Limiting the working day is all right, but does that really deal with the issues facing workers today? Isn't job security and freedom from Orwellian "downsizing" and "outsourcing" more of an issue? Don't we need to ask some of the basic questions: Is production of goods more important in society (= "efficiency" ), or are the workers, the people more important -- in the sense of making sure they have jobs and income? It seems to me that labor should be made an overhead cost -- in other words, hired as permanent workers like (non-rented) machines are. In other words, ALL labor should have tenure. It also seems to me that we need to find ways to separate Jobs and Employment from Income received. Larry Shute ===================== At 09:01 PM 6/5/97 -0700, you wrote: >Shawgi Tell asked, > >>Tom what do you think is needed to move society forward? I posed >>this question to Michael yesterday. Hope to hear from the both of you and >>others. > >I will begin with a brief citation, which not only sums up my own position >but states the practical program drafted by Karl Marx and adopted by the >Congress of the International Working Men's Association at Geneva in 1866: >"The limitation of the working day is a preliminary condition without which >all further attempts at improvement and emancipation must prove abortive." > >A U.S. resolution to the same aim, also adopted in 1866, concluded with the >following oath: "We are resolved to put forth all our strength until this >glorious result is attained." > >What is needed is a broad popular movement to limit the working day. No one >has asked me what my program would be if I found myself suddenly the >socialist prime minister of France. But I'll answer anyway. My program would >be based on the principle that so long as a single person is unable to find >sustaining work, the hours of labour are too long. My program would also be >based on dismantling the state apparatus that has been built up for the sole >purpose of artificially prolonging the working day (and thereby underwriting >the accumulation of capital and fostering division among workers). > >I wouldn't bother expounding on whether such policies are social democratic, >socialist or communist. I would defend them on the sole grounds that they >are necessary and just. I would be shot within a few weeks. > > >Regards, > >Tom Walker -------------------------------------- Laurence Shute Voice: 909-869-38500 Department of Economics FAX: 909-869-6987 California State Polytechnic University, Pomona 3801 West Temple Avenue Pomona, CA 91768-4070 USA e-mail: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> ---------------------------------------
