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Okay, this one is going to be even more sketchy than usual, more of me just formalizing a conversation with myself than usual. But these ideas have been haunting me all day, and I think it’s to the point where they simply demand some kind of post for the record, if only my own personal record.

Remarkably, the comments in question appeared at cnn.com; these aren’t entirely new ideas of course and, indeed, I’ve puzzled over some of them for years now which is part of the reason they struck a chord with me. Still, I think Douglas Rushkoff’s comments about work, technology and our entire economic system are pretty thought-provoking.

As noted, I’ve asked questions myself, at times, about the idea that what we need are “jobs” given how most people seem to dislike their jobs and how we don’t seem to be suffering any kind of acute shortage of the goods and services which jobs produce. But I think Rushkoff really got me thinking with this bit:

We’re living in an economy where productivity is no longer the goal, employment is. That’s because, on a very fundamental level, we have pretty much everything we need. America is productive enough that it could probably shelter, feed, educate, and even provide health care for its entire population with just a fraction of us actually working. […] Our problem is not that we don’t have enough stuff — it’s that we don’t have enough ways for people to work and prove that they deserve this stuff.

I added the emphasis to the last bit, because that’s what has really been obsessing me. Everything else seems fairly sound and self-evident; it’s been a very very long time since western, industrialized society has known a famine or other “real” shortage of anything. Even our energy-supply crunches have been relatively mild, and as much a product of cultural choices as real unavailability of sufficient energy. One of the various “crises” we anguish over is, even now, an obesity crisis, and while I don’t want to oversimplify things that’s still pretty much a crisis of abundance rather than of scarcity.

But Rushkoff really crystalizes the situation and its implications by pointing out that, in this context, high unemployment is decreasingly a problem of shortages in goods or services produced by working people, and increasingly a problem of shortages of opportunities for people to signal themselves as deserving recipients of a share of the economy’s overall production, per our prevailing system for doing so. Which is paid work, i.e., jobs.

This, too, seems fairly obvious when one thinks about it, but I’ve never had these concepts brought into such sharp focus. (more…)

Okay, a serious question for those of you on Facebook: is there anything which would get you to quit? And please believe me, I ask only out of sincere curiosity; if Facebook makes you happy then go right on using it, I’m not looking for material to start a “quit” campaign. You know me.

But I am curious, after reading the latest round of (to me) disturbing pronouncements about how Facebook intends to push users into more “sharing,” and expects to go right on doing so.

I mean, is there some point at which the company finally overreaches and pushes you away, some point at which Mark Zuckerberg sounds too sinister and megalomaniacal for you? Or is Facebook access like having a phone number for you, now, or like the internet itself, and the idea of voluntarilly pulling the plug one which you can’t even consider a practical question?

Meanwhiles, I feel like I could just re-post a lot of this right now; both the general feeling of “it’s all just coming unglued, isn’t it” and most of the details still apply. I’m starting to think that there’s another corallary to / problem with the old conventional wisdom of “don’t do anything unless there’s a crisis,” which is that unfortunately, once a crisis arrives, it becomes really really difficult to coordinate any kind of helpful response because there’s a fucking crisis screwing everything up.

I think we can remember this particular week, when we look back on the lengthy unfolding compound mess, as the week when Uncle Paul just kind of broke down for a moment and publicly sagged beneath the weight of despair.

Other notes… (more…)

They’re probably out there, but at the moment I can’t think of any better example of “failing upward” than that of Meg Whitman’s appointment as CEO of HP.

Of course, “HP” seems to be in a kind of death-spiral, so that’s a factor as well; this is probably an example of more than one farcical phenomenon. Including the revolving door between corporate America and politics, except that in this case neither Meg-a-millions nor Carlyfiornia Dreamin’ actually had political careers. Just failed attempts at them.

Even so, as a Republican politician, you can always rest assured that corporate America has you covered, with far better benefits than even those you’re tasked with taking away from everyone else. Get rejected by the voters and there will always be some nice fat corporate sinecure awaiting you, plus a “golden parachute” for when you screw up that, too. Apparently, in at least some cases, you don’t even need to hold office at all; just try your best and you can still hit the benefits jackpot, as Meg has just demonstrated.

All of which, of course, also illustrates the fact that contrary to much protest otherwise, successful results really aren’t considered a prerequisite for membership in our society’s rich-and-powerful “elite.” It’s entirely possibly to be a disastrously-incompetent nitwit, and prove it, and never be “moved down a division.”

Yet heaven forbid that we raise taxes on the wealthy. All the geniuses would run right off to Galt’s Gulch in protest and we’d be completely screwed without them, you know.