Replying to LO24356 --
Hi All,
>It is LEKKER to read your responses.
It is lekker to respond!
Why employ a person? I guess it is because to do so is the perfect
outcome for the system that produced it as an outcome!
What is that system? What are the benefits and payoffs in that system
that make employment the perfect outcome?
I guess most economy books will identify that you employ a person because
this make good business sence and helps increase profit. But is it the
other way around?
I am much taken by the work of E. F. Schumacher and how in "Small is
Beautiful" he shows how local employment of local people using local
resources to sell to the local economy develops local wealth and
facilitates the general improvement of the local system. Employment of
people is systemicly a smart move because of the interdependence and
cohesivness it produces - rather than lots of self employed people.
However I think the system has been shifted to the generation of profit
rather than the development of the local 'economy' which will lead to the
economic argument for employment rather than the local cohesivness
argument.
I guess this has a lot of biological basis. As a small tribe an
individual would be related to most other people. There would be some
mixing of genes from the bigger pool but in the main there would be a lot
of family in the group. The maories call this group Whanau (If I am wrong
please correct me). Darwin suggested that evolution was survival of the
fittest, this has been changed to be the survival of the best breeder. I
think from a far more systemic view this could be changed to the survival
of the best / fittest genes. In this whanau, family tribe there would be
a lot of common genes and the strongest (physically, mentally or what
ever) will help maintain their gene lineage by making sure that the other
members of the whanau were fit, healthy, fed etc. Whilst it may not do
much more to maintain the survival of the leader - except through having
devoted followers, it will do a lot to maintain the gene lineage.
Move forward in time, or move to a part of the worl where industry is seen
as more important than the Whanau - 'Western culture?' - and we can see
the maintainance of the gene lineage activity encapsulated in the
employment of the local populace. Now movement may be easier and the gene
pool may be more diverse, more diluted from the original concentrate of
the the Whanau - sorry that sounds very racist, nazi even, it is absolutly
not intended - but there is still a local consentration of your family
genes, so employment will still support your gene survival.
Now if we move from sustainable / subsistence activity to surplus
producing activity the leader - employer - now has material gain as well
as robust geneology, and can use that material gain to improve their own
breedability - get a better mate. The aim of the system may have stayed
the same but the outcome for the leader of that system has changed.
Introduce the economist - who sees the business employing people as a
profit engine rather than a gene survival system and they decide that the
aim of the system is profit - but the modus remains employment. (Post hoc
ergo prokto hoc)
Freedom of movement within the industrialised world and the globalisation
of industry is now attacking the maintenance of the Whananu and the
protection of geneology. but employment, the maintenance of the family
group, is still the way it is done.
I have absolutly no evidence for the above, but as one of many possible
explorations as to the implicit aim of the system it works for me. I
would love to read yoour comments.
Roger.
---------------------------------oooOOOooo--------------------------------------
Roger C. Key mailto:roger.key@onet.co.uk
Prescient - The Whole as One
(44) 01639 871062
Learn about Deming and CQI on line at http://virtual-deming.com
- The web site. www.thewholeasone.co.uk coming to a PC near you soon! -
--Roger Key <roger.key@onet.co.uk>
Learning-org -- Hosted by Rick Karash <Richard@Karash.com> Public Dialog on Learning Organizations -- <http://www.learning-org.com>
"Learning-org" and the format of our message identifiers (LO1234, etc.) are trademarks of Richard Karash.