I confess to feeling a little muddled here, even disregarding all the
off-topic posts.
Tom quoted Schumacher:
"That soul destroying, meaningless, mechanical, monotonous,
moronic work is an insult to human nature which much necessarily
and inevitably produce either escapism or aggression, and that no
amount of 'bread and circuses' can compensate for the damage done
-- these are facts which are neither denied or acknowledged but
are met with an unbreakable conspiracy of silence -- because to
deny them would be too obviously absurd and to acknowledge them
would condemn the central preoccupation of modern society as a
crime against humanity."
and there was an exchange about creativity, implying a connection to
work or workplace.
But a line in the article (I forget who posted the reference) "The
Middle Class in America Is Radically Shrinking" caught my attention:
What do most Americans have to offer in the marketplace other than
their labor?
Creative work, work as Schumacher envisions it, work as I am, for the
most part, privileged to do it, a Buddhist concept of work -- all of
those are largely orthogonal to the capitalist marketplace in which
the holders of capital purchase real estate, raw materials, tools and
labor. Yet our conversation (it seems to me) fails to make the
distinction between them.
The buyer of labor [1] does not, in fact give doodly-squat about the
vendor's quality of life except insofar as it affects the quality of
the purchased labor.
If we make the distinction, then we're talking, on
the one hand:
+ about restructuring the marketplace, a task requiring magic,
totalitarian control, revolution, global disaster or at the least,
highly improbable, near-supernatural and coordinated perseverance
by a dedicated cadre of bright, well-intentioned fanatics,
or, alternatively,
+ about individually learning to restructure ones own life and work
by changing things over which one has some measure of control, and
living with the consequences.
Rare as it is, I actually have to get up really early tomorrow and put
in a long day (that will include about an hour of productive work :-)
so I can't turn this into a long rant. Probably a good thing.
- Mike
[1] We're talking here about corporations, smaller businesses and most
instances of consumers as well. Friends, neighbors and some
others are minority exceptions.
--
Michael Spencer Nova Scotia, Canada .~.
/V\
[email protected] /( )\
http://home.tallships.ca/mspencer/ ^^-^^
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