KH: The same applies to the more modern phenomenon of super-metropolises. These grow from previously highly successful cities and these, almost always, will also be ports. But I can't think of more than about three or four among today's 20-30 which are in a country's interior.
REH: Tulsa, Oklahoma in the middle of the huge U.S. Landmass is a seaport. My uncle who wrote the bill and shepherded the legislation through the state and national government just died last week two days short of his 99th birthday. (see below) I'm including his story because he is the type of person that changed this nation after WWII coming home from service in all of the theaters of war. Mega theories about historical trends are useful but I believe it is the story of what is happening on the ground and in the particular that sets the context for whether the mega-theories are relevant or not. There are many academic stories about theories that cover all of the facts but historically are not true. It is the particular that must go with the theory if we are to find our way. I would also add that Oklahoma is to the rest of America as the Basques are to the rest of Spain. Both also like to tell the weather through augury. But lets look to more current affairs. How did we get this middle class in America and break the great depression? The war had a lot to do with it. It was not just the influx of money (ala Keynes) after WWII but the minds of people who had to make things happen in battle and engineer impossible projects only to see the other side try to blow them up. John N. Warfield, the father of systems science in America was another engineer in the U.S. Army during WWII. Most Americans from that generation, don't pay much attention to economic stories except to capitalize what they planned to do. They weren't modern capitalists who the NYTimes equates with "artists" because they seek wealth for its own sake. (Art for Art's sake) These post WWII warriors were subtle and brutal in the way they raised money for public works projects, they said everyone had to "pay rent." However, the one thing they all had in common was that it was "Public Works" that had the power to do it and that "public works" belonged to everyone. Public Service, (unlike today's self interested corporate sociopaths) was a service to the nation with a personal sacrifice the requirement for doing it. It wasn't gold or some other status triviality that motivated these folks. Money was to build with. That's what "capital" ism meant to these folks. Doing it for status or wealth was called "selling out" and it was felt that it was better to have dreamed big and failed than to "sell out" earn your fortune, die and have your kids be destroyed by it. Dreaming big was always a "public" and not a "private" venture. The belief, (which you can find documented in the works of Donald Schön from the Sloan School at MIT), was that significance was found in the academic rigor of research and science and in the capital to accomplish things (like going to the moon) found only in the money available from the whole society in the public sector. The belief was (and I still believe), that no public goal of any significance is accomplished by the private sector, (for documentation of this I would suggest Hedrick Smith's books on the problems of Sema-Tech during the Reagan Administration when the flaws of the private sector almost brought down the U.S. Air Force). There just isn't enough private capital available for really significant things, like keeping the air force jets in the air. The private world participants are the "cleaners" of the public world, taking the one of a kind giant public work like NASA and once generic and replicable, making a practical product out of what's left. Like gold. More than once as a youth I heard accomplished public and academic folks allude to the presence of private wealth as a SOP to a banal life with little meaning in the service of the mercantile Gods. Like the man grieving over the loss of his gold Jesus chain when what he really lost was his life and family to cancer. Ultimately their lives court meaninglessness and are swept away by death and the Gods of history. Who remembers the wealthy folks who commissioned Mozart? They remember Mozart. If you do notice a name at the top of a Mozart score as a dedication, that is their reward for their wealth. Mozart was, like great public servants, a man who sacrificed as a servant to the muse. The wealthy supplied the capital in order not to be forgotten. Public Service like teaching and government workers are supposed to be committed to a different standard from the private sector. The problem comes when they go into it as a job and for the money alone. But that IS the reason for the job and the money in the private sector. Public work is hard, complicated and meaningful. They shouldn't starve and they should have the same rights to a family life as the rest but it is not about profit and private wealth. It's about long term accomplishment. I would point out that ALL of the meaningful actors at present in Europe are Public Figures working in Government functioning. However, it does seem to be striking how different the stories on this side of the Atlantic are from elsewhere. Here, they made seaports out of cities in New York State, in Ohio, Saint Louis and finally Tulsa Oklahoma. The Erie Canal was built before there were highways as were the Delaware Canals in Eastern Pennsylvania and Western New York state. Rail and highways made seaports out of every little berg and town but during the 1960s my Uncle Clay drew up the legislation that created a whole system of huge dams and dredged three muddy rivers to create not only a seaport in the middle of the country but enough dams to insure that Oklahoma will never again be destroyed by droughts like the dustbowl (which our family survived). I'm sure there are lots of stories like this in Canada and China and maybe South Korea. We do believe the Private Sector is an essential partner. Even the communist government of China now seems to admit that. But we have no illusions about its depth or power to create truly big ideas or service the whole of a culture or people. There is a difference in the style, era and tone in Europe from what is found here. Our organized diversities and rivalries are far shallower and less intense. Historically we have only one. That is founded in the Civil War between northerners and the south and is built around the sins of slavery and genocide. To imagine a plethora of such rivalries, as in Europe, is too chaotic for me to even imagine. In 21st century America, we now have the beginnings of the "European" thing the Irish Burkeians with the Leo Strauss post war group plus the "Great Awakening" revivalists all lined up against the old line WASPS and the Pragmatists tied to the original Secular Covenant of the Nation that guaranteed Freedom of Speech and Religion. We are becoming absolutely Proto-European. Meanwhile here is a story about an old fashioned Pragmatist Public Servant. It will be a long time before another group like this comes around. This, with the Arts and my reservation background is the context for almost my entire argument about the meaning of work. REH MUSKOGEE, Oklahoma, UNITED STATES 74403 Obituary: C. Clay Harrell, Muskogee Phoenix News. Clay was born on June 27th, 1913 near Bellefonte, Arkansas, He was the fifth child of Ben Roy and Mary Angeline (Reynolds) Harrell. He moved with his family to the Liberty Community in Okmulgee County, Oklahoma in 1916. It was there that he received his early education. He later received an A.B. Degree from East Central State College. Coming from a dustbowl farm the Harrell sisters and Dr. Adolph Linscheid, the President of East Central, made it possible for the capital poor Harrell brothers and cousins to attend and graduate college. Clay and his brother Ray rewarded Dr. Linscheid's faith by going on to a Masters Degrees in Education from Oklahoma University and a Doctor's degree from the University of Tulsa. The family believed in education and that was apparent in the children. All seven Harrell children graduated from college and most taught school. Clay was employed as an elementary school teacher in Morris, Oklahoma in 1935, and became school principal in 1939. This same year he married Virginia Ann Phillips. Virginia Ann and Clay had two children, Elizabeth Ann and Richard Alan. In 1942 Clay was employed by the U.S. Corps of Engineers on the construction of Camp Gruber, near Braggs, Oklahoma. He entered the army in 1943 and served in the European, African, Middle Eastern, China, Burma and India Theaters. Upon his discharge in 1946, Clay returned to work with the Corps of Engineers in the construction of the Ft. Gibson Dam and Power House. Clay was employed as Muskogees City Manager in 1952 where he served until 1961. He moved to Columbia Missouri to serve as City Manager, and then became City Manager of Vienna, Virginia in 1963 where he worked until his retirement in 1978. In Vienna, he facilitated the huge Tyson's Corners shopping mall, the largest in the world at the time. The Wolf Trap National Park of the Performing Arts was built in Vienna during his administration. Clay and Virginia Ann returned to Muskogee in 1978 where he was re-employed as City Manager from 1979 through 1982, when he retired for a second time. He was engaged extensively in both Oklahoma and Virginia in governmental affairs. As a member of the Legislative and Compacts Committee of the Arkansas Basin Development Association, Clay wrote and moved through the Oklahoma Legislature, the legislation under which both the Tulsa and Muskogee Ports were organized and operate. Clay was president and chairman of the Legislative Committees of both the Oklahoma and Virginia Municipal Leagues, and was very active in legislative affairs of both states. In Oklahoma, he wrote and got through the bill under which joint City-County planning was organized and operated for some years. He also wrote and got adopted the Urban Renewal legislation under which the Arrowhead Mall was later established. Clay was very active in the First Baptist Church of Muskogee, serving as Sunday School Superintendent, Chairman of the Deacons, Treasurer, and Chairman of Trustees. He was a Sunday School Teacher for many years. An active Rotarian, Clay was a member in Muskogee for more than 40 years. In Vienna, Virginia he helped organize the Rotary Club, and served first as Vice President and then President. He was a member of that club for 13 years. C. Clay Harrell started the still-active organization to plant trees and involve neighbors in cleaning up their communities. Harrell dedicated the organization to his late first wife, Virginia Ann. He credited her with helping start his lifelong work on improving the citys appearance when they returned to Muskogee in 1978, finding his city literally in shambles, according to a 1988 Phoenix story. Dutch Elm disease and a scorching summer heat had taken its toll on the citys appearance, with dead trees everywhere. The Harrells were both deeply saddened by the deaths of the elm trees. It looked to us that as the trees died, pride died with them. It appeared there had been not only a general deterioration of pride but a deterioration of spirit, Harrell said at the time. In 1988, Following Virginia Ann's death, Clay established A More Beautiful Muskogee, Inc. in her memory. The corporation has been responsible for the planting of more than 1000 trees and other beautification projects around Muskogee. In honor of Clays devotion to city beautification, the C. Clay Harrell Arboretum was dedicated in Honor Heights Park in 1992. Harrell always stood out for his dedicated support for making a change for the city, said Mark Wilkerson, director of Muskogee Parks and Recreation. He accomplished a long list of a projects to beautify the city before and after leaving the city managers office, Wilkerson said, including establishing a Forestry Division within the parks department to remove dead trees and creating a tree replacement plan along all street-widening projects. More than 5,000 trees were removed in nine years from 1979-88, Harrell then told the Phoenix. More than 400 trees have been planted at the Honor Heights arboretum, which was named after Harrell, Wilkerson said. For 23 years, Muskogee has been a member of Tree City USA, an Arbor Day foundation, thanks to Harrells constant work with the department, Wilkerson said. This article is a compilation of the official Obituary at the Muskogee Phoenix News as well as an article written at the News by staff writer Alex Ewald. The two articles were combined and formatted by REH. PS: Keith, are you no longer in Bath? From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Keith Hudson Sent: Saturday, June 30, 2012 12:01 PM To: RE-DESIGNING WORK, INCOME DISTRIBUTION, , EDUCATION; michael gurstein Subject: Re: [Futurework] Basque Economy Has Lessons for Spain (and elsewhere) At 14:39 30/06/2012, Mike Gurstein wrote: Neither the Lombardy region of Italy (which is the classic regional ecology area) nor Baden Wurttemmberg in Germany, the other classic "innovation" region have sea coasts. M You're right. Concentrated manufacturing regions will usually have easy access to shipping (coastline, or via canal or river) but not necessarily so. There'll also be cases where the principal products of a manufacturing region have a very high value/weight ratio (smart phones for example) and thus will have relatively trivial unit freight costs however transported (land, sea or air). However, most modern manufacturing regions will still tend to be in those places where traditional manufacturing started. The same applies to the more modern phenomenon of super-metropolises. These grow from previously highly successful cities and these, almost always, will also be ports. But I can't think of more than about three or four among today's 20-30 which are in a country's interior. K -----Original Message----- From: Keith Hudson [ <mailto:[email protected]> mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Friday, June 29, 2012 6:30 AM To: RE-DESIGNING WORK, INCOME DISTRIBUTION, EDUCATION; michael gurstein Cc: <mailto:[email protected]> [email protected] Subject: Re: [Futurework] Basque Economy Has Lessons for Spain (and elsewhere) At 20:22 28/06/2012, Mike G wrote: <http://ca.finance.yahoo.com/news/analysis-basque-economy-lessons-spain-1056 4> http://ca.finance.yahoo.com/news/analysis-basque-economy-lessons-spain-10564 8701--finance.html Good article. The Basque region not only has lessons for Spain but for all national governments. The optimal geographical regions for manufacturing economies is usually far smaller than most governments'. Typically the latter are the byproduct of nationalistic warfare or civil war (or the drawing-up of artificial boundaries by post-imperialists). As to the number of Basque-like regions around the world, I would guess that there are probably about 100 of these (with large countries such as America and China having about half-a-dozen each), all of them with access to coastlines and thus cheap oceanic transportation for their products. Some of these have already been proceeding much further in the last 30 years or so into 20-30 super-metropolises, as automation cuts into factory workforces and service-type value-creating occupations abound as a proportion of the national economy. No country without at least one of these super-metropolises can hope to have any sort of bright economic future (in terms of notional GDP). The medium and longer term implications for all this are far from clear, save to say that attempts of nation-state governments in controlling their economies will prove increasingly difficult. Indeed, we already have the first indication of this in that almost all advanced nation-state governments are so much in debt that they'll never be able to repay those debts (and future commitments to welfare) from taxation. Keith Keith Hudson, Saltford, England <http://allisstatus.wordpress.com/> http://allisstatus.wordpress.com Keith Hudson, Saltford, England <http://allisstatus.wordpress.com/> http://allisstatus.wordpress.com
_______________________________________________ Futurework mailing list [email protected] https://lists.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework
