CHAPTER VII

NEW WORKPLACE ATTITUDES

Self management - Workplace democracy -Personal accountability - Consensus decision making - Zen Bhuddism - The search for significance - Organizational strategies - Search for a global culture

Economics has based its calculations on the three fundamental components of any economic structure, land, labour and capital. The variable of labour, more specifically, the successful work ethic, has now superseded the study of economics as the determinant of economic profitability. In THE HEART OF BUSINESS, Peter Koestenbaum stressed the importance of ethics, philosophy, the winning of employee loyalty, and self development, as the essential factors. Economics is to be considered more of a descriptive or historical study, rather than a prescriptive study. The study of the medium, the organization, becomes the paramount study. How are people motivated? What structures and organizational strategies produce positive attitudes?

Hello,

For the next week or so, I will try to organize a little the pages related to the project "Interpersonal Relationships".
See: http://www.wechange.org/interpersonal_relationships .

If you are interested and would like to contribute your knowledge and insight, please drop a comment on the Community forum:
http://www.wechange.org/forum/11 .

thanks.

We may have different interests, we may have different backgrounds and come from different parts of the world, but we have at least one thing in common: we are all netizens.

Since this web site is about change, especially about changing ourselves, there is one thing that we could learn about and change: it's the way we relate to each other, the way we communicate - or fail to do so -, the way we react and reply to each other's postings on forums and mailing lists.

Have a look at this sad presentation about the ongoing war that the US government in waging in Iraq:
http://www.peacetakescourage.com/3years.html ,
It shows the casualties of war on both sides. Tears shed for a beloved one are as bitter when flowing from the eyes of the mother of a US soldier returning home in a casket, as when flowing from the eyes of a Iraqi father who lost an infant in a raid.

You can download the flash file here:
http://www.peacetakescourage.com/3years.swf

The presentation ends asking that the person who started the war finish it now.

I am not Iraqi, nor am I American. What power do I have to stop THAT war?

CHAPTER VI

EQUITABLE DISTRIBUTION

Specialization and loss of employment - Limits of an expanding markets - Consumer power

Consumerism forces the adoption of successful business practices. Societies, nations, and corporations, experience and compare their organizational structure and attitudes in the global marketplace. The adoption of economically successful practices, and the standardization of production methods, presages a global culture. The continual adjustments of corporations and nations moves all societies towards a business structure with common strengths and weaknesses.

Specialization and loss of employment

BOOK II
THE PRESENT STRUCTURE
CHAPTER V
THE LIMITS OF ENDLESS GROWTH
Global dissonance - Culture clash- Consumerism - Limits of consumerism - Non-market values - Marginal economic efficiencies
In Book One we identified some of the causes for rejection of authoritarian structures. We realized that our faith in national politics and representative democracy is misplaced, and, as the breakdown of sovereignty and the growth of economic blocs continues, we move towards smaller communities.
This breakdown has been accompanied by a crescendo of information. We are unable to process the thoughts and ideas that have entered global consciousness since 1945. Nuclear annihilation; the global village; man in space; the world's population increasing at a rate of 150 persons a minute; the stock of arable land going down by four hectares every minute; the Cold War; the breakdown of communist ideology; Japan's economic supremacy; Western high tech military supremacy; the ozone hole; global warming; this is future shock. An onrush of events that shocked our consciousness. Changes, thrust upon a world, unready to accept, or deal with, the sheer mass of change.

CHAPTER IV
SOVEREIGNTY AND LOSS OF CULTURE
Sovereignty - Economic blocs - National economic integration into the global market - Economic blocs and culture
During this transition period, politics, at the level of an economic bloc, is the only control over the global economy. Even economic bloc politics cannot impose global control and some type of global government must eventually acquire power. Politicians, loath to give up power, even to an economic bloc, will limit that power to the entrenched interests of politicians. G.A.T.T., for example, does not allow direct election of its members from the public - all its members are politicians.

CHAPTER III
REPRESENTATIONAL DEMOCRACY,
LEADERSHIP, AND SELF RESPONSIBILITY
The representative democratic system - Political intractability
Survival fear, as the unacknowledged basis for national political power, allows politicians play on the fears and hopes of the electorate. Survival fear justifies the politician's usefulness and collectivises nations. The politicians investment in trauma keeps the electorate wondering what the nation will do in the face of danger. This focuses attention on the politicians who, at centre stage, convince their public that their acts are believable and can be trusted.

Edit: solved

As noted in several places in the introduction section, this sites welcomes contributions from anonymous visitors.
However we noticed that a recent bug has been preventing anonymous people to actually post anything. We therefore turned off anonymous posting until the bug is found and corrected. Registered users can post as usual.

Sorry for the inconvenience.

CHAPTER II

ENDING THE TYRANNY OF SURVIVAL FEAR

The global marketplace - Global communications - Millennium change

Those who benefit from the old order, deny, and strongly resist change. Governments, for example, continue to operate on the basis that survival fear is their reason for existence. Survival fear justifies the Soviet's right to shoot down a Korean airliner that mistakenly flew over their territory. Survival fear causes the United States to hesitate in signing disarmament proposals with the Soviet Union in 1989. A real basis for a fear of invasion does exist for a few nations. The Israeli government can justify actions based on fear of the nation's survival, but in most parts of the world the justification of invasion does not exist.