Re: Work and the economy

[Charles Brass]

Gail and Keith have both made thoughtful contributions to this particular thread, and I am stimulated to continue.   I suspect that many of those who have not entered the conversation have stayed silent because they believe this is just a rather meaningless word game.    Gail to some extent perpetuates this view by talking about voluntary work as different from employment, and Keith talks about working for himself as different from employment.  I guess these are differences, but they are not what I am getting at (at least not necessarily).   Work as a societal activity is now what one days to 'earn' the money which is indispensable in acquiring the real necessities of life.  (for those reading this particularly carefully, I would have preferred to use the word employment at the beginning of this sentence,  but it would just increase confusion.   One of the five economic solutions (to which Keith agreed with at least three) is to increase the scope of the market economy, which will mean that even more of what one does and needs will need to be acquired through money - and hence more work will be needed.   Even volunteers need money to acquire what they need, so if they don't get paid for their volunteer activity they need to have money guaranteed from some other source (work done earlier from which savings have accrued, a partner who supports them or (increasingly in the western world) from a government handout).     So what?  All this is obvious.   Well, some people critique all this by wishing to reduce our need for money to acquire what we need - perhaps we could all become self sufficient again, perhaps the state might take control and dish out to us all according to some formula, perhaps nano robots will be able to make anything we want out of virtually nothing at virtually no cost - and there seems to be some merit in the objective (even if I don't support some of the examples I have given  - my preferred option, as I have explained In other posts is the creation of local currencies which are another way of decreasing dependence on an increasingly scarce (and usurious) national currency.)   However, this is not my main argument.   Human beings have to do something with their time.  We all have exactly 168 hours a week to fill in, each and every week - and this has not changed in four billion years.   In the last couple of hundred years we have divided these hours into two irreconciliable categories - work and non-work - and for much of the past two centuries a good life was defined as one with as little as manageable of the former (providing the money was there) and as much of the latter.   This might have been the definition, but the reality was more complicated - men worked a lot then engaged in various activities which helped them recover to work a lot again the next day - and what women did was defined as neither work nor non-work, but since they didn't really count no-one noticed this anomaly.   For the last thirty years there has been an inadequate amount of this kind of work to go around, and (the five economic solutions not withstanding) there seems little likelihood that sufficient will ever exist again (and a bloody good thing I say).  Which raises the question, how will a good life be defined in the future.   Whatever the answer to that question, and I propose one at the end of this, I venture that people will in the future want to feel that a significant proportion of their 168 hours is devoted to something they feel to be useful, productive or helpful  - or to use one word - sustainable.   If "work" (now in talking marks because I really mean employment) can't fill the time (however much time we think it should fill) what will.   Well, I have my answers to that question - but I don't believe them to be prescriptive.  I would enjoy an interchange with others who have come to the same conclusion - ie that employment cannot provide a solution to our present problems with work - and are interested in exploring alternatives.   For me, the alternatives will involve a much more vibrant local community (by which I mean the network of people and resources close to us) than currently exists - mostly because nationals systems simply can't measure let alone control needs and wants at the local level.   In my future for work, everybody has at least one community with which they can identify and within which they can sustain themselves.  There will still be plenty of people who interact within many communities and many of the current economic systems will continue to very very useful in facilitating this interaction.  But they will be meaningless at the local community level which is where sustainable strength will be based.         Charles Brass Chairman Future of Work Foundation phone:61 3 9459 0244 fax: 61 3 9459 0344 PO Box 122 Fairfield    3078 www.fowf.com.au   the mission of the Future of Work Foundation is: "to engage all Australians in creating a better future for work"