Work & the Real Economy What is work & its trajectory of evolution? What is Green Work? Whats a Job? How are jobs and work remunerated?

What is Green Work? Cleanup? Efficiency? Blue-collar? White-collar? Should all work be green?

Whats the Real Economy? simply material production? Complicated by the rise of cultural production/consumption Raises questions about the purpose of production

Industrialism: The Divided Economy Invisible Visible Use-value Exchange-value Consumption Production People Things Unpaid Paid Women Men Informal Formal Private Public

Invisible Economy (1) Total Productive System of an Industrial Society (layer cake with icing) GNP-Monetized ½ of Cake Top two layers Non-Monetized Productive ½ of Cake Lower two layers GNP Private Sector Rests on GNP Public Sector Rests on Social Cooperative Love Economy Rests on Natures Layer Private Sector PublicSector underground economy Love Economy Mother Nature All rights reserved.Copyright© 1982 Hazel Henderson 2

Energy & Production early manufacturers had to be energy producers water wheels, production near rivers and streams steam power: allowed decentralization but was expensive industrial production: involved millwork getting power to a range of devices. –pulleys & belts could consume a third of the power

Energy & Production II electric power: allowed replacement of millwork –1900: 5% of factory power came from electricity new developments: –steam turbine, allowing bigger power plants –Tesla: AC allowing transport of power over distances From Edison to Insull: rise of central utilities, The Grid –key factor: load balancing; more customers, better efficiency electrification of production: essential to mass production and industrial cog-labour

The Rise of Information Science followed technology: Electricity: 1 st science-based development Herman Hollerith: punch-card tabulator: 1890 census –allowed big businesses to process information much quicker –customers, finances, employees, supply chains, inventories Dismantling of power generation: paralleled the creation of departments for data processing Rise of bureaucracy and white-collar work

Issues Automation of blue-collar work. Degradation & outsourcing of blue- collar work: globalization. Undervaluing of Resources: labour- vs. resource-productivity Automation of white-collar work De-marketization of production & the Commons. A crisis of jobs or a Crisis of Remuneration? Is Fordist-era manufacturing the solution?

Dimensions of Real Economic Strategy Focus on production for needs; devise means to do this Integrate formal / informal economies: home- based productionfood, energy, craft, reuse, and community-design to support it Target key areas of conventional waste and inefficiency for paid work: retrofit, renovation, deconstruction, reuse centres, local-sustainable food, horticulture. Transform conventional work on green principlesevery job and sector Downsize destructive & parasitic sectors: financial, advertising/propaganda, incarceration

Dimensions of Strategy II Transform unionism: based on the purpose of work and nature of wealth-- community-based Transform business & markets: –new drivers for regeneration (based on real rather than financial objectives) –new forms of stewardship –new forms of ownership & participation disarm the totalitarian power of money scarcity end debt-based money system, erode speculative finance

Remuneration & Qualitative Wealth Sever work and income? Wages: tied to certain kinds of production & markets. Public goods not so well served by markets. Economic insecurity: closely related to environmental destruction.