Mr. Chairperson, distinguished delegates and colleagues:
Thank you for this opportunity to make a statement on behalf of the Triglav Circle.
The Triglav Circle seeks to promote an approach to international relations and public policy grounded in moral and spiritual values that are to be expressed in ethical norms and behavior. To this end we members and friends of the Circle broaden the discourse on global problems with philosophical, cultural, and spiritual perspectives.
Permit me now to take this approach to the issue of work. Before doing so however, I wish to commend the Report of the Secretary General on this priority theme. Very informative, it also presents a non complacent picture of the great problems that the objectives of “full employment and decent work for all” are currently facing. It is some of the causes of these difficulties that I wish to address. In doing so, I will not attempt to present “a balanced view” but rather I will emphasize some of the dark aspects of the present situation which need our greatest attention.
In its broadest sense work is the expenditure of physical and creative energy whereby the earth’s material and non-material resources are transformed into things, services, and ideas. This generality cloaks numerous philosophical, spiritual, political, social, and environmental perspectives on the subject.
To be seriously considered is the conception and treatment of “work” in today’s global economy! Sadly, it is much more simplistic than most classical political economists and philosophers have conveyed . Work is quantified and commodified, and likewise human resources along with capital, land and technology-all of which are treated as alternative inputs for the production of goods and services. Most decisions about the how, the what, and the where of the use of all of these resources are made according to rational calculations of efficiency, utility maximization, and profit.
In the broad scheme of modern life, machines of every variety are proving to be more efficient than human or animal labor. And the working person, homo farber, may be nearing the brink of obsolescence, not only in manufacturing but also in labor intensive interpersonal services.[For example, the flowbee may soon replace the hairdresser.] Yet, the fate of humankind depends on considerations of much greater weight than the techno/economic calculations that are driving the global division of labor and reducing societies and communities to dormitories for homo economicus and serfs for mechanistic societies.
The modern social/economic paradigm of work is the social construction of Promethean man. It is not a construction in consonance with Nature, nor is it in consonance with the characteristics of the brain and appendages of the human being. Unemployment or mind draining work reflects the failure of modern society to recognize the need to employ powers inherent in the ethos of humanity: sympathy, imagination, intellect, and creativity. As such, this Promethean construction does not take into account the social and environmental costs of the reduction of human labor to the level of a commodity. And it neglects the destruction of the fragile social ecology and natural environment that occurs when the purpose of human life is merely to produce and consume.
Beyond the economistic and productivist treatment of work characteristic of the modern machine age, is the living world of human beings existing in finely woven fabrics of various social settings, and for whom work is a matter significantly more complex than finding employment, getting paid, or having a job. For many the loss of a job can mean despair, alienation, and even an end to life. It is only through “decent work, ” a notion that has to be taken in all its dimensions that individuals may find a secure social identity and purpose for living.
“Decent work” responds to human kind’s inherent need to be occupied and to achieve something. “Decent work” also fulfills the yearning to be a productive part of society. In short, the human spirit appreciates the innate sacredness and worth of every necessary and intelligent task to be performed and measured, not only in pecuniary terms, but in satisfaction from having contributed to harmonious living.
These aspects of work are intrinsic to the meaning of human flourishing as intimated by the West’s great classical political economic theorists beginning with Plato and, including Adam Smith, John Stuart Mill, Karl Marx and Friederich List.
The sad irony of the modern economy is that while, work should provide livelihood, respect, status, companionship, and sense of accomplishment, for many millions of people, work actually, barely provides any of these benefits. For example, a person working for a pitiful wage in a factory doing monotonous repetitive work and treated without respect has none of these benefits. But, a subsistence farmer in a fertile area ploughing his paddies with the family buffalo may in fact enjoy all of the five things work can offer, even though it may be hard work. That is why in many cases the transformation of subsistence farmers into low paid factory workers seems so irrational.
Please do not think that I am proposing that we can stop the wheels of progress, but let us at least pause to reflect on what is being lost in moves toward a dehumanized modernization that is enticing or driving hundreds of million people from the countryside to mega cities, abandoning the land to transnational food producers.
We are losing a sense of work that is highly tuned to nature, a communal life that is naturally caring and convivial. We may also be losing the happiness that is derived from being needed, of contributing to the survival and well being of others, and the satisfaction that can only come from meaningful work.
While it is clearly against the current of prevailing thinking, real progress would consist in revisiting the role of technology in the evolution of our societies. We must strive for more frugal life styles that employ the innate gifts of each human being as opposed to the increasing concentration of financial and economic power that is benefiting the few and dehumanizing the planetary landscape in a division of labor that favors machines and exhausts resources in defiance of nature.
Thank you, Mr Chairman.
WORKSHOP ORGANIZED BY THE TRIGLAV CIRCLE ON
Work, Employment and Human Dignity Topics proposed for Discussion
8 February 2007
Topic 1: The meaning of work and/or employment in one’s life
A Triglavian perspective on work and employment is suggested in a few quotes from the report of the UN Seminar on Ethical and Spiritual Dimensions of Social Development held in Bled Slovenia in October 1994. The report contains the following statements:
“Effort, work, participation in creation, however humble, are at the heart of human nature and personal dignity. Ideally, for each person work should be what brings fulfillment and gives meaning and direction to daily life. Employment and work should benefit not only the individual but also the human community. It is one domain in which individual interest and the common good can be in harmony”.(p.39)
And also: “Employment that satisfies the spirit implies: A sense of duties tempered with beauty; a conception of work as a privilege; and a feeling that responsibility is one’s debt for the opportunity of living in a day when great aims are at stake. It is having a task to do which has abiding value without which the lives of others would be poorer”.(p.102)
Participants may wish to link their reflections on work and employment with notions that have been recurrent themes in the debates of the Circle, notably the “meaning of life”, the concept of “human flourishing”, the notion of “human happiness” and the search for unity in the “material and spiritual” dimensions of human existence.
Topic 2: Characteristics of work and employment in today’s economies and societies
It is safe to expect that participants in this Workshop are, or have been, or expect to be in a position to derive meaning, enjoyment, sense of contribution to the community, and perhaps even fulfillment from their occupation or trade.
Moreover, they should “naturally” expect that their work or/and employment satisfies for them “the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services.”(Article 25 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights).
And it is very unlikely that participants would have been personally exposed to violations of their human rights when at work, including the right to form or to join a trade-union.
If, as all evidence points out, such “privileged” situations remains exceptional in today’s societies, is there a perceptible trend towards its spreading throughout the world or at least in some regions or countries?
Or, are trends leading in the opposite direction and promoting what has been called the “Obsolescence of Man” accompanied by the formation of a new world proletariat made in particular of migrant workers? Or, is there a basic flaw in the formulation of these questions because “meaning”, “enjoyment” and “fulfillment” through work would actually depend on the virtues of the person and not on the characteristics of the “job”?
What is there to say on the notion of “productive” work? Could different understandings and different applications of this notion of productive work be parts of the definition of different conceptions of modernity?
The following quotations found in Candles in the Dark: A New Spirit for a Plural World might help address these questions.
The first is from T. S. Eliot:
The endless cycle of idea and action
Endless invention, endless experiment
Brings Knowledge of motion, but not of stillness,
Knowledge of speech, but not of silence, Knowledge of words, but ignorance of the Word,(.)
Where is the life we have lost in living?
Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?
Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?
The second is from Adam Smith, in The Wealth of Nations: “The man whose life is spent in performing a few simple operations,(.) has no occasion to exert his understanding, or to exercise his invention (.) His dexterity at his own particular trade seems (.) to be acquired at the expense of his intellectual, social, and martial virtues. But in every improved and civilized society, this is the state in which (.) the great body of people must necessarily fall, unless government take some pains to prevent it”.
The third is from Karl Marx, in a speech made in London in 1856: “In our days, everything seems pregnant with its contrary. Machinery, gifted with the wonderful power of shortening and fructifying human labor, we behold starving and overworking it (.) Even the pure light of science seems unable to shine but on the dark background of ignorance (.) All our invention and progress seem to result in endowing material forces with intellectual life, and in stultifying human life into a material force.”
Among other questions that might be considered are: Which occupations/positions/jobs are the most and the least valued by contemporary societies? In this “valuation” of different occupations by society what are the relations between level of prestige or social status and level of remuneration or income? Is there anything to say and learn about “subsistence work” except to hope for its disappearance as current strategies on “development” do? Quid of the distinction between “intellectual” and “manual” work? Quid of the distinction between “employees” and “workers” at a time of economies of services and economies based on knowledge? What are the social and cultural consequences of the growing participation of women in what is called the “labor force”? Would the participants at this meeting consider a remuneration of domestic work, as it relates to the upbringing and education of children, a progressive or a reactionary measure?
Topic 3: The role of international organizations in promoting worker’s
The corpus of international laws and regulations concerning the rights of workers is rather impressive -from the Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights to the ILO Conventions adopted regularly since the 1920s. But there are no enforceable sanctions attached to the violation of these rights. Among the existing international organizations, only the World Trade Organization has the capacity to hold states responsible for violating its rules. And the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund have the weapon of their “conditionality.” Nothing of the sort is available to the ILO to enforce its Conventions. Left to rely on persuasion and moral pressure more than on respect for international law, this organization has recently developed the notion of “decent work.” One of the principles embodied in this notion is that “Decent work means that all those who work, wherever they may be, have rights at work. There has to be a worldwide acceptance of the inviolability of basic rights at work”.
What are the obstacles to a “worldwide acceptance of the inviolability of basic rights at work”? Are there historical examples of moral and political pressure-not accompanied by legally established sanctions– having been effective tools to universal norms? Are there such examples at the national level? What are the necessary conditions and the required steps for the establishment of an international and global legal system of effective promotion and protection of human rights at work, including for migrant workers?
United Nations, Ethical and Spiritual Dimensions of Social Progress, Report of the Seminar held in Bled, Slovenia, 28-30 October 1994, (New York: United Nations Publications, 1995) Sales No. E.95.IV.2. Barbara Baudot., Candles in the Dark: A New Spirit for a Plural World, (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2003.) 210-212. Edited volume of essays by members and friends of the Circle. Forward by Vaclav Havel.