Fragilecologies

Tag: jobs

  • What comes after a post-service society? – oligarchy

    What comes after a post-service society? – oligarchy

    The three major stages of economic development are as follows: the primary sector, dependent on the exploitation and sale of primary resources such as forests and mineral resources; the secondary sector is based on manufacturing and the tertiary sector is based to a large extent on providing services. As noted elsewhere, the 1950s and 1960s saw discussion of the possibility of an emerging post-industrial society. Well, we are there now in America. In fact we seem to be nearing the end of it, in large measure as a result of outsourcing not only our manufacturing activities but now our services as well. My lament was captured in the question, “what happens in a post-service society such as ours? What’s next? Yesterday I did not know. Today I think I do. Tah Dah! An oligarchy.

    America is well on its way to becoming a full-fledged oligarchy, that is the rule of a few for the benefit of a few. Here are some definitions of oligarchy.

    1) a small group of people having control of a country, organization or institution; (2) a state governed by such a group; (3) a form of government in which all power is vested in a few persons or in a dominant class or clique; (4) power essentially rests with a small group.

    The lowest points in the decade of the oligarchs. Worse is yet to come?
    The lowest points in the decade of the oligarchs. Worse is yet to come?

    It seems that the oligarchy becomes the “last social class still standing,” having weakened or destroyed the power, means and will of other classes in society. Media moguls, political party leaders, congresspeople, Fortune 1000 CEOs, and the like, hold sway over which laws get proposed, which laws are passed and which ones are rejected. The Supreme Court members as well are among the ruling elite.

    A major difference between our oligarchy and those of earlier times in other places is that the American public is super-polarized now by political, economic and cultural ideologies. It has increasingly becoming a country of one-issue voters, who often end up voting against their own long-term personal and class interests. They are somehow convinced that all taxation is bad, even of the super-rich. They believe that public education is a waste of money, that religious schools should receive public monies, they believe they should be able to divert contributions from social security into the stock market despite the decadal market crashes. They support candidate of big business who support and foster outsourcing of American jobs. They support people who see corporations as deserving legal rights equal to those that people have. They seem to support lawmakers who so no to everything that a non-white president favors without having to give substantive arguments as to why.

    We have become a nation of sheep. We follow whomever we think should be the leader. We oppose change out of ignorance. We do not understand issues that we vote on or people that we vote for. We take irrational stances on issues that directly affect the country’s and their own personal well being in the long run.

    Sadly, it seems that America is well on the way to becoming a nation “of the oligarchs, by the oligarchs, and for the oligarchs.” The Golden Rule seems to prevail yet again: those with the gold make the rules…even in a so-called democracy. It is different today as well, for the Golden Rule is out of control of anyone, except the oligarchs, as they vote themselves laws forbidden that they be taxed. So many workers pay more taxes than do many a wealthy corporation (GE, EXXON, etc) or a CEO of a Fortune 500 company, thanks to Bush’s tax breaks for the rich.

    NB: The Bush image is on www.newser.com

    NB2: The medicare slogan underscores ignorance of some voters who do not realize Medicare IS a government program! Such signs have appeared at Tea Party rallies in the USA.

  • “On Retiring the Concept of Retirement.” Mickey Glantz. written in Tokyo, in Starbucks while on travel (May 18, 2010)

    The term retirement, despite its definition is apparently reserved for the aged not the young because the young are, expected to go on to another job. But then what is the definition of work or a job? Is tennis a job? Is writing a job? Is travel? Is writing a memoir for example, a job? Is reading all these books you bought but never had a chance to read a job? I think so.retirement_gifts-image-joy-of-not-working

    I’m 70 now and I am thinking a lot about what it means to retire. In the old days — the 1960s when I first entered the workforce — retirement was a goal: get to 65 and stop working at whatever you had been doing for the past several decades. The idea then was to retire, sleep late, and sit on a porch somewhere watching sunrise and sunset, day after day after day. Wait a minute: Already, this is starting to sound boring.

    Turning 65 meant that you had to close down your social network at the place of employment. Yet, to many, co-workers had become a surrogate family, and the workplace had become a place to go, to hang out, to share stories, to chat. Your workspace was much more than a few square yards of floor space, a desk, a phone, a fax, a bubbler; the workplace was a social happening, for good or bad. Most likely many workers are in the presence of co-workers over time spans longer than with their spouse and kids.

    Societies and governments compartmentalize our lives. The education system is the best example: pre-school, kindergarten, elementary, middle, high school, college and then maybe graduate school and finally the workplace (it is age-based). Society, however, has a new concept that parallels, while at the same time challenges the traditional age-based, cohort-based, boxed-in educational framework: K to grey (Kindergarten to the elderly). Education is now recognized worldwide as a life long experience for those who wish to see it that way. However, society has not yet come up with an equivalent parallel, time-independent concept for one’s worklife.

    Whatever their specific reason, people today continue to be active well after the previously established expected retirement age of 65. The word “retirement” has become at best a poor descriptor of what now happens.

    First of all most people have more than one job in their lifetime and many have more than one job at the same time (not necessarily by choice!). But we don’t say s/he “retired” at 30 (to start another career). We say, instead, they took another job, quit, dropped out, moved on, etc. “Retirement”, the concept seems to be reserved for one’s post-worklife life. But in today’s financial or social environment the end of work life has become synonymous with the end of life.

    Retirement as a concept has lost its original meaning. People are busy all their lives, working at something, even if that “work” is in the form of play.
    retirement_is_a_fulltime_job

    It is quite clear to me that the concept of “retirement” needs to be retired, much as sports organizations retire the numbers that star players have worn on their shirts for baseball or football. We do not retire any more. We just change from one activity to another, just like the young people as they do when they go from one job to the next.

    Like I said at the outset, I’m 70 now and just beginning.