I agree, but I doubt that the Harpers of this world would. Ed
----- Original Message ----- From: Arthur Cordell To: 'RE-DESIGNING WORK, INCOME DISTRIBUTION,EDUCATION' ; 'Keith Hudson' Cc: [email protected] Sent: Friday, June 22, 2012 9:58 AM Subject: Re: [Futurework] Gloomy America [1] So now may be the time to consider some form of basic annual income. A BAI may be cheaper in the long run than creating jobs that are really not needed. arthur From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Ed Weick Sent: Friday, June 22, 2012 7:38 AM To: RE-DESIGNING WORK, INCOME DISTRIBUTION, EDUCATION; Keith Hudson Cc: [email protected] Subject: Re: [Futurework] Gloomy America [1] Since I was the guy who started the 'gloomy America' discussion, perhaps I'd better say a little more. IMHO, it's not something at the demand end that promotes growth and development, it happens at the supply or really technological end. Consider the enormous impact that the development of steam power, electrical energy power and the growth of the factory system have had. Consider the growth of railroads, highways and air transport and their capacity to enable billions of people to improve their lives. Consider the energy developments needed to make such things possible. Even events that have not obviously been growth promoting have had an impact -- yea, we've done it, we've landed on the moon! I don't think the mobile phone has had much of an impact because it's little more than an add on to what was already there. I would agree that we've reached something of a hiatus now and we seem to be going in a reverse direction. When I began working in the Canadian public service some fifty-odd years ago, there were no computers and there was no internet, but there were plenty of young women to type memos and plenty of young guys to take them to where they were supposed to go. All those girls and guys are gone now. And you see technology being intruded into the lives of the working class wherever you look. I'm not saying we're totally stuck, but we do seem to have reached a point where redistribution, not growth, has become the primary interest of business and government. Over the past few decades, I attended many meeting in which the objective was not how to make things more abundant -- growth -- but how particularly groups such as the oil industry might get a larger share of the pie. If what Giroux is saying is that what's important now is how to collude, press your case, and get more out of the system, I would agree with him. The growth of the lobby industry demonstrates this. Ed ----- Original Message ----- From: Keith Hudson To: RE-DESIGNING WORK, INCOME DISTRIBUTION,EDUCATION ; [email protected] Sent: Friday, June 22, 2012 3:14 AM Subject: Re: [Futurework] Gloomy America [1] Mike, The paradox is that the most popular consumer product ever -- the mobile phone -- and also spreading among the world's poor as well as the rich -- is also turning out to be the most impenetrable by advertisers. If it was ever true that ". . . centralized commercial institutions . . . tell most of the stories that shape the lives of the American public", Henry Giroux (Galbraith revisited) is no longer correct. But it was never true anyway. If an economy looks as though it's demand-led it can only be so if there happens to be something tempting at the supply end. No matter how much cash and credit governments and banks throw at the general public, unless new status-friendly products are in sight the economy stalls. The world may beat a path to Emerson's better mouse-trap, but the thing has to be invented first. Keith At 18:45 21/06/2012, Mike wrote: Following up to my own post (mea culpa) where I quoted Henry Giroux thus: For the first time in modern history, centralized commercial institutions that extend from traditional broadcast culture to the new interactive screen cultures - rather than parents, churches or schools - tell most of the stories that shape the lives of the American public. I commented mds> ...any corporation that's playing in [the $700 billion] price mds> range will be prepared to spend a $100 million or so on salaries, mds> bribes, support for favored educational or other institutions -- mds> in general for subversion of the public interest wherever that mds> kind of return can be anticipated (hoped for?) in the short- or mds> medium-term future. Here's a piece on "stealth lobbying". http://truth-out.org/news/item/9889-exposed-the-other-alecs-corporate-playbook Clearly, the corporate playbook in the statehouses extends far beyond the tentacles of ALEC, which is but a small part of a vast, complex network of nonprofits. The multilayered, dynamic system of corporate representatives mingling with state legislators and public officials in a network of quasi-governmental nonprofits, allows the small number of people who are part of the interlocking directorate to wield a huge amount of power in shaping public policy. Under the guise of conducting educational activities, the stealth lobbyists of the "other ALECs" reduce the choice of citizens to which version of the corporate agenda to accept. Will citizens, then, continue to accept such a scheme? Time will tell. Not precisely congruent with telling "most of the stories that shape the lives of the American public" but parallel. The same arborization of intentional, coordinated corporate/big-business agenda and viewpoint, fed from the same financial wells and using the same ingenuous techniques of persuasion (if not more aggressive ones) permeates media, penetrates public and post-secondary education and tilts the "the stories that shape [our] lives". In YADATROT [2], those ingenuous stories essentially mask out much of what meaningful work, meaningful career or just availability of adequately-paid and adequately-respected jobs and replace the masked-out portions with a Disneyland version of reality to which we are expected to aspire. Critical thinking, actually seeing "what is on the end of your fork" is anathema to the Disney-fied version of your life and aspirations. The above-cited article reflects the propagation of the corporate Disneyland stage set into local and state products of the legislative process. As the author writes: Will citizens, then, continue to accept such a scheme? Time will tell. - Mike [1] Jeez, the "Gloomy America" subject is getting a lot of mileage. Are we having fun yet? [2] Yet Another Desperate Attempt To Remain On Topic -- Michael Spencer Nova Scotia, Canada .~. /V\ [email protected] /( )\ http://home.tallships.ca/mspencer/ ^^-^^ _______________________________________________ Futurework mailing list [email protected] https://lists.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework Keith Hudson, Saltford, England http://allisstatus.wordpress.com ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- _______________________________________________ Futurework mailing list [email protected] https://lists.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ _______________________________________________ Futurework mailing list [email protected] https://lists.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework
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