Re: [Futurework] http://www.glaesernemanufaktur.de/

[Ray Evans Harrell]

I would ask whether the whole baby boom thing isn't a shebboleth with advanced automation making less jobs available in the first place.   It will probably come out in the wash.   But what about the money for social programs?    Will there be less societal money?   Nonsense.   The question will be who gets it.   Does a wealthy capitalist with many slave machines deserve to get money that he never truly created with his effort or should money be considered the property of the society to create efficiency?    In which case it is redistributed in ways that work for the whole of the society as well as the development of the potential of the individual.   Freedom means that the person gets to choose how that will be.   Poverty is the opposite of freedom, so is ignorance.    A penniless gypsy who has traveled internationally and now lives in Denmark is much more capable of using his welfare check wisely than a ghetto woman who had a child at fifteen, never finished high school, never left the ghetto and doesn't understand capital.   So if we wish to have good citizen capital we must have educated citizens and citizens free from poverty.   We must also have ways of energizing work beyond mere consumption which reduces work to external stimulus.     When we discover that it is not an either/or reality but a feedback loop that requires both a natural hope and enthusiasm as well as a varied and stimulating environment then we can begin to harvest what nature gave us while creating a future.   That's my opinion.    I call it symmetrical synergy.   Ray Evans Harrell   ----- Original Message ----- From: Ed Weick To: Brad McCormick, Ed.D. ; futurework Sent: Saturday, December 06, 2003 11:43 AM Subject: Re: [Futurework] http://www.glaesernemanufaktur.de/ One question that this raises is whether what goes on in the decorated shed is going to become more banal or less.  Linda Duxbury, who teaches business at Carleton University, argues that with the impending retirement of the baby boom population, employment will become a sellers market - people who are looking for jobs will be scarcer and will have the upper hand.  But one wonders if they really will.  Perhaps they will be paid a little more, but have to work longer hours and be run off their feet.  Some of the work Duxbury is doing on work/life balance suggests that people in managerial positions are already working at the exhaustion level.   Ed > Volkswagen is advertising a new factory in Dresden, > with the theme of: > >      transparency > > See: http://www.glaesernemanufaktur.de/ > > You will probably guess that this idea appeals to me, along > with the location of the factory in Dresden (why couldn't > they have built it in Newark NJ USA, or maybe even > on the site of the former World Trade Center in NYC USA???). > > I have no idea how far VW is going to carry this > theme, but the very words contrast antipodally with the > watchword of postmodern architecture (which, to the > best of my knowledge, is one of America's contributions to > the cultural world of the late 20th century): > >      the decorated shed > > A decorated shed, in case you don't know what it refers to, > is a glitzy veneer facade which covers up a banal lifeworld > within. > > Perhaps the heritage of Universalizing Culture in The West > is not so dead in Europe, so that the future may > not belong only to the Chinese after all.  As a different > NYT article recently suggested, the United States is > becoming a source of cheap labor for Europe (I posted > a little piece of my own experience here, working for > Grolier Publisher after the French firm Hachett(sp?) > bought the company and in no way provided working > conditions similar to France here). > > As Koffi Anan said about Saddam Husein's Iraq, we need > more "transparency". > > \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