a viewpoint on how the region I serve is using the regional resources to improve workforce quality and become sustainable. Dear LO list readers: I'm director of a regional Planning District Commission in Virginia. In other parts of the county they are Councils of Government, Development Districts, etc. You can get some orientation though the website in my signature block. The Northern Shenandoah Valley had been primarily agricultural - though marginal - since reconstruction. Being 60+ miles west of Washington, D.C., the Interstates and wealth of the 1960's spawned second homes and growth. We have become an increasing piece of the Washington, D.C./Northern Virginia housing market, though still fringe. People commute 60 to 90 miles one way for jobs. Our employment base is manufacturing and distribution, now growing because of the excellent mid-atlantic location. The metro area growth has driven up the cost of land and housing, but the local job base does not pay enough for new workers to get into the housing market, so they buy further west - West Virginia - or already live there. As a region, we import labor from the west and export to the east. Like most southern states, particularly rural areas, investment in education was low and remains so, relative to suburban areas. The local governments, in seeking to broaden their economic base, have learned from the existing industry and businesses of all sizes that they need a better workforce. To upgrade the skills of those already in the workforce, many with low literacy as a result of historical educational investment, and the job readiness of new high school graduates. Though the Regional Partnership program, the region's strategic plan set workforce development as its primary strategy. The Lord Fairfax Community College - which had been working with employers for years, found interest in the Work Keys program. Through Partnership Funds, they've been able to invest in the staffing for it and are working to leverage with corporate training budgets of the companies with plants in our region. We interviewed candidates the other day for the position and have, I think, a promising person who is currently a Quality Technician. He's completing his MBA and wants to get off the floor. In the interview he said he was the beneficiary of his employer's great training program. He said, "80% of the training in the U.S. is done by 20% of the companies." It seems that most of the readers of this list are in that market. These are the markets for learning organizations and knowledge based companies. The gap in a region like ours - or any area really, is that small, single site firms - 500 to 300 to 100 to way under 50 have no corporate training. My vision has been that the region become the corporate training department through the cordination of Community College, job skill training programs, private providers, corporate training departments, public schools - etc. The Workforce Investment Act which provides Federal funds for Job Training is intended to focus the now more limited Private Indusry Council programs on a local basis, though for training resources, a region is more reasonable. Virginia is using WIA as a base and focus for all training resources. It is encouraging a regional approach through out the state. The region for which I work is seeking to have a common board for the Workforce Investment Act and the Regional Parnership - which is also co-terminus with the Planning District. The alignment of resources has the makings of our becoming a "learning region." As long as the workforce quality in our region is on an upward curve, its people will be able to handle shifts in the industrial base and, ideally, create their own. This is the vision and the strategy. It will only take about 20 years. So - the Northern Shenandoah Valley is bootstrapping to grow its 90+% of median Adjusted Gross Income when our Northern Virginia neighbors
FW Historical Context of the Work Ethic A (fwd)
X-Sender: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Mime-Version: 1.0 Date: Sat, 12 Feb 2000 22:02:05 -0500 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: Tim Rourke [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Historical Context of the Work Ethic A X-MIME-Autoconverted: from quoted-printable to 8bit by dijkstra.uwaterloo.ca id VAA05642 Sender: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Precedence: bulk http://www.coe.uga.edu/~rhill/workethic/hist.htm Home Page Historical Context of the Work Ethic Roger B. Hill, Ph.D. © 1992, 1996 From a historical perspective, the cultural norm placing a positive moral value on doing a good job because work has intrinsic value for its own sake was a relatively recent development (Lipset, 1990). Work, for much of the ancient history of the human race, has been hard and degrading. Working hard--in the absence of compulsion--was not the norm for Hebrew, classical, or medieval cultures (Rose, 1985). It was not until the Protestant Reformation that physical labor became culturally acceptable for all persons, even the wealthy. Attitudes Toward Work During the Classical Period One of the significant influences on the culture of the western world has been the Judeo-Christian belief system. Growing awareness of the multicultural dimensions of contemporary society has moved educators to consider alternative viewpoints and perspectives, but an understanding of western thought is an important element in the understanding of the history of the United States. Traditional Judeo-Christian beliefs state that sometime after the dawn of creation, man was placed in the Garden of Eden "to work it and take care of it" (NIV, 1973, Genesis 2:15). What was likely an ideal work situation was disrupted when sin entered the world and humans were ejected from the Garden. Genesis 3:19 described the human plight from that time on. "By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return" (NIV, 1973). Rose stated that the Hebrew belief system viewed work as a "curse devised by God explicitly to punish the disobedience and ingratitude of Adam and Eve" (1985, p. 28). Numerous scriptures from the Old Testament in fact supported work, not from the stance that there was any joy in it, but from the premise that it was necessary to prevent poverty and destitution (NIV; 1973; Proverbs 10:14, Proverbs 13:4, Proverbs 14:23, Proverbs 20:13, Ecclesiastes 9:10). The Greeks, like the Hebrews, also regarded work as a curse (Maywood, 1982). According to Tilgher (1930), the Greek word for work was ponos, taken from the Latin poena, which meant sorrow. Manual labor was for slaves. The cultural norms allowed free men to pursue warfare, large-scale commerce, and the arts, especially architecture or sculpture (Rose, 1985). Mental labor was also considered to be work and was denounced by the Greeks. The mechanical arts were deplored because they required a person to use practical thinking, "brutalizing the mind till it was unfit for thinking of truth" (Tilgher, 1930, p. 4). Skilled crafts were accepted and recognized as having some social value, but were not regarded as much better than work appropriate for slaves. Hard work, whether due to economic need or under the orders of a master, was disdained. It was recognized that work was necessary for the satisfaction of material needs, but philosophers such as Plato and Aristotle made it clear that the purpose for which the majority of men labored was "in order that the minority, the élite, might engage in pure exercises of the mind--art, philosophy, and politics" (Tilgher, 1930, p. 5). Plato recognized the notion of a division of labor, separating them first into categories of rich and poor, and then into categories by different kinds of work, and he argued that such an arrangement could only be avoided by abolition of private property (Anthony, 1977). Aristotle supported the ownership of private property and wealth. He viewed work as a corrupt waste of time that would make a citizen's pursuit of virtue more di fficult (Anthony, 1977). Braude (1975) described the Greek belief that a person's prudence, morality, and wisdom was directly proportional to the amount of leisure time that person had. A person who worked, when there was no need to do so, would run the risk of obliterating the distinction between slave and master. Leadership, in the Greek state and culture, was based on the work a person didn't have to do, and any person who broke this cultural norm was acting to subvert the state itself. The Romans adopted much of their belief system from the culture of the Greeks and they also held manual labor in low regard (Lipset, 1990). The Romans were industrious, however, and demonstrated competence in organization, administration, building, and warfare. Through the empire that they established, the Roman culture was spread through much of the civilized world during the period from c500 BC until c117 AD (Webster Encyclopedia, 1985). The Roman
Re: The Bill of Gates fallacy
I'm not suggesting that every form of consumer automation is an inconvenience. For instance, using an ATM is quicker than a teller--for whom you had to fill out the paper work--and internet banking is a real boon for someone like me living out in the country. However, I think we should just forget about systems where the consumer does as much work as the displaced employee. We need those jobs for people at the low end of the skills spectrum. - Original Message - From: Cordell, Arthur: #ECOM - COMÉ [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; Victor Milne [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: February 13, 2000 9:11 AM Subject: Re: The Bill of Gates fallacy Bravo! Self service is no service at all. We just access part of the bank's (or supermarket, or gas station, etc.) mainframe, and doing the work ourselves, complicate our day and put people out of work. Amazing. And we call it progress. arthur cordell -- From: Victor Milne To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: The Bill of Gates fallacy Date: Saturday, February 12, 2000 12:22AM - Original Message - From: Bob McDaniel To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: February 11, 2000 6:58 PM Subject: Re: The Bill of Gates fallacy [snip] In this way may evolve a rationale for paying people for consuming. This is where some similarity with the Tobin tax perhaps becomes most explicit. We may see emerge what some writers have already anticipated: micropayments on numerous purchases, i.e. payments based on bits of information. While individually miniscule, in the aggregate the pay out may be substantial. I think we should also be paid when we do the corporation's work for them--as in self-serve gas stations, wading through voice menus, and the soon-to-come automated supermarket checkout.
Re: Hegemony
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: There was an interview with someone from Sun Microsystems on the syndicated radio program, "Newsweek on Air," Sunday morning. Although I was taking a shower at the time and not listening with full attention, the comments this person made frightened me deeply. The interview concerned the recent "Denial of Service" Internet attack. The person from Sun Microsystems commented that one of the reasons such an attack was possible was the low cost or no-cost of e-mail communication. The Sun Microsystems person suggested that if the e-mail cost were increased, by charging customers in a way similar to how cell phone calls are billed, with people paying for both receiving and sending messages, then the conditions that permit a "denial of service" attack would be eliminated. At the moment this comment was made, I was paralyzed with fear. There is no doubt that those who control the economic and political levers of power have noticed the success NGOs and other protest groups are having using e-mail to mobilize their adherents, and the healthy global civic culture that has been developing. These elites are also aware of how destabilizing a healthy civic culture can be for a plutocratic, patronizing, narrow-based, corporate power structure. I began to wonder how long it will be before communication such as through listserv lists is restricted by increasing its economic cost. Right now we can send and receive an unlimited number of messages of any length at either a low fixed monthly cost or no cost. That is what permits the NGOs and listserv lists to proliferate and expand. If the Internet is envisioned by the political and economic elites as solely a commercial medium, like television, then there is little reason for them to allow us to continue e! ng! [snip] I am a bit baffled. There is no such thing as "free email" -- at least for the majority of the people who use what is called that (Netscape mail, Juno, etc.). [University students have different problems in this regard] These services are being supplied by capitalists, and (1) there must be something in it for them, and (2) a person is foolish to think the capitalists will continue to provide this service if the day comes when they decide the costs outweigh the returns. Anybody who has serious intent in using the internet is in my opinion foolish to rely on "free" services from profit making enterprises (unless they view themselves as guerrilla surfers, with no enduring return address). This should be kind of obvious. Surely one takes risks in using fee based internet accounts, since the provider may decide the service is not worth continuing to provide, or the provider may simply go out of business altogether. But I think the risks here should in general be less than in the first case. Even in the best of "free" cases, e.g., Geocities, look how much more intrusive their banner ads are now than were the little logos they asked users to place on each web page 3 years ago. Persons who are really serious about populist / alternative internet access need to band together and buy themselves a server and do all the stuff necessary to "wipe their own -sses". Alternatively, they should work toward enacting legislation that would help secure reliable and affordable internet access for all citizens (illegal aliens, too?) -- but that's not anybody's solution for today or tomorrow. Perhaps there is another alternative (which I more generally sometimes fantasy about): Perhaps all the "nonworking" housewives could scour their local law libraries and find angles to entangle the corporations in enough litigation to make it less costly for them to guarantee continuance of "free email" (etc.) than to even think of withdrawing the hand which offered the dog such a juicy piece of meat. "Let a thousand law suits blossom!" Now *that's* the American way, it seems to me! That, of course, is just one inconsequential person's opinion. +\brad mccormick -- Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works (Matt 5:16) Prove all things; hold fast that which is good. (1 Thes 5:21) Brad McCormick, Ed.D. / [EMAIL PROTECTED] 914.238.0788 / 27 Poillon Rd, Chappaqua NY 10514-3403 USA --- ![%THINK;[XML]] Visit my website: http://www.cloud9.net/~bradmcc/
FW: BOOK ANNOUNCEMENT
_Values at Work Employee Participation Meets Market Pressure at Mondragón_ By George Cheney _Values at Work_ is an analysis of organizational dynamics with wide-ranging implications in an age of market globalization. It looks at the challenges businesses face to maintain people-oriented work systems while remaining successful in the larger economy. George Cheney revisits the famous Mondragón worker-owned-and-governed cooperatives in the Basque Country of Spain to examine how that collection of innovative and democratic businesses is responding to the broad trend of "marketization." The Mondragón cooperatives are changing in important ways as a direct result of both external pressures to be more competitive and the rise of consumerism, as well as through the modification of internal policies toward greater efficiency. One of the most remarkable aspects of the changes is that some of the same business slogans now heard around the globe are being adopted in this set of organizations renowned for its strongly held internal values, such as participatory democracy, solidarity, and equality. Ironically, while the cooperatives are reconfiguring themselves as market-driven and customer-focused firms, they may be sacrificing the very internal integrity that has been crucial to their success for over four decades. Instead of emphasizing the special or unique qualities of the Mondragón experience, this book demonstrates the case's relevance to trends in all sectors and across the industrialized world. Cheney argues that serious ironies and risks are associated with the shift in business policy, at Mondragón and elsewhere, despite the short-term maximization of profit it brings. Also, his analysis reveals how talk about business values is important in the life of the organization. The book offers practical recommendations for value-based organizations that seek to maintain their social integrity while engaging today's market. "_Values at Work_ is a provocative read on the prospects for workplace democracy in today's hypercompetitive global economy. George Cheney excels in showing how both cooperatives and conventional corporations must reconcile relentless marketization of our cultural and economic life with the democratic spirit." --Charles Derber, Sociologist and author of _Corporation Nation: How Corporations Are Taking over Our Lives and What We Can Do about It_ George Cheney is Professor in the Department of Communication Studies at The University of Montana-Missoula and Adjunct Professor in the Department of Management Communication at The University of Waikato, Hamilton, New Zealand. He is the author of Rhetoric in an Organizational Society: Managing Multiple Identities, winner of the award for best book of 1992 from the Organizational Communication Division of the National Communication Association. He has published widely in journals and has lectured in North America, Western Europe, Latin America, and Australasia. _Values at Work_ is available now in hardback for US$35.00, from: Cornell University Press, P.O. Box 6525, Ithaca, NY 14851-6525 USA; OR by phone at: 607-277-2211; or by e-mail at: [EMAIL PROTECTED] . George Cheney Professor and Director of Graduate Studies Department of Communication Studies The University of Montana-Missoula Missoula, MT 59812 USA tel.: 406-243-4426 fax: 406-243-6136 e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
