So all we have to do is redefine a troublesome word...
..
> Despite the difficulties with extant models of democracy, new ideas
> easily circulate among those who seek them. The dearth of alternative
> ideas cannot be blamed on current democracy. Being a long-time active
> seeker of alternative economic models, I have yet to find coherent,
> fundamentally different, practical alternatives to the 2 big spotlit
> concepts which have framed the ideas battleground on the futurework
> list.
>
me, too, though I am a subscriber to one of them as I
cannot see anything new to emerge. Though you demonstrate
in this essay, that socialism is understood really poorly
by people who count as specialist in these topics.
A successful democratic socialist system would
redefine a lot of present meanings, such as work.
The idea - all by their ability - means people having
a chance to find what is their ability, and ending up
doing a multiple of things they enjoy doing. This means non-work for
most people at present, who would not do what they do if
they were not forced to, due to social circumstance.
The main aim is not
changing the language usage, but changing the economic system,
that forces people to spend most of their time with things they don't
enjoy doing. Language follows reality,
not the other way round. The word socialism was coined before it
existed, you might say, but at a time when there were already
pointers to the faults of capitalism and a rational (reality based)
interpolation to such a possibility.
Eva
> By practical, I mean ideas sufficiently developed so that they can be
> game-simulated and practically trialed by those interested without
> requiring their imposition on unwilling populations. The ideas of
> Andrez Gorz - the 20000 work-hours system, and Albert & Hahnel -
> Participatory Economics, while coherent and fundamentally different,
> don't seem to me to be sufficiently practical. The idea of pure
> communism, ie, stage 2 world communism, as envisioned by Marx, a global
> society in which states have withered away, remains to be articulated
> and developed as a practical, implementable possibility within a 21st
> century technological context.
>
> So mesmerising is the light shining upon the old bogies - free
> enterprise capitalism or planned socialism - that what are typically
> posited as alternatives are essentially variants and/or mixes of the
> two. Democratic socialism, guaranteed income schemes, LETs schemes,
> etc. They are confined to a linguistic framework which is common to
> both models. Each assumes a system of national taxation to pay for
> public servants who, it is assumed, require incentives to 'work'.
> Central to both is the use of the word 'work' along with the related
> family of words - 'worker', 'workforce', 'employment', 'retirement',
> etc. The viability of both systems depends on the perpetuation of an
> inherently deceptive and dysfunctional language game. A game? What
> game? Differentiate all mental and physical activities into 2
> categories - 'work' and 'not work'. Assume that there is a set of
> agreed non-problematic rules or criteria for distinguishing between
> them. Cooperate in speech acts by using the words, 'as if' such
> consensus exists.
>
> Why is the game deceptive? Because there is no inbuilt work/non-work
> time zone in the biological mind/body. Our minds 'work' all of the
> time, as do our lungs and hearts, even when we are asleep. In order to
> say 'now we are working', 'now we are not working' we have to overlook
> this biological and ontological reality, and engage each other in a
> let's pretend game. An inherently deceptive game, because we cannot
> discern whether a person is 'working' or 'not working' by observing
> their activity. Moreover, we cannot tell whether they are 'genuinely'
> playing a work/non-work game, or merely acting 'as if'. Even if they
> are genuinely playing a work/non-work game at the moment of observation,
> we cannot tell 'which' game they are playing. As discussions on this
> list have revealed there are many possible ways of distinguishing work
> from non-work. Games of pretence can be fun of course, but what is
> disturbing is that the pretence has enabled some people to have gained
> extraordinary wealth at the expense of others and the environment. We
> should begin to ask whether we need, or ought, to continue playing along
> with the game? Perhaps there are good and strong moral reasons to
> persuade us that we 'ought' to continue, but I remain to be persuaded.
> There seems little that is ethical about the work ethic.
>
> Galbraith wrote (Culture of Contentment p33): 'There is no greater
> illusion, even fraud, than the use of a single term 'work' to cover what
> for some is dreary, painful or socially demeaning and what for others is
> enjoyable, socially reputable and economically rewarding.'
>
> If we concur that use of the word 'work' is indeed fraudulent, then
> we've all been accomplices in the fraud. If we concur with Galbraith,
> integrity requires that we should hereafter refuse to use the word along
> with the suspect family of words - worker, employment, unemployment,
> retirement, and so on. This presents a serious problem only for those
> who believe that words have an essential existence beyond human choice,
> and 'should' be retained in perpetuity at all costs. Recognising the
> word to be deeply problematic, they may persuade us to cling to it
> nonetheless, to keep the word, but REDEFINE its meaning. An absurd
> strategy. How are the world's people going to reach agreement on a
> redefinition? Attempts to do so, involving only a few, such as on this
> list, have gotten nowhere. Even if we could reach agreement, such
> strategy will merely add yet another meaning to the baggage of meanings
> which the already overloaded old word is required to carry. We need to
> face the troublesome truth that the word 'work' as a key tool for
> communication and social organisation has become dysfunctional. Like a
> broken-down contraption it needs finally to be abandoned. Feminism has
> successfully persuaded us to trash certain gender-biasing words. The
> future of 'work' belongs with those words in the trash can. Where the
> 1948 UN Human Rights declaration asserts that we have 'the right to
> work' (note that work/non-work distinguishing rules are undeclared), we
> should want to add, 'the right not to work' - 'the right not participate
> in work/nonwork language games, nor to be counted as a statistic within
> the terms of such games (eg, as employed, unemployed)'.
>
> We are left with the disorienting question: what would a future economy
> without a work/non-work language game look like? To opt out of the
> current economic game implies that a better one is conceived. Clearly,
> it would be a different, unprecedented game with new words. I just
> can't SEE it, I hear you say.
>
> I have conducted several 'futures' workshops following from the above
> line of thinking. Shown this doorway 'out of the box', participants are
> challenged to exercise freedom of thought, to be inventive. While
> democracy bestows the right to freedom of thought, my experience has
> been that few are both willing and able to fully exercise it. Blame it
> on our schooling perhaps? Perhaps more Edward de Bono style training is
> needed. Or is it simply the case that some people are more inventive
> than others?
>
> I would be interested to hear from any on this list who have pursued the
> above line of inquiry, or are interested to do so, who are prepared to
> let go of the word 'work' and explore the transformative system design
> implications. PLEASE FORWARD THIS MESSAGE TO OTHER RELEVANT LISTS.
>
> If there is sufficient interest, we may have the makings of a
> fascinating project. The proposed project's first objective will be to
> gather and develop a range of well-considered, alternative game packages
> which could be simulated and eventually implemented on a global scale,
> based on, or resonant with a rejection of the work paradigm. The
> intention would be to make these available to 'fundamental change'
> workshops and Theobald-inspired discussion groups starting up in
> Australia and elsewhere. Perhaps a book or series of monographs could
> be published. Perhaps the ideas could be packaged onto CD's as
> experiential games. If you are aware of any already developed or
> partially developed idea packages, published or unpublished, or of
> people who you think would be valuable contributors (including potential
> funders), please let me know.
>
>
>
>
> Richard Mochelle
>
>
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
