RE: [Futurework] The world of work

[Karen Watters Cole]

Do you mean that Mitch Daniels might take a summer off to work in the fields picking fruit with migrant workers? Rumsfeld might work as a janitor at Wal-Mart? Wolfowitz arise in the middle of the night to bake bread for the morning rush hour? Eliot Abrams work in a retirement home, changing beds and bringing food trays? John Poindexter work as a receiving clerk in a county jail? Condi Rice to stand in a factory sorting tomatoes for canning all day? Dick Cheney pump gas, check tires, wash the windshield? George Bush, as fit as he is, haul garbage cans and throw them onto a truck?   Wonderful idea. - Karen   The economies that arise from comparative advantage and specialization lead to great productivity, at the same time it cuts of off and makes us insensitive to those many tasks that are done by others so that we may continue to do our specialized job in this economic productive beehive.   Maybe people should rotate and do other things if only to realize the enormous complexity and interdependency of society.  Even if such knowledge comes at the cost of lowered measured productivity but heightened awareness of our basic interconnectedness.   arthur My comments about cleaning toilets in various posts about the changing nature of work have begun to be taken too literally. Arthur Cordell wonders whether there is something Freudian in the analogy, and points out that a much more unpleasant task for him is completing his tax return. This will do just as well as an example, except that those who help you complete your tax returns are generally seen in a better light than those who help you clean your toilet. The principle is the same, however.  These are both kinds of work which need to be done.  One way to do them (the very old fashioned way) would be for everyone to do them for themselves.  This is highly inefficient, which is one of the major reasons why societies move to a system in which labour is more specialised - ie you train to become an accountant and as a result become better at a particular kind of work, completing tax returns. Some people think that until we reach the ulltimate in this sort of specialisation we won't have fully implemented capitalism.  These people point out that outsourcing domestic activity has created all the industries which currently exist, and that there is about 40% of human activity which is still done domestically and that outsourcing this represents the next great hope of an economic revival. This may be true, but as I say to the greatest Australian exponent of this way of thinking - thanks Phil, but I want to wipe my own arse..... Whether or not outsourcing everything is the future of work is not the real question I am addressing here.  It certainly represents one alternative, and as near as I can see one which achieves my fundamental objective (which is to create a world which has a viable place for everyone). It certainly, however, does not represent the sort of world I would prefer to live in.  As I colourfully said above, some things I want to do for myself.  I don't want to be defined simply as a 'doer of things for others'. Back to toilet cleaners.  In our modern world people are defined by what they do for others (after our name, the first thing we are asked for when we are introduced is 'what we do').  Hence, we have people who are defined as toilet cleaners (or, for Arthur's benefit, tax accountants). The fact is all of these people are more, so much more, than this simplistic definition of themselves.  But we focus so much on this job approach to work that it hard for us to see behind the 'job definition' which first confronts us. And then, as has happened in recent years, when there aren't enough jobs to go around, we define people as jobless and that's a whole other ball game. So, when I talk about cleaning toilets I am not talking about a job, I am talking about work which needs to be done and looking to find a model for how it might be got done in the most preferred way. Charles Brass Chairman the futures foundation PO Box 122 Fairfield  3078 Australia phone 61 3 9459 0244   the mission of the futures foundation is "...to engage all Australians in creating a better future..."