Thursday, December 27, 2012

FULL TIME WORK AND FULL EMPLOYMENT


FULL TIME WORK AND FULL EMPLOYMENT
Strider 6 December 2012-(B)
Full time work is too much for any human being. Too much time is spent away from the other aspects of life. Personal development, community development, and the cultural and political dimensions of the social life do not receive enough time or devotion in a society committed to full time work. That will do as a sketch of the social opportunity costs of full time work.
From the point of view of the individual in a full-time-work-society, chronic sleep deprivation undermines health and sanity. In one way and another, full time work is not a healthy lifestyle. The workers do not get enough quality sleep, rest or recreation. The workers are driven mad.
I am looking at this subject from a public health and a mental health standpoint, and from a cultural and political health standpoint .
Here in Australia we have a double dose of this insanity. Full time employment is ‘the social norm’, and ‘full employment’ is the stated economic objective of government. The full employment objective was formulated as a part of ‘the post war reconstruction plan’ and it found formal expression in a government White Paper at the time.
The Keating Era government White Paper “Working Nation” re-stated and extended the concept. The government of the day, today, is implementing some of the more Draconian measures that were proposed in that White Paper. Forcing ‘single parents’ onto the ‘Newstart’ Allowance, for example.
Full time work is not compatible with freedom and sanity.