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Hi Sherry et al,
[snip[
>In five years I still see the expanding of "normal" work hours, not formally
>but just happening. I think the average employee feels threatened and driven
>to achieve or be replaced. I see people working 60 + hours per week. I
>remember when the business world switched from a standard 40 hour week to
>37.5. It was supposed to be more humane. Ha, I think the employee lost
>something. As I remember it, we used to get paid for breaks and sometimes
>even lunch. I feel that in the 37.5 hr week we lost our hour lunch break,
>it's now standard 30 minutes. We mostly lost the 15 minutes coffee breaks.
>This took a little longer, around 5 years ago I noticed people stopped
>taking formal breaks and the smokers just ran outside every two hours for a
>cig, and the others just worked and looked like a better employee. Anyway, I
>see the pressure increasing and the hours extended. Then...
>
>Relief... I think in about 10 years the technology and peoples attitude will
>bring about a change, maybe not so much shorter hours, but the amount of
>work done in our homes will be greatly increased. When technology can assure
>the boss that the employee is really doing the work and not walking the dog,
>then we will be able to work at home more and more... then...
>
>In 15 years, I see finally the slow down of the driving pressure to perform
>in todays work world. By then if people are still working and not just
>robots, I would expect the emphasis to be on the task at hand rather than
>the amount of hours worked. Reward for completing the task is a broader
>view, think we can expand that way?
>
>Perhaps in 20 years we will be able to choose if we want to work or not,
>maybe it'll even be a considerable privilege to be chosen a worker! I think
>it would be grand if workers could choose their work, or contribution based
>on the fact that they want to do it, rather than just for survival. If in 20
>years we could evolve to a society where the person was valued no matter
>what they did or didn't do, just because they were there, would this be my
>number one choice. I can see it laid out in different ways but the end
>result is the same. Peace on Earth.
>
>Sherry Martin
[snip]
Sherry, As much as I like your vision, I see no reason to believe that the
majority of the population is at all prepared to grant even subsistance
living standards to those who choose not to work. You see that changing in
20 years or so but if you look back 20 years attitudes were not much
different than now.
Why do you think that the social conscience will take such an abrupt
change in so short a time?
The more likely path, given that no natural disaster befalls us, is that
we will continue to see a concentration of economic power to the
disadvantage of most workers. Events will undoubtedly vary from country
to country, but eventually major social and political unrest will
force local changes.
I cannot hazard a guess how that will work out, in the US or anywhere else.
I am not optomistic.
The likelihood of natural disasters is another matter. As we become more
and more tied into a world-wide network of suppliers and customers we become
more, not less, subject to disruption due to failures in far-away places.
The Y2K will give us a good test of this hypothesis. Even if every computer
system in the US functions, how much disruption will occur due to system
failures elsewhere? And, of course, some US systems will fail.
Since this will occur in just 12 to 15 months, we do not have to wait for
10 to 20 years.
There has been much talk about how communities can learn to do without
the benefit of the global marketplace. We will find out soon enough.
Dennis Paull
Los Altos, California
