There is lots of talk about American job creation in the year 2012. Everyone has a solution but all I have is questions.
#1 There is no retreating from a world economy and jobs market ( Short of Armageddon ). Q: How can any solutions take into account the uncertain events in other parts of the world ?
#2 A pundit for *Design News* ( to paraphrase ) said there was good news and bad news about jobs. The good news was that the U.S. had remained flat in industrial output over a given period. The bad news was that the workforce had declined by more than 100,000 jobs. Q: How will people find meaning for themselves in a world where 10% of the population can provide for the other 90%. How will this affect politics ? We already see in America that 45% of the population is on the dole ( gets more largess than they pay in taxes ). 99.9% of U.S. dwellers receive some government handout. The average wage in America is slightly exceeded by the average amount of received by someone on the dole.
Certainly there is more opportunity now that ever before to be creative. The cloud ( internet ) has opened up the floodgates to collaboration and access to resources. So what does it mean when most of this creativity is completely unnecessary for survival ? Some people will throw themselves off the planet and look for adventure in space ( stellar , virtual, ..... ) I confess I do not have a clue as to how it will play out for the majority of humans on the planet.
Here is what one group is doing http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MejbOFk7H6c&
99guspuppet 99unemployed
karl marx said this would happen and it would be a good thing since it would free workers to become creative. he did not predict what shape it might take -- but, then, he did not know about the internet clouds gathering on the horizon. he knew about the 'specter of communism' ("A specter is haunting Europe -- the specter of communism"). We've got the spectacle of the cloud -- and the sky is no longer the limit.
ReplyDeleteSo much of being human was based around work...... how does life look when "work" is not necessary ???
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