>Date: Sat, 27 Sep 1997 12:04:33 -0400 >Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] >Sender: The Other Economic Summit USA 1997 <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >From: Win Armstrong <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >Subject: Follow up on Affluenza >X-cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], > [EMAIL PROTECTED] >To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > >To Toes and other colleagues: > >I'm sorry Sumner Rosen's thoughtful memo re: following up on Affluenza was >not included with my memo in the previous mailing. I try again. I continue >to think it important that it is important that we who want alternatives >propose and offer to help develop them. This is one sample. Thanks to >several of you for letting me know this was not incuded the first time >around. Win > >Subj: Affluenza >Date: 97-09-16 20:13:23 EDT >From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Sumner M Rosen) >Sender: [EMAIL PROTECTED] >Reply-to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Sumner M Rosen) >To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] >CC: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Winifred Armstrong), [EMAIL PROTECTED] > >This is for Scott Simon, long a favorite for his eloquence and >consistency. You can take pride in last night's show; I assume that you >had more to do with it than read someone else's script. It did much but >much more remains to be done; I encourage you and others to dig deeper and > look further. > >The engines of credit and consumerism feed a massive and powerful engine >of corporate dominance in economic life, public policy, and the focus >and constraints of the media, npr not excluded. Effective reduction in >the strength and reach of these engines will inexorably affect the >institutions that rely so heavily on them to sustain and protect their >profits and their market power > >.. Part two of this effort could be a close look at this dimension of the >system which both depends on and >entrenches ever more deeply the consumerist bias ofthe economy. To the >extent that the counter-forces that you discussed take root and grow >stronger, new >possibilities emerge for serious and enduring economic >structures and processes; among them are (1) less focus on obsolescence, >more on the useful life expectancy of products; (2) decentralization of >economic activity closer to users and communities, more accountable and >accessible based on a new - or renewed - contract or compact between >makers and users, (3) much stronger emphasis on renewable resources and >conservation of the ecological context, (4) a shift away from short-term >returns - and stock prices -to longer-term economic health and >viability.(5) new concepts about how to measure and increase user-consumer >satisfaction and the state of the economy. >This is a short list from a longer agenda of thought and action. > >The other major category for exploration involves the connections between >products, production and how work is done and rewarded. The >many-dimensional transformations of the work force have been addressed: >downsizing, contingent work, racial, gender and age inequalities, >geographic shifts in the >locus of economic activity, computerization, globalization, etc. But they >take as given the nature of the market for goods and services that was the >focus of the program. How do the changes that you can project and foresee >play out in the lives and rewards of working people ? How should the union >movement respond; what role can and should workers have in the new >configurations that are implicit in the de-consumerization that you >analyzed ? In "Healthy Work" Robert Karasek and his co-author describe a >truck factory >in Finland in which workers and users form bonds and relationships >that deepen over time; in this process one finds some of the keys to >the problems >associated with work-based stress and alienation, old concerns that >have persisted, grown even more severe, in our mature industrial and >post-industrial economies.This >last set of concerns is the focus of my work and that of colleagues. > >We're urging you on and look forward to next steps. > >Sumner M. Rosen :)
