Replying to LO30641 --
Dear Organlearners,
Terje Tonsberg <tatonsberg@hotmail.com> wrote:
>Maybe the concept of unemployement is a problem in itself?
>Having, like you, spent quite a bit of time in developing countries,
>I think this concept ignores a lot of cultural aspects. When you
>import this highly capitalistic concept, and start labelling people
>in this manner, you are sometimes importing a problem that did
>not exist before.
Greetings dear Terje,
You are right. For example, take food. It was a general custom among all
the Bantu nations of South Africa that when a stranger visit you, you
share your food with the stranger without asking anything in return. Today
this custom still exists, but only in rural regions far from towns and
cities where capitalism thrives.
They also had not the concept of employment -- to work for a salary paid
in money or goods. They worked to sustain the life of their families and
their communities. Should one decide to build an adobe, everybody from the
village who could help came to do so.
The golden thread of their culture was "ubuntu" -- to have respect for the
divine, fellow humans and nature.
The above are two examples of the following:-
>E.g. you might go to a country with, say, 40% unemployment
>and people are doing OK. They spend their time on other things,
>and somehow they do get enough food and shelter to get by
>because people, especially families, help each other. Sometimes
>they do a little business or help somebody out for a while.
Yes, they did a little business, but never with the purpose to become rich.
>And they don't mind until you tell them that if they don't have
>a TV and VCR or whatever, they are noone and nothing and
>also give them the label "unemployed" under the title
>"unemployement problem."
Yes, once gain we come up against the "selling of a treasure map".
It is the politicians who sell the treasure map that should people vote
their party into government, they will create jobs for everyone. They
promise that as the unemployment decreases in the country, the living
standards of everyone will increase. It is political *****. To work for a
pleasant living (and not primarily for a wage) a person must have the
inner knowledge, i.e, the capacity to do so. That knowledge comes only
through endless learning which involves the individual as well as the
organisation.
Sometimes i think that capitalism is the worst kind of addiction ever
invented.
At this stage i decided to use Google's advance search engine to see
what information is available on internet. I wrote in the first window
capitalism loss spirituality
and in the second window
through the ages
The first hit
< http://www.stthomas.edu/cathstudies/1997b/goodpaster.htm >
has been a pleasant surprise. The same with
< http://www.pcdf.org/1993/orgprin.htm >
further down on the first page of hits. I suspect a lot of pleasant surprises
on the other pages of hits.
Thank you Terje for making us aware of that unemployment may be a key
problem to the general problem of a world heading towards disaster.
With care and best wishes
--At de Lange <amdelange@postino.up.ac.za> Snailmail: A M de Lange Gold Fields Computer Centre Faculty of Science - University of Pretoria Pretoria 0001 - Rep of South Africa
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