Dear Friends
I'm delighted to see Maria's posting on this strand (thanks, too, to Carol
for her encouragement ! )
I've snipped a few lines, below and then comment afterwards.
----------
>From: Maria Lantin <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>To: Carol Gigliotti <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, 'john courtneidge'
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, Michael Gurstein <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, Faculty
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>Cc: 'futurework' <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, 'CPI-UA'
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>Subject: RE: The 'Privatisation of Knowledge' agenda (Was Re: Bell Labs Pr
edictions for 2025)
>Date: Thu, Nov 18, 1999, 11:52 pm
>
> Imagine sitting week after week in corporate
>meetings where all these weird gadgets are being scheduled for design and
>production and nobody stands up to say, "Hey, folks, let's face it.
>This stuff is just nuts!"
>
>Of course, the reason talented people are busily at work on all these
>absurd appliances and infrastructures is that there's likely tons of
>money in it.
******************
The above is a succinct comment.
Tho' I see 'The Privatisation of Knowledge' agenda as *the* key issue of the
next century, the key to its resolution are the questions left over from the
present one.
The three 'capital' resources needed for production (land, money and the
knowledge tied up in the hard- and soft-ware of productive facilities,
factories, offices and so-forth) are immensely over-concentrated.
Now, tho' we can try to de-centralise those concentrations by, for example,
converting share-holder owned companies into co-operatively-held
organisations, the whole lot will still be driven by the need for money to
make its maximun return in the shortest possible time.
Further, i'd guess that the essence of this 'futurework' listserve is to
discover ways of acheiving William Morris' objective of:
"Maximising useful work and minimising useless toil."
To that end, concerned folk need to seriously look at the key motor
(compound interest) that drives the short-termism of present day 'useless
toil.'
It's my present view that, until we tackle this money-question, we'll always
be playing catch-up tp capitalism's ills.
So I hope that we'll all get tackling !
Hugs
j
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