MessageI agree that there are all kinds of things that need to be done and are
not included in the ordinary job market. I know quite a few people who are
doing them voluntarily because income is not a problem for them -- they are
individuals of part of a family with a good income. However, most people are
not in so fortunate a position. They must try to work in the ordinary job
market to look after themselves and their kids. They may have trouble finding
or holding jobs, and the pay they get may not be sufficient to cover all of
their needs. That, IMHO, is why we need a basic income. I would agree,
however, that those who are eligible for the income should be active in the
labour market -- either holding a job or trying to find one.
Ed
----- Original Message -----
From: michael gurstein
To: 'RE-DESIGNING WORK, INCOME DISTRIBUTION,EDUCATION'
Sent: Friday, June 22, 2012 6:07 PM
Subject: Re: [Futurework] Gloomy America [1]
I think the issue of there "not being enough work" is something of a red
herring. There is lots to be done--perhaps not in areas where matters like
"efficiency" are concerned--production, distribution--but in areas involving
interaction and development -- personal, psychological, emotional, physical --
there is an infinite amount of work that can be done if there are resources to
support this. Care giving for the elderly and those with disabilities;
education and various forms stimulation for young people, the elderly, as
recreation; health and wellness support and mediation; environmental management
and remediation and so on and so on...
How we pay for these as services is the challenge but since most of those
services are provided locally by local service providers the possibility of
local scrips currencies would seem to me to be a possibility.
I discussed this at some length in a blogpost focussing on youth
unemployment and the Arab spring...
http://gurstein.wordpress.com/2011/01/20/tunisia-they-have-the-tools-now-what-do-they-do-with-them-thinking-about-what-happens-next/
Tiny URL http://wp.me/pJQl5-4o
M
-----Original Message-----
From: [email protected]
[mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Ray Harrell
Sent: Friday, June 22, 2012 2:36 PM
To: 'RE-DESIGNING WORK, INCOME DISTRIBUTION,EDUCATION'
Subject: Re: [Futurework] Gloomy America [1]
Make work.
REH
From: [email protected]
[mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Ed Weick
Sent: Friday, June 22, 2012 2:17 PM
To: RE-DESIGNING WORK, INCOME DISTRIBUTION, EDUCATION
Cc: [email protected]
Subject: Re: [Futurework] Gloomy America [1]
Many people have given far more thought than I have, but I've given some
thought to how it might be implemented. Here in Canada, it could be done
through the federal income tax system. If family's members' combined income
tax returns indicated that its income falls below the poverty line, it would be
eligible for a refund plus compensation that would bring its income up to the
poverty level or some appropriate legislated level. Doing it via the federal
income tax process would eliminate the need for doing something compensatory
via the large number of provincial and municipal welfare systems and
bureaucracies that now exist. It would likely be more efficient than the
present plethora of systems and save the nation money.
And yes indeed people should be encouraged to work, but what if nothing is
available?
Ed
----- Original Message -----
From: Ed Weick
To: RE-DESIGNING WORK, INCOME DISTRIBUTION,EDUCATION
Sent: Friday, June 22, 2012 10:06 AM
Subject: Re: [Futurework] Gloomy America [1]
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/ ^^-^^
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Keith Hudson, Saltford, England http://allisstatus.wordpress.com
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