Looking at the Workplace

Notwithstanding a brief flowering of trade union power, Employer/Employee relationships have retained most of the private property Master/Servant template. This, in spite of the fact that in a modern economy such as that of the US today, public, i.e., government investment now actually outweighs the private variety by a ratio of roughly 1.8 to 1. In acknowledgment of this, the book argues for a re-chartering of the modern corporation, emphasizing its social responsibilities over its private prerogatives. The chapter recommends not only a barely livable wage but a culturally as well as materially livable one. There follows a discussion of indicative planning, arguing that it avoids the wastefulness that necessarily accompanies so much of private investment. The concept of employment as a purely civic relationship is explored. Particular attention is given to the social erasure of invidious racial differences. Planning is analyzed as an anti-racist tool and the chapter concludes with some not quite last words on racism as a kind of swamp thinking.