Harry, I tried out your "Man's desires are infinite" and "Everyone desires to satisfy their infinite desire with the least amount of effort" on a couple of young college graduates, actually they were thirty somethings. They both agreed that you were a genius and then went off to take a nap while I worked all day in the sun. They came out when a beautiful woman arrived and did just enough for me to have to fix everything that they did. Was it college or George?
REH ----- Original Message ----- From: "Harry Pollard" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "Tom Walker" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; "Charles Brass" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Thursday, September 19, 2002 3:52 PM Subject: Re: Immense productivity (was Re: 35-hour week scrapped > > Tom, > > I get tired of people not only trying to interfere with my working hours, > but also worrying about what I can do with those long thumb-twiddling > leisure hours. > > Any group of people is made up of persons. Most of us are likely to fall > into the trap of forgetting people as we discuss peoples. "The economy must > find . . . . " "The government's duty to its citizens . . . . . "We > nation must act in sustainable fashion . . . " and so on. > > At times we take the burden of responsibility for everything on to our > shoulders whether we are asked to or not. > > You are always coherent and funny - though you pressed the limit with your > Marx and Sparx bit. > > Harry > ______________________________________ > > Tom wrote: > > >Charles, > > > >Not exactly. I didn't say you equated consumption with usefulness. I said > >you said what you said, which was that people (not you) use their > >consumption as a gauge of their productivity. You are quite correct to say > >that people who want us to work less (using the term "work" advisedly) have > >to come to terms with the issue of what to do with our time. That precisely > >describes the phase of my research at the current time. > > > >If it would be any help, I could give you the answer in rather opaque > >philosophical language right now. The simplest expression of it is "know > >thyself", with the understanding that "knowing" is not a static achievement > >but an uninteruptable striving. Or would it be too cryptic to say that we > >"work" (in a very limited sense of the verb) too much because we are too > >lazy, fearful, vain, servile, foolish, intoxicated to work in the fullest > >sense joyfully and relentlessly? Employment is how we shirk these days and > >the longer we "work" (that is, shirk), the less we accomplish. > > > >None of this is new. Not even recent. I could play variations on the theme > >from Shakespeare, Franklin, Carlyle or Dilbert. What is new, IMHO, is that > >the iron cage that Weber spoke about has begun to crumble and that the > >dominant political response to that crumbling has been to shore up the cage, > >as if the cage was the very source of our prosperity instead of a doleful > >companion of it. It is like a mill town pumping "eau de rotten-egg" into the > >air after the pulp mill has closed to try to simulate the smell of success. > >We end up with nothing but the smell, nothing but the iron cage. Nothing. > > > >Bergson on "the moments of our life, of which we are the artisans." > > > >"Each of them is a kind of creation. And just as the talent of the painter > >is formed or deformed -- in any case, is modified -- under the very > >influence of the works he produces, so each of our states, at the moment of > >its issue, modifies our personality, being indeed the new form that we are > >assuming. It is then right tot say that what we do depends on what we are; > >but it is necessary to add also that we are, to a certain extent, what we > >do, and that we are creating ourselves continually. This creation of the > >self by self is the more complete, the more one reasons on what one does..." > > > >The delicious irony here is that Bergson virtually paraphrases Benjamin > >Franklin. Old time-is-money Ben. How does "creation of self by self" differ > >from the "myth of the self-made man"? They differ only with regard to the > >issue of calculation. Incipiently for Franklin but more so for his > >followers, there is the notion of the balance sheet, accounting for the > >progress of self improvement through an enlargement of what today we call > >the "bottom line". It is at this point that Bergson diverges. > > > >"For reason does not proceed in such matters as in geometry, where > >impersonal premisses are given once and for all, and an impersonal > >conclusion must perforce be drawn. Here, on the contrary, the same reasons > >may dictate to different persons, or to the same person at different > >moments, acts profoundly different, although equally reasonable. The truth > >is that they are not quite the same reasons, since the are not those of the > >same person, nor of the same moment. That is why we cannot deal with them in > >the abstract, from outside, as in geometry, nor solve for another the > >problems by which he is faced in life. Each must solve them from within, on > >his own account." > > > >There seems to be a persistent anxiety about compelling people to work fewer > >hours, as if current arrangements represent total freedom and the advocates > >of shorter work time want to take away some of this freedom. Nothing could > >be further from the truth. > > > >Current legislation, policy, custom and relations of social dominance impose > >and enforce long hours of work on many who don't want them, part-time work > >on many who want to work full time, unemployment on many who want to work, > >unsuitable work on many who have the training and talent to do something > >more self-fulfilling and unacceptable working conditions on many who have no > >choice. And right away, when someone raises the possibility of reducing the > >hours of work, a hue and cry goes up about compelling people to do something > >they don't want to do. > > > >I suppose that abolishing slavery would compel some slaves to give up a way > >of life that they wanted to hold onto. The argument strikes me as > >disingenious, though, that slavery is "more free" because abolishing it > >would entail some compulsion. > > > >Charles Brass writes, > > > > > I am most emphatically not equating consumption with usefulness. I am, > > > however, equating activity, productivity, production, celebration and many > > > other time using activities with usefulness. Which is the issue which > >those > > > who want us to work less have to come to terms with. What will we do with > > > our time which satisfies us and others? > > > ****************************** > Harry Pollard > Henry George School of LA > Box 655 > Tujunga CA 91042 > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Tel: (818) 352-4141 > Fax: (818) 353-2242 > ******************************* > >
