>Seems to me there's a false dichotomy here. What if we were artisans
>*most* of the time -- with "artisan" being defined as some role that
>allows each person to engage in creative pursuits congenial to his/her
>talents.
>Wouldn't it then be worthwhile to spend part of our time in repetitive or
>otherwise disagreeable labor? Would I mind picking up garbage or working
>in a factory if I had to do, say, only 3-4 weeks a year? Probably not,
>especially if everyone else in society -- CEOs, surgeons, violinists --
>faced the same obligation.
>
>Carl
i tend toward this view, myself, because one of the things marx meant by alienation wasn't that it was mind-numbing or dirty or boring work, but that it could be mind-numbing, dirty, and boring to us because we didn't understand its part in the bigger picture. we didn't understand how what we did was related to what everyone else did. we didn't understand how we need each other. we didn't understand how the things we created were actually created, where the wood we worked came from (the loggers who had to fell the trees, the factory workers that cut it to size, the sales staff that sells it, the truck driver that delivers it).
people alienated because they don't have control over what, how, and why they do what they do. it might be perfectly reasonable to find that people _like_ working in factory production doing things that you think are tedious and incredibly boring. who is anyone to say that people who say they are happy at the tech support desk, aren't? someone wrote me the other day to say that she LOVED writing marketing droid copy. thrills her. she likes coming up with witty one liners such as "take your shoes off your mind" [(c) Melody Akins}. she's creative. would she be much more satisfied writing fiction? i don't know. is she only thrilled because she's falsely conscious. in part, yes, but not entirely.
it seems to me that the issue is about collective ownership, which doesn't necessarily depend on smallness. we could have large-scale product where there is substantive participation in the nitty gritty details of how one's work is done, as well as more episodic forums for discussing the bigger picture. if anarchists can do it now, organizing people from all over to discuss what and how they will proceed, then it can surely be done in a workplace.
it is also about understanding how one's work is important to society as a whole. that's more difficult to accomplish, but i think those kinds of institutions and practices will evolve. one way to achieve that is have people work in several different roles. this avoids the tedium of doing the same thing all the time. it also provides people with opportunities to learn new things. finally, it provides people with a better understanding of how each job impacts on others. the software engineer should work the tech support desk. the tech support person should participate on a software development project, perhaps as an assistant, at first, mentored by those with more specialized skills. the tech support person should learn how to manage a project or coordinate other people's work. everyone should mop the floors and scrub the toilet. etc.
hard to implement? you bet. but it would be worth it. can we do it with 10,000 people. the same freakin way it gets done among anarchists all over the world. very substantive democracratic participation in what is going on and why. fact is, though, i suspect all the time savings we earn from reducing socially necessary labor time would be used toward making this substantive participation possible.
the other problem is enforcing your desire carl. how much would it be perceived as scutt work. how many people would try to get out of doing it? maybe i'm wrong, but don't people in sweden, etc try to get out of paying their taxes? why wouldn't they try to get out of loading garbage trucks? what levels of enforcement are we willing to accept to make what you're suggesting possible--at this wider societal level you've envisioned.
kelley