Forum Post: anone want more time for family and friends?
Posted 12 years ago on Aug. 17, 2012, 2:54 p.m. EST by flip
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"Suppose the people around here decide that instead of having more consumer goods they’d like to have more leisure. The market system doesn’t allow you that choice. It drives you to having more consumer goods because it’s all driven to maximizing production. But is the only human value to have more and more goods you don’t need? In fact the business world knows that it’s not. That’s why they spend billions of dollars in advertising, to try to create artificial wants."
America has one of the lowest allowed vacation times yet the highest productivity rates and we are the largest consumer base on earth - in a country where both adults must work full time to meet bills set by monopolies - they will not even allow the slightest amount of flex time to be able to take care of family needs or use the medical insurance you pay for by actually seeing the doctor during the doctor's only working hours (unless you want to make an appointment to meet them in their dreams at night). In a country where most people are squished and take care of children as well as aging parents can't take a second to breathe or shift around schedules - but they will let you off on holidays so you can consume. It's part of diseased American psyche - to behold the almighty dollar and revere it above all else - bank robbers jailed longer than child molesters ...this all shows you where the American value system has been focused and if for some reason you refuse to swallow this all down and make it your own way of life then you are a fringe person with crazy tendencies who society needs to ostracize and punish. A Scarlet dollar symbol on your chest - be sure not to fuck with the money - or let society know you've been cheating on this screwed up system with other ways of thinking - for you will pay for it and be made to feel like there is something wrong with you if you don't live to work 80 hours a week and then spend the rest of the time shopping and spending money as a past time activity. And if you just can't function as a worker zombie who spews a corporate mantra and smiles all day at work like some drone waiting for the free time when you can shop at the mall or dine at some chain eatery - watch out - you're on the fringe only a matter of time before you're cast off as some rogue politico plotting fantastical plans in your living room and marked as a danger to society. Don't have a mind of your own whatever you do - and be afraid to express it - you don't want a psychiatric diagnosis do you? Now get to work or get shopping that's really all you are meant to do in this world accept it or get out of the way hey you can always go live in the woods owned by someone else - or just pull a million bucks out of your ass so you can start a small business and afford all that rent and red tape, and expensive overpriced product and compete with monopolies to sell it. Good luck suckers - what did you think your future belonged to you ? Did you believe in your own destiny? Haa haaah haaah haaah ahhha haa ha!
A bit off topic, but I posted this on another thread a couple of days ago.
Americans bought gas-guzzling SUVs and didn't save their money. People shopped at Walmart, which outsources its labor and profits to other countries (taking money out of their communities versus buying at local stores which would have saved their money in local banks and reinvested in workers, other local businesses, etc). Companies relied on making big profits fast, giving bonuses to CEOs and downsizing to keep shareholder profits at a certain point instead of trying to improve the company or close wage gaps so that workers could keep their jobs.
A president can not fix a country that wants to consume-consume-consume, doesn't give a hoot about their neighbor or community as long as THEIR kid is in a good school, and celebrates excess and greed as if we do not live in one of the most abundant lands on earth.
Problem is, people want the economy fixed, but they don't want to fix themselves. They don't want to admit how individual choices have led to the downfall of this country. They want to watch Real Housvvives and dumb shows and drink soda and eat fast food and be obese and smoke cigarettes and take NO responsiblity for how that attitude and mindset and their consumer power is feeding all the things that are affecting/messing up the country. It is SOOOOO so so so OVER to blame the president and the government for this country's problems. Because they may be bickering babies, but they ARE our representatives and Americans DID vote them into office. And according to most polls, it is actually the upper class, educated citizens that are more likely to vote, so what does that tell you?
single woman (mainly secretaries) are the most likely to vote and are the highest voting population in the nation - because even though we're broke - we're smart and just can't get ahead and know that it's not for our lack of trying or our lack of intelligence but that it is the system that we're stuck in that's preventing our success.
http://www.theatlantic.com/debates/women-workplace/
This entire site is about a practical way to give people the option to work less and still succeed in the workplace: http://jobcreationplan.blogspot.com/
lots of good ideas about how to spread the work but the system will not allow it - galbraith wants to give full social security benefits to anyone 62 or older and partial for those 59 for the next 3 yrs. that would open up employment for younger people. good idea but full employment cuts into profit and we can't have that!
Flexible work policies attract talent. http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/07/the-10-keys-to-building-the-flexible-workplace-of-the-future/259648/
It's a great point, flip. I'm sure Chomsky has plenty to say about this.