Re: Work and the economy

[G. Stewart]

Charles,   Two comments in response to your interesting posting.   1. You wrote: "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)."   You seem uncertain about distinguishing these from employment. Could you elucidate, especially with respect to voluntary action? (I was of course not talking about volunteering which is often coerced, e.g. students and CEO's needed it for their resumes, young offenders being sentenced to do so many hours of community services, churches and other institutions making it almost a condition of membership, and even friends (or Presidents) putting moral suasion on people to "volunteer." This of course is not what I meant by voluntary action.) Do you not see it, and entrepreneuring, as sufficiently different from employment as to meet your criteria for "work?"    2. I am intrigued by your "peroration:"   "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."   In my terms you are speaking about "meaningful work" in which the work is meaningful both to the person involved and to the community for which it is done, i.e. doubly meaningful, what we could perhaps call "work-in community" done by "persons in community." (MacMurray). Pressing you a little, do you think something can be called "work" that is meaningful only to the person involved independent of what others may think of it? Self-defined work? In short, is work necessarily a social concept or can it be a personal concept, even perhaps in defiance of community? Who decides what is "work?" To make this practical, my interest has been in public policy. The question has relevance for taxation policy (personal income tax, policies for foundations that give grants, guaranteed basic income), policies toward education and support for people who say they want to be students or artists,.. and so on. Where does individualism meet community in your definition of work?   These are issues on which I would hope this FW list might not only enter into discourse but perhaps even develop and spin off some public policy proposals....   Regards,   Gail      Gail Stewart [EMAIL PROTECTED]