It’s very pleasing to note some publicity for the launch last night of the new Centre for Policy Development, which featured a blistering attack on Howard’s (lack of) liberalism from Julian Burnside QC. The Centre is a new think tank which developed from New Matilda’s policy portal and its aims include to:
combat the myth that we have no choice about the policies that affect our lives, by exploring new approaches to the relationship between governments, markets, society, and the environment.
I’m very chuffed at becoming a Fellow of the Centre, and the project I’ll be working on will contribute to the Work, Family and Care stream of the Centre’s research.
What I’m interested in researching and writing about are the challenges a fragmenting model of work pose to humanistic values within organisations. The first part of this project will involve an attempt to map and quantify the dimensions of non-standard work in Australia, where debates about “independent contractors” are usually conducted on the basis of myths rather than information. The broader project involves thinking through some of the social choices around both nonstandard employment and the blurring of working time and leisure time which are related phenomena but which aren’t treated as if they do in fact raise issues of justice and values.
While Labor has gone some way towards addressing these issues both in terms of some rather unambitious responses to issues of work/life balance and Craig Emerson’s portfolio responsibilities, it’s a debate that we really have not yet begun in earnest.
But a world in which older assumptions about careers and fulfilment have largely been superceded and responsibility for success and satisfaction at work increasingly displaced on to the enterprising individual cries out for some re-thinking about the place of values at work instead of the way in which we add value to processes which are almost entirely monetised.
One thing I’d like to do is seek input and foster discussion as I go. To that end, a quick bleg - is anyone aware of any good blogs which regularly discuss issues related to workplace culture and satisfaction and the changing nature of work? What I’m looking for is both analytical accounts and accounts of lived experience. I’m sure they’re out there!
Congrats Mark! That looks great.
A lot of quality names involved (your good self included) - look forward to following the website.
Fellow? Why not a bloke? More Aussie sounding.
Congrats Mark and good company you have attracted as Lefty E points out.
Pity about the poor analysis and commentary on Australia’s international relations. Not everything can be understood as the negative influence of the US alliance, especially around China.
Thanks, Shaun and Lefty E.
MH - the articles on the site at the moment are the archive from when it was New Matilda’s policy portal, so in many instances they’re not reflective of the research paper approach that the CPD as such will be taking.
Hi Mark! One project I found really interesting was Madeleine Bunting’s book ‘willing slaves’ in the UK, in which she drew on reader feedback to her column in the Guardian.
It deals with changes (mainly the culture of overwork) in the traditional workplace rather than non-standard work - but I reckon it’s a great model for getting some discussion of the everyday realities in amongst the abstract analysis…
I’m all for encouraging liberalism on both sides of politics, but holding up Menzies as the example to be followed here, as Julian Burnside did, shows ignorance of history or liberalism or both.
Menzies supported racially discriminatory immigration policy, conscription, far greater censorship than we have today, and protectionism. The only way in which he could plausibly be argued to be more liberal than Howard is that taxes were significantly lower than now.
I think this idea that we have choices as a society, not just as individuals, is worth pursuing in the political context.
John Ralston Saul made an interesting contribution on this in his recent book “The Collapse of Globalism”, attacking the economic determinism that has engulfed our lives in recent years.
The economy didn’t make us. We made the economy.
A very interesting comment from Mr Denmore, who wrote:
“I think this idea that we have choices as a society, not just as individuals, is worth pursuing in the political context.”
If any such “centre” point exists between the study of individual decision-making and collective decision-making, it might be this definition from Robert Greene:
“Never discriminate as to whom you study and whom you trust. People are of infinite complexity and you can spend a lifetime watching them without ever fully understanding them. An understanding of people’s hidden motives is the single greatest piece of knowledge you can have in acquiring power.”
The concept that people are of “infinite complexity” is a good one to keep in mind when considering just “what is motivating people” to consider voting Labor later in the year, given the Coalition’s strident development and communication of the key aggregate economic performance indicators (such as low unemployment, low interest rates, etc.) which many people long assumed would always advantage the Howard Government’s record.
I am developing my own brand of expressing theories on my blog, using “scrambled eggs” as a semiotic to embrace the infinite complexity of understanding others and the old 1970s semiotics of “wet versus dry economics” to revisit the notion of questioning capitalist culture.
HOWEVER, keeping in mind the principle of “never discriminating as to whom you study and whom you trust”, I think it’s equally valid to question the value of what happens when decision-making is taken out of the hands of individuals.
Thinking about “wet economics” in 2007 does not necessarily mean taking a strident, anti-capitalist position and developing debate from there onwards.
For example, I intend questioning the “critical theory” approach introduced in my Communications course which assumes that “strategic” communication is an instrument for enforcing unequal power relations, as if somehow people would actually benefit if “equal power relations” were treated as an ideal to strive towards.
Yet attacking “the strategic” as a means of questioning capitalist culture really does throw the baby out with the bathwater.
Small business author Michael E. Gerber defines “strategic thinking” as a substitute way of saying “systems thinking”. He also regards an organisation as made up of a “hierarchy of systems” (the components of the hierarchy being the definition of actions, the training of others, the general management and managing change).
How I suspect the “hierarchy of systems” relates to the “infinite complexity of people” is that (i) people make different contributions to an organisation and (ii) people make transitions that span the boundaries of different organisations.
My belief is that no system of politics should force everybody to “equally relate to each other” outside the framework of a hierarchy of thinking, just for the sake of “vaguely defined” values such as fairness and democracy.
The infinite complexity of people ensures we need hierarchies to sort the important considerations from the peripheral so that people have a clear understanding of how they can be “valued by others” within an organisational structure.
On the other hand, the need to define a “self-concept of value” ensures we need to network enough between different organisations (of business, family and friends) so that strategic thinking and action is empowering, rather than disempowering to personal development.
For this reason, I’ve decided to make “Weighing up Australian Values” by Former Deputy Prime Minister Brian Howe a priority read in setting my own framework for thinking about policy.
Because organisational structures change, and because spanning different organisations is a juggling act, both types of thinking, inside and outside the hierarchy, impact our value judgments.
Mr Denmore also wrote:
“John Ralston Saul made an interesting contribution on this in his recent book “The Collapse of Globalismâ€?, attacking the economic determinism that has engulfed our lives in recent years.”
He also has a good book called “On Equilibrium”, which I haven’t quite had the chance to integrate more into my thinking (even though it’s been sitting on the book shelf for some time now).
I will soon publish all references used in this post on my blog (to save space here
)
…From Justin
Mr. Demore wrote:
“The economy didn’t make us. We made the economy”.
That’s an interesting “chicken or egg?” theory
Burnside may very well be ignorant of history and liberalism as he recently quoted that reactionary petty-bougeois fascist pest Karl Marx approvingly in an email I have a copy of somewhere. Along with prima-facie evidence that he deliberately botched a case for polictical reasons and I would have to say caveat lecter about old ironsides.
Mmmmm, scrambled eggs. Congratulations Mark! May your thinktank prosper and completely overtake the IPA in influence in popular media, with politicians etc. I know it’s a big ask and a dirty job but someone’s got to do it.
Oh god, Helen, don’t encourage anybody - left or right - to emulate the IPA.
I hope instead that you emulate the CIS. The CIS is a body whose views I and most other people here would disagree with but which generally values intellectual honesty and rigour and so usually raises rather than lowers the standard of debate. Consequently they get less media coverage than the IPA but have a lot more influence.