Date: Mon, 21 May 2001 21:06:00 -0400
From: hugh bone <hbone-AT-optonline.net>
Subject: Be Realistic = Demand the impossible


This post is completion of a weeks-old item.  The link at bottom takes you
to an interesting piece of investigative reporting which tells about
survival on $2.15/hr. plus tips.

Glad someone is not too timid to be utopian.

All property owned by those who use it.

International corporations to be dis-associated into local independents who
cooperate with each other in global operations.

All public facilities locally owned.

Homes owned by residents.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Some comments at **

> You also raised the spectre of Marx and I also want to explore with you
> some of the various longer range-virtual potentials. I think you would
> agree there are basically two positions that Marxists have had on the
> subject of work (in a very broad and general sense.)
>
> The first is to see labor as alienated because of surplus value whereby
> the worker is separated from the fruits of labor by the processes of
> capital.  Here, the solution is seen as one of worker's management.  The
> factories should be controlled directly by the workers themselves.

**Yes, and all corporations should be local,
i.e. limited to the the community, village, town, or city in which its
facilities are located.  It is ironic that, historically, earliest
corporations (trading companies) were established by governments to perform
specific functions for specific periods of time only.  Now, corporations use
their financial powers of persuasion, chartered jets and other freebies, to
get government officials to pass laws they favor, repeal laws they don't
want.**
>
> The other approach is to see work itself as being degrading because it
> is time which is dominated and managed in which the worker becomes a
> means to an end and thereby loses autonomy.  From this perspective, the
> goal is simply to eliminate the work relation entirely, what some have
> called the refusal of work.
>
> This latter strategy takes place on a number of levels.  One is
> concerned with achieving a Guaranteed Annual Income (above proverty
> level), based on progressive taxation, a national dividend or a number
> of other proposed mechinisms. Another is concerned with assigning pay
> for work that previously has gone unpaid under capitialism, such as
> being a student, mother or housewife.  A third approach is to to reduce
> the work week and limit the total amount of time that must be spent
> working.

**Problem:  It consigns the the financial welfare of everbody to
remote others.**
>
> OK, I recognise that in the current climate, all of this sounds
> hopelessly utopian. (Even though France is currently experimenting with
the 35 work week.)  However, I think these alternatives will become much
> more viable once the full impact of automation is realized from the new
> internet restructuring that is rapidly allowing for direct selfservice
> to consumers and the attendent growth of intelligent systems.
>
> If this is coupled with a greater militancy with regard to worker's
> struggles (which would include, besides the obvious exploited groups
> like temps and service workers, even the more privileged knowledge
> workers who are already negotiating for more time off.) then there is a
> chance that some signifiant movement in this direction would actually
> begin to take place. (The alternatives are too dystopian to contemplate
here.)

 **But seems to be what the new Administration is contemplating.**
>
> In such a world, the elimination or minimalization of intellectual
property rights would make perfect sense, for then art would be freely
shared and distributed in the virtual agoric spaces that have already been
created.  One might as well ask how a shaman in a tribal society is
rewarded for his or her artistic endeavors.
>
> This free sharing of information would also permit sociey to achieve a
true democracy, not the top-down managed democracy that currently functions
so hegemonically for the power elites, but one that would  permit an active
and participating citizenry to take direct actions.

**Agreed, but unfortunately, the Internet is being chopped into bits for
which your must pay $, even for dictionaries.  If standard reference works
such as encyclopedias, biographical information,
maps, histories, were freely available with search instructions tailored for
children, they would explore their interests, hobbies, sports, music etc.
they would become more proficient as students. **

> Utopian?  Of course it is, but if we continue to give in and compromise,
allowing the old systems of domination to continue, even though they are
hopelessly outdated and ultimately counterproductive, what else can we
expect?

**Go backward a little to go forward significantly, but gradually, giving
property to the workers who use it.**

> For my part, I think we should obey the old adage from May 68 to
> "Be Realistic-Demand the Impossible".
>
> I see this as a general strategy that grows and develops gradually over
> time - not a metanarrative of revolution through armed combat. I also
> think it needs to be developed globally in a way that extends basic
standards to everyone as a fundamental right.

**Redistribute property and the rights that go with it.**
>
> What is that old quote from the Balinese?
>
> "We have no art.  We do everything the best we can."

http://www.findarticles.com/cf_0/m1111/1784_298/53530961/p22/article.jhtml?t
erm