And sometimes we hear people pontificating or puzzling over what that shift has done to us socially or social-psychologically.

What does it mean that a majority of workers are now several steps removed from producing actual objects? Do many people end up feeling oddly alienated, as though the work they do might not actually be necessary? Do you ever look at what you are doing, or what colleagues in your office might be doing all day, and wonder whether this whole trip is necessary?

What would the world be missing tomorrow if no one was doing your work?

I've thought the same thing. I think about all the people in advertising, marketing, public relations, ... all the people working at implementing a new office-management fad that will be discarded in a few months, all the stock analysts and brokers who raise maybe .5% of all the real investment in Canada, all the telemarketers trying to get you to buy stuff that you don't need [and doing so because they need a job], all the products made that we don't need, while people go hungry. All the resources going towards military production.

On the one hand, we have tv shows where "experts" help a homeowning couple organize themselves, in part by getting them to throw out the hordes of things they never use, ... we are drowning in excess.

It makes me think that our economic system is really resilient: If North Americans can have consumed so much "stuff," we could easily house, cloth, and feed the whole human race, and provide monetary incentives to free the people in developing countries from needing large families to ensure their survival, so that the earth's population growth can be arrested and eventually, gradually* reverse itself.

*(we don't want the smaller teenage cohorts being forced to watch rock videos with 70 yr-olds [like i'll be!] shuffling around!)

On the other hand, the fact that this whole system is completely devoted to producing these mountains of junk only for the people with "sufficient demand" [ie., money] and that converting ourselves away from all of our useless occupations producing much useless stuff and useless services [think of prison guards in the USA who oversee the results of astronomical incarceration rates that fail to bring crime levels down to European or Canadian levels/think of the number of parole officers in the USA], is not possible within the present political-economic context, so we're on an express train to disaster.

I think change is possible, but will require a revolution of some sort.

quote:

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Originally posted by Mr. Magoo:
There's just something about looking at the ever-widening spiral you're cutting, seeing the long shaggy grass you haven't cut, and the perfect crew-cut of a lawn where you have... it's easy to know you've just done work.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Mr. Magoo:
For sheer satisfaction though, let me cut the grass. . . .

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[ 13 June 2005: Message edited by: Contrarian ]

Anyway, to return to topic (the pity party now being officially over), I know what thwap meant when he mentioned marketing and advertising as "unneccesary" types of work. Having worked in that industry myself for a few years, I know first-hand how soulless (soul less? souless?) it can be, and I've no intention of going back. I don't want to use my labour and creativity to(forgive the phrasing) make a bunch of rich white men richer. The problem is that that doesn't leave very much else to do. And at some point you realize that you have to make some sort of compromise to pay the bills...

My community volunteer work, on the other hand, kicks ass. Now why can't I get paid to do that stuff?

[ 13 June 2005: Message edited by: Granola Girl ]

Oh, I've done translation, editing and subediting for a lot of useless crap as well.

Gir, I love to cook and agree that feeding people is both a necessity and a craft. But throughout history, some of the most oppressed and impoverished people in the world have been sustained by songs or by clandestine books and poems. I see Art as very essential indeed.

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Originally posted by lagatta:
Gir, I love to cook and agree that feeding people is both a necessity and a craft. But throughout history, some of the most oppressed and impoverished people in the world have been sustained by songs or by clandestine books and poems. I see Art as very essential indeed.

Sure there is a lot of bullshit in the "Arts" field, but there is no less in the restaurant industry and the cult of "celebrity chefs".

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True enough, but I just don't see the opportunities. It takes special talent and inspiration to be able to create things that affect people like that, and I don't think that having a degree is a necessary part of that nor do I beleive that I could do something prfound if I did study art. In order to pay the bills, I would probably end up doing some BS work like advertising or something.

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Originally posted by Gir Draxon:
Whereas in the Food and Hostility industry, it's the other way around... most of us are useful and the celebrity chefs are the exception.

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Do you organize food fights as well?

I don't see the services-centered economy itself as a problem. would you rather work in a factory?

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Originally posted by Gir Draxon:

Whereas in the Food and Hostility industry, it's the other way around... most of us are useful and the celebrity chefs are the exception.

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Nah, his institute just trains snooty waiters with attitude and Diva/Divo chefs

They do field study of all the most hostile culinary cultures: the superior Parisian waiter, the down-and-dirty rude New York City one, the surly staff from the Soviet period ...

I've said before-- in order to be argumentative-- that unless you are involved in mining something, growing something or making something, you're a drag on the economy.

But that isn't true. Those people involved in those industries, while they may in fact drive the economy, can't do so without support from teachers, doctors, nurses, etc.

The rates of infection in Ontario hospitals even makes you realize just how important it is, to us, how necessary it is, to have skilled janitors in those institutions.

I know there are jobs and professions that are parasitic in nature. Drawing the line, though, is hard-- once you get by the Canadian senate.

Like a factory won't miss a single worker, the world can live quite well without an individual artist.

Now I do a bit of construction work. Is is necessary? Yes. I do things like fixing leaky roofs and install water systems. But this aint't rocket science. I only get to do the work because someone else is too busy to do it him/herself.

quote:

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Originally posted by Gir Draxon:
Whereas in the Food and Hostility industry, it's the other way around... most of us are useful and the celebrity chefs are the exception.

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