pete wrote:
>
> "Brad McCormick, Ed.D." <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> >Ah! My proposal: That, just as we outlawed the buying and
> >selling of persons a century and a half ago, we now need to
> >take the next step in the humanization of "mankind", and
> >OUTLAW THE RENTING OF PERSONS, i.e., outlaw wage labor. And
> >should anyone reply: "That's not possible!", I'd be willing
> >to bet that, if push came to shove, all the Harvard trained
> >CxOs (<-UFOs?), along with the gret mass of
> >working men and women, could come up with a way to make it work....
>
> OK, I'm curious. How do you envision this working without it becoming
> the worst sort of commission/piecework employment system? These
> are the usual alternatives to wage labour, and are usually associated with
> sweatshops, or "boiler rooms", and fearsome exploitation.
>
> -Pete Vincent
I'm not an economist, so there are probably a lot of
"things" here of which I am not aware. (I don't
mean this *primarily* in the sense that I think my position is
likely wrong, but that I may not see opportunities for
how to make it work, and how to answer opposing
arguments effectively.)
Two items which seem to me relevant are:
(1) Perhaps every child who is not destined to
become a professional (doctor, lawyer...)
should be taught a skilled
craft during their teen years. Something like
plumbing, carpentry, electrician, (and, God help
us...) computer programmer. Which leads to:
(2) The model of remuneration of work by fee-for-
service (the plumber, e.g.), or honorarium (as
ancient Greek doctors were "paid" -- so I have
read).
(Of course, I will not mention the possibility of
not having to work because one is rich, which presumably
is an unfording of innate virtue and not a result of an unfair
social order....)
Do items #1 and #2 help at all? It seems to me that
your point about "sweat shops and 'boiler rooms'"
is very important, although I associate the "boiler room"
with back-office wage labor (which sometimes is
high-paying, as with computer programmers on Wall St.).
In this regard, there is a -- to me, appalling -- word from
the world of architecture school and employment: "Charette".
Maybe there's something here to build on?
\brad mccormick
--
Mankind is not the master of all the stuff that exists, but
Everyman (woman, child) is a judge of the world.
Brad McCormick, Ed.D. / [EMAIL PROTECTED]
(914)238-0788 / 27 Poillon Rd, Chappaqua, NY 10514-3403 USA
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