Re: Work and the economy

[Ray Evans Harrell]

Well Charles,   I have been talking about the lack of availability of traditional work for some time on this list.   I have also spoken about the feelings of the corporations and wealthy individuals that they must "make-work" jobs for the unemployed that the government "stimulates" them to create, and that it is a kind of hidden tax on corporations that makes them feel that the regular tax is a double whammy.   Maybe it is different in Australia but that is the situation here.    The problem, as you point out, is with the concept of work since we are still tied to the Henry Ford Factory concept or the small business crafts shop.    There is little written on this list about orchestral jobs, recitals, or opera companies as real "work".     In fact the list is kind of primitive when it comes to talking about such things.    We are much more comfortable with textile mills and shops.    But when Sony or Citi-corp can just drop thousands of jobs and feel better about it, kind of like my dropping 25 pounds, then there is a labor glut that no one is talking about.     The issue is quality of life and how we are going to pay for it.   I agree with you about small local situations, but they must provide a whole realm of services that go beyond the normal beliefs on this list about necessities.    I have proposed a network of chamber opera companies across the country that hires 100 people per community that performs, teaches and develops programs from children to all ages and stimulates many outside jobs.   $11 for every one dollar spent on the actual product.   When you consider the actual network created, the net benefit, in dollars, to the community is far beyond what it would cost to institute.      In religious institutions we have such things put at the service of marketing their religious ideas.   They create exclusive communities for their own views with the service of songs.    Hitler did the same if you remember.    We seem to be afraid of using the arts to build good people.    Why should only the religious and the fanatics use such tools?    The First Baptist Church in Ada, Oklahoma has a small orchestra but the town does not.     Orchestras were sent to Russia from the US to break the cold war hatred and it worked.    Why should we not stimulate unity in our nations and communities with a strong secular Art?   Secular Art is inclusive while while religious art is exclusive.    I love religious art but we have a problem with what to do with our separation.    Thus far the only answer is for everyone to become Christian or........           With a strong secular art that can compete with the religious and commercial children's R&R  we could build a serious adult society.    That is what Guiliani did over the last eight years in NYCity.    When the new mayor came in he immediately cut the Arts budgets and returned us from a city of positive action to a community of need.   Bah!     We could have those dramatic explorations of economic ideas that I proposed on last night's post that may or may not have gotten to you since we have inefficient private servers on the internet.       We could pay composers to explore contemporary ideas and not just the sex and sit-com mentalities of the private enterprise TV shows that are meant to sell soap.     If you are thinking about regular regional provincial festival operas or elite opportunities for people to show off furs then we are not even in the same theater.   We could have that discussion about what constitutes artistic work and why it is valuable for communities in the same way that other public services are valuable.    We exist in a world where the only reason for culture is to sell something else.    That makes the least common denominator the rule for quality of ideas and for amateur participation.    I have never seen or heard of such a banal impoverished image of what constitutes the highest pursuit of human expression.    Today's folks think that watching the stock market is drama.     News yes, drama no.    That is using the Hope Diamond to wash your dishes.     So there are many possible jobs.    With the WPA after the Depression we had wonderful artists creating beautiful products around the cities of America.    Last week in NYCity we destroyed or allowed to be destroyed one of the most significant buildings of the last half of the 20th century because it was dirty and didn't fit the new owner's purpose.     We use the Hallelujah Chorus to sell used cars over here.     Got to go to work.    Didn't have time to check this.    Forgive me if it is not well organized.   Ray Evans Harrell, [EMAIL PROTECTED]     ----- Original Message ----- From: Charles Brass To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, February 05, 2002 3:43 AM Subject: Re: Work and the economy 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"