Oh Bob! Bob! Bob!
your response of Saturday, October 06, 2001 leaves me with some
considerable concern.
>John
>"To each his own"
>I'm researching the potential for a successful Industrial Age to
>Information/learning Age transitions model
>that will hopefully wind up with better solutions than our old Indusrial Age
>has produced
>Bob
>==========================================
>----- Original Message -----
>From: "John" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>To: "Robert F Pearse" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>Cc: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>Sent: Saturday, October 06, 2001 3:40 PM
>Subject: RE: Alienation, Reciprocity and Propaganda
>
> > Yo Bob!
> >
> > Like your previous postings, your Oct 4 e-mail...
> >
> > >John
> > >Point = Agricultural and Industrial Age TRADITIONAL MODELS likely to have
> > >limited value in solving our emerging Inrformation/Learning age problems
> > >(alienation a part of the industrial/bureaucratic culture) reciprocity as
> > >cooperation rather than /collaboration==win
> > >lose=compete-cooperate=collaborate as intergroup conflict management
>options
> >
> > ...suggests all will be right in the world if only everybody becomes
> > trained in Intergroup Conflict Management or the like.
> >
> > Under the rubric of "Scientific Management", 'leading' U$ university
> > 'schools of management' have been peddling this type of 'Magic Pill' since
> > around about the 1950s, following the SECOND World War - in a failed
> > endeavour to cure/head off worker alienation and the resultant industrial
> > conflict, sabotage, poor productivity etc.!
> >
> > Indeed, "executives" from 'leading' U$ corporations and the employer
>unions
> > (chambers of commerce and powerful industry associations etc ) have poured
> > HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS of $$$$s into promoting and disseminating such
> > "reasonable", "sensible" and "practial" schemes: why would`nt EVERY
> > (responsible) 'worker'/union of 'workers' jump at the chance to do
>whatever
> > it takes to obtain a "win-win" outcome? After all, its in their
> > self-interest to do so, right?
> >
> > Why, then, are an elite minority of Corporate "executive" employees
>allowed
> > to pay themselves (with the complicity of their fellow Board members)
> > income "packages" of - in some instances - TENS AND EVEN HUNDREDS of
> > MILLIONS of $$$$$$$s PER YEAR?
> >
> > How is it that many of these "executive" employees are able to retain
>their
> > "Performance-Based" Bonuses - EVEN WHEN THEIR EMPLOYING COMPANY, FIRM, or
> > CORPORATION HAS SUSTAINED MASSIVE LOSSES AND/OR IS IN DANGER OF OR HAS
> > ACTUALLY GONE BELLY-UP, WHILST THOSE RESPONSIBLE TAKE HUGE SUMS OF MONEY
> > WITH THEM AS THEY BAIL OUT UNDER THEIR " GOLDEN PARACHUTES"?
> >
> > How is it possible, Bob, for such things to occur, whilst at the same time
> > the rest of the world has witnessed the development of an 'under-class' of
> > broken and totally marginalised/alienated U$ citizens ("bums" and
> > "layabouts" etc), and the re-emergence of a marginally better-off (but
> > nevertheless highly vulnerable) sub-class of millions of Americans
>referred
> > to as "The (New) Working Poor"....' workers' on minimal rates of pay as
>low
> > as $5 or 6 an hour, which forces many of them to try to hold down 2 or 3
> > such lowly-paid 'jobs' in order for they and their families to
>subsist...if
> > they are still together?
> >
> > Of course this includes many of the 2 MILLION American non-citizens
> > (prisoners in U$ penitentiaries are disbarred from voting in political
> > elections) now incarcerated within the increasingly "privately managed" (
> > i.e. profit driven) U$ "correctional services" system, who are "employed"
> > at even lower hourly rates of pay, on a variety of tasks for both
> > government AND private sector enterprises!
> >
> > At the same time, millions of Americans (including even some in the
> > so-called "Middle Class" live in fear of falling ill or being unfortunate
> > enough to be injured at work, at play or on the highways), as over 40
> > million of your fellow citizens do not have any Health Insurance cover,
> > either because they are not covered by their employer and/or inability to
> > themselves pay the monthly/annual premiums to private insurance
>corporations.
> >
> > Thus, in the light of events on September 11 and even before that - (an
> > economic system riddled with contradictions and deepening crises) - both
> > the Future (of) Work and the possibility of any form of substantial
> > "win-win" outcome for millions of American ' workers' appear increasingly
> > problematic and remote. Whilst the notion of Intergroup Conflict
> > Management or the like may well have even resulted in a "win-win" outcome
> > for some lucky employees, millions more will be forced to continue to work
> > the longest hours in any of the so-called "advanced", OECD countries, and
> > receive the shortest period of paid annual leave.
> >
> > The ideal of "win-win" outcomes for ' workers' under a Capitalist mode of
> > production is both a contradiction and a flawed ideology, pushed by the
> > well-rewarded members of the Managerial class in an attempt to reduce the
> > high levels of resentment, anger, alienation, rebellion and outright
> > resistence to injustice and oppression by their "sub-ordinates".
> >
> > Given the inequitous socio-economic structures of this particular,
> > historical system under which most of us are today forced to labour,
> > schemes for conflict-reduction and "win-win" ideology can but have limited
> > efficacy and utility.
Where is your spirit/ethic of the historically progressive, efficacious,
knowledge-building Popperian methodological imperative of '
conjecture and refutation' ? Where is your understanding of /sensitivity
to the notion by Marx (AND OTHERS!) that " those who fail to study history
are bound to repeat it" ?
Rather that a simple "to each his own", how about a little followup on the
earlier ( FAILED ) attempts I cite, of American industrialists/employers to
contain dissent among their (alienated) ' workers'.
Failure to learn about and from the mistakes of the past will most probably
result in (wasteful)
"re-searching" for the Holy Grail....the '" potential" for a successful
Industrial Age to
Information/learning Age transitions "model"
that will "hopefully" wind up with better solutions than our old Indusrial Age
has produced.
Like both the author and the reviewer of the concise little article on
British Colonialism in India you sent me (thank you), the employment of a
weak,' functionalist', mainly 'descriptive' (as opposed to analytical)
methodology, will do little to advance our understanding of the amalgam of
often hidden, underlying causes behind the enduring divisiveness and
tragic, (not to mention "inefficient" and wasteful ) conflict besetting the
peoples of not only the post-colonial Indian sub-continent, but the various
African, Asian, Middle Eastern and ' Latin' American States.....as well as
the millions of "redundant" working class citizens of the "advanced"
Capitalist "democracies" and newly emerging Free Market "democracies" such
as East Germany, Russia, the conflict-divided regions of the former
Republic of Yugoslavia, and China!
Hopefully for us all, you will take into account in your future
"re-searching" for effective answers to the pervasive, historical problem
of industrial/civil/'nationalist' conflict, that the same basic,
iniquitious, socio-economic structures that brought so much suffering and
waste under the Industrial Age remain "in place" and, indeed, are the
driving force behind our "new" Information/Learning Age!
Let us hope that such a wonderous Age will enable us all to learn from past
mistakes!
