Juty 1977 RAIN page 5 . Fl.F. Schumacher atop Davis, CA's most popular form of transportation. it cannot maximize everyrhing for evcryone it must begin to make choices. Should there be more people or more wealth, more wilderness or more automobiles, more food for the poor or more services for the rich?" (p. 181). We might say; wtiat a collection of choices! Even in conne ction with "human values,, a choice affecting the rotting of human minds or brains finds no mention. And this is yct another cxample of the lack of intcrest in the vital question of buman work ond ubat tbe ur.trk does to tbe worker. Considering the centrality of work in human life, one might have cxpected that every tcxrbook on economics, sociology, politics and related subjects rvould presenr a theory of work as one of the indispensable foundation stones for all further expositions. After all, it is rvork which occupies mosr of thc energies of the hurnan race, and what people actually do is normally more important, for understanding them, than what they say, or rvhat thcy spend rheir money on, or. what they own, or how they vott: . A pcrson's work is unquestionably one of the most important formative influences on his character and personality. However, the truth of the matter is that we look in vain for such presentations of theories of work in these textbooks. The question of what the work does ro the worker is hardly ever asked, not to mention the question of whether the real task might not be ro adapt the work to the needs of the worker rather than demanding of the worker to adapt himself to the needs of the work-which means, of course, primarily, to the needs of thc machine. It is not as if there werc any lackiof studies and reports on prdductivity, on workers' morale , workers' participarion in management, and so forth. But they do not seem to germinate any fundamentally new thinking; they do not raise questions about the validity or sanity of a system which destroys men's initiative and rots their brains. They all-although in varying degree start from the implicit assumption thaithe kini or' quality of work to be done in society is simply what it is, somebody has to do ir;if ir is soul-destroying work, that is regrettable but unalterable; if people do nor like doing it, we pay them more and more until enough people like thc money more than they dislike the work. But, of course, this economic solution of the problem-paying what the law of supply and demand prescribes-is no solution from our point oi uitrv; some people, as St. Augustine observed, even take pleasure in deformities, and many are prepared-or they are forced-to ruin themselves for money. We are concerned with thc fact that our system of production, in many of its parts, is such that it destroys men's initiative and rots,their 6rains, and inflicts this damage nor on a few people by way of exce ption, but on millions of them'by way of everyday routine. Why m.n or women tolerate it and accept it against pecuniary compensation is quite a differcnt quesrion. Why do we work? Let us ask then: How does work relate to the end and purpose of man's being? It has been universally recognized, in all authentic teachings of mankind, that every human being born into this world has ro work not merely to kecp himself alive but to strive towards perfection, "Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect." To keep himself alive, he needs various goods and services, which will not be forthcoming withour human labour. To perfect himself, he needs purposeful activity in accordance with the injunction, "Whichever gift each of you may have rcceived, use it in service to one anorhcr, like good stewards dispensing the grace of God in its varied forms.t'(l pcter,4;10). From this, we may derive the three purposes of human work as follows, First; to provide society with the goods and services which are necessary or useful to it; Second; to enable every one of us to use and thereby perfect our gifts like good stewards; and Third: to do so in service to, and in cooperation with, others, so as to liberate oursclves from our in-born egocentric i ty. This three-fold function makes work so ccntral to human life that it is truly impossible to conceive of life at rhe human level without work, which the Church declares, "even after original sin, was decrecd by Providence for the good of man's body and soul." The kind and quality of work to be done is impticitly taken as given;somebody has to do it whether we like it or not. Thc time has come to question this implicit assumption and to attack this immobilism. Mindless work is as iniolerable in a society that wishcs ro be sane and civilized as filthy air or stinking water, nay, it is even more intolerablc. Why can't we set new tasks to our scientists and ehgineers, our chemists and,technologiests, many of whom arc becoming increasingly doubtful about the buman releuance of the ir own work? Hai the affluent society nothing to spare for anything really newl Is "bigger, faster, richer" still the only Iine of development we can conceive , whcn we linow that it entails the perversion of human work so that, as one of the popes put it, r'from the factory dead matter goes out improved, whereas men there are corrupted and degradcd"? . . . and that it also entails environmental degradation and the speedy exhaustion of the earth's non-renewable resources. Could we not devote at least a small fraction of our research and developmenr (R and D) efforts to create what might be called a technology with a human face? This "human face" would reflect, to start with, in a certain way, the sizc of the human being, in other words, we should o o o & I
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy NTc4NTAz