[snip]I can find no objection to this. It sounds like a wonderful, practical guide to bringing about the beginnings of a 'good' society.
Selma
----- Original Message ----- From: "Barry Brooks" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Sunday, July 06, 2003 2:52 PM
Subject: [Futurework] Engineering the economy
[snip]Also, leisure will require the acceptance of automation into every
possible part of the economy. Economic arrangements that don't use technology can't meet the want for leisure. All the alternative economies will use technology, and they will not need to grow in scale.
This item seems to me somewhat disturbing. I happen to need things like fine hand-made pottery in my life (in a pinch, yes, books and music and film CDs can distract me most of the time, and "Bauhaus design", Enzo Mari, etc., while machine-made, is not "just banausic/banal"...).
Now I suppose neo-Luddites would propose *not* deploying the most advanced technology. (Which might make me end up pulling weeds with my hands, Yuk!)
I think there is a fundamental issue that engages here: What should be part of the economy and what shouldn't?
For instance, education. Insofar as education is part of the economy, I think the reasoning here applies. You can't easily increase the "productivity" of teachers, although surely it doesn't take 12 years to teach what we take 12 years to stuff kids in schools for.
But I think that a large part of education (just one example) needs to be removed from the economy and seen as leisure. Liberal arts education would fall into this category for me. Liberal arts teachers would *want* to teach more than anything else they would be economically free to do (or just rot on the couch...). Ditto liberal arts students.
An interesting case here is psychotherapy -- but perhaps a healthier society would have less need for the services of psychotherapists, hopefully.
On the other hand: Is the reproduction of species life (AKA "having children") part of the economy or part of leisure or some of both? Clearly no economy can continue to function without new workers, and even an equilibrium economy will need young workers to support the truly superannuated and incapacitated.
I think that our idea of leisure needs to be enriched. Hannah Arenct's book _The Human Condition_ is one good place to start (as I have previously written).
Yours trying to survive in the economy....
\brad mccormick
--
Let your light so shine before men,
that they may see your good works.... (Matt 5:16)Prove all things; hold fast that which is good. (1 Thes 5:21)
<![%THINK;[SGML+APL]]> Brad McCormick, Ed.D. / [EMAIL PROTECTED] ----------------------------------------------------------------- Visit my website ==> http://www.users.cloud9.net/~bradmcc/
_______________________________________________ Futurework mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://scribe.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework
