"Brad McCormick, Ed.D." <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>(1) Perhaps every child who is not destined to
>become a professional (doctor, lawyer...)
>should be taught a skilled
>craft during their teen years. Something like
>plumbing, carpentry, electrician, (and, God help
>us...) computer programmer.
I've always thought the
apprenticeship model had great appeal as a means of education in
high tech fields; I think part of the reason it is not more
employed is the presumption of continually increasing demand,
such that apprenticeship could not keep up, though I don't think
that in practise our present system is any better: the education
system accepts fees from a great many candidates, then filters
them out, the winners then undergoing a process akin to apprenticeship
in their grad school and/or subsequent employment.
Which leads to:
>(2) The model of remuneration of work by fee-for-
>service (the plumber, e.g.), or honorarium (as
>ancient Greek doctors were "paid" -- so I have
>read).
What occurs to me is that piecework, or fee for service, is superior to
wage labour in a sellers' market, where the worker's skills are in
high demand, but it is much worse in a buyers' market. Thus we see
this model employed at the top and bottom of the income scale, while
wages occupy the middle ground. It is not clear to me, however, that
there is any probability of a sellers' market for the skills of the
vast majority of workers in our future.
The radical impulse that leads to your suggestion of outlawing
wages affects me at times, as well, though with different results.
These days my thinking runs to what may be the implications of
the saturation of the planet with humans. I gave an analogy a
few years back considering the technological advances which have enabled
us to populate the world so successfully, which have relied on armies
of labourers to stoke the engines of industry. I said that it
was rather like a large ship on a long ocean voyage, which required
a large crew to operate the various gadgets needed to keep the ship going.
At some point on the journey, the people in charge of the ship
announce that they have made several new technological advances,
and so the vast majority of the crew are no longer necessary.
It seems to me we find ourselves in this sort of situation. We
have generations of workers who have carried the load to bring
our civilization to where we know find it. If they are no longer
needed, I don't see it as ethical that we throw them over the side,
but I see a responsibility on the part of those who have the power,
money, and control of the direction of society, to look after
the rest of the population just as if they were the crew of a ship
at sea. So I ask myself, were I a seacaptain with a large, potentially
idle crew, what would I do? I believe I would ensure they were fed,
clothed and sheltered, and then I would set them to work maintaining
the vessel in the best possible operating condition. When this
proved to still leave lots of idle time, I would set them to
training for useful abilities which could be used in times of
emergency.
So how does this analogy translate back to the real world? It seems
to me that the future must necessarily involve more control over
individuals, no matter how distasteful we may view it. Freedoms
must inevitably curtailed as real space to exercise freedom decreases.
The key will be to manage that decrease in freedom in the least
egregious way. If we are to be regarded as fellow crew members
of a ship, rather than fully free agents, we can at least make the
situation civil and congenial. I anticipate regulation of procreation,
sometime fairly soon. It will require a very contented population to
successfully implement such a measure. I imagine a society where
people are mostly at leisure, but well trained and available to
provide their skills for the aid of society as required. Such a
situation might be most analogous to a military reserve force, though
in this case it would be a techno/industrial reserve force. As
members of such a reserve, they receive ample necessities for a
comfortable life, from a well-oiled, beautifully functioning
universal support system.
I have to say I don't necessarily like this model, but it seems to
me the least painful alternative future I can successfully imagine.
We will have no frontiers, so our entire paradigm of life must
be reordered. We will still have the prospect of a vibrant life of
the mind, of art and culture, which may well go a long way to
compensate for the freedoms our success will have denied us.
Then of course, there's this week's monkey wrench in the works,
telomerase. If it turns out to be what it hints that it could be,
well, don't get me started....
-Pete Vincent
