Greatly enjoyed the film and getting our copy of the book. Proud of you as always for being one of those few people to turn off the TV, resist the alluring comfort of the sofa and do something they believe in with their life.

My only suggestion would be for you to consider making a PDF e-book which could be sold and produced at a much lower cost (and no paper) to sell after the initial run of the book.

Then I expect to see your next book in progress! If you need a illustrator, designer or anything else to do with moving pixels about – you know where to come

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As you highlight, when we talk to politicians or business leaders the answers we get are almost always couched in economic terms. And when we talk to economists we find that lying behind our economic systems are essentially philosophical articles of faith. I don’t believe the growth paradigm is the sole significant one, but it is certainly one of the most central of these, and until we successfully overthrow the story that this is what is important I agree that we will struggle to get much of any import done. If you have a copy of the book I discuss this in the Systems Thinking section (from p.85)

@Bob Thorp: Thanks for your comments and input. As you have sensibly copied them over to the Transition Forums so that others can get involved in the discussion, I will respond over there.

@Hexahost: As yet we don’t have an online edition, but we are planning to make the book available through Appropedia so that the 2nd edition can be as collaborative a work as possible. You’ll already find Rob Hopkins’ Transition Handbook there.

TT is a great contribution to the transition but with much work do. I’ve found part two the most interesting. My experience in previous feedbacks and blogs is that some transition folk don’t take kindly to critical feedback ( I come from a different tradition that accepts criticism and self-critcism as part and parcel of the process of improvement – no matter, so I’ll keep it brief and constructive. I don’t have too much or a problem with what you do envision (not at this juncture), my issues are more with what you don’t. This is unfair of me, so below is a first run past of “work and enterprise”. I’m sure others are needed that create visions for “decision making and democracy”, “planning and distribution” etc.

Transition Vision Looking back from 2027

Work, Enterprise

The deep and long global recession between 2009-2015 wiped out many companies, jobs, the value of shares, savings, pensions and other capital assets. Shaken by the collapsing system, people began to look for answers and create practical solutions. Where companies failed, employees at first responded to being thrown out of their jobs by occupying the their places of work and demanding better redundancy packages but as it became obvious that “money” was becoming increasingly worthless, “employees” began to take over their work places and put the physical and the human capital back in to productive use. The “elected” government at first responded by using the police and army to forcefully evict people from their shops, factories and offices but the widespread nature of the “useful work” movement and its popular support typified by the view “that if the employers can’t make it pay – then the employees should be given a fair chance to have a go” led to a government re-think

Faced with the challenges of how to run a “business”: how to acquire finance and materials; how to plan the utilisation of buildings, machinery, computers, control systems and people to create products and service that people wanted or needed, was to say the least a steep learning curve. Many different organisational models emerged and evolved as the collective genius of the “workforce” was unleashed on the problem. It became popular to look at the practical responses of others faced with a breakdown of the market system. Lessons and examples of people running the enterprise without “capitalists” were found across the globe and throughout history. Cuba, Nicaragua, Venezuela, Argentina provided recent inspiring models but examples, were found closer to home in the shop stewards movement of the 1970s, Tower Colliery and the many co-operative and social enterprises that had developed. By far the most popular and rewarding models were highly participatory, self-organising enterprises that chose not to adopt the single “controlling mind” models or accept that a “co-ordinator class” of managers was required.

Many sceptics and opponents of the “useful work” movement said that “employees” did not have the skills and intellect to run business and that they would soon fail. What the sceptics had not understood was how much knowledge, expertise and co-operative behaviour was embodied in the workforce. Internet and intranets, equal opportunities policies, team working, meetings round the water cooler, quality circles and kaizan had all helped to bridge the divisions of labour that had existed in old manufacturing.

Another unforeseen development, at the time, was the way people began to re-interpret “business” objectives. At first, self-organised workplaces simply tried to recreate a business as usual model and made growth and profit their first objective. However, when people took over the reins they began to ask questions about what was work for and what role did their enterprise play in the life of the wider community, economy and environment. New social and environmental objectives became more important than the bottom line. The skilled crafts people of the Barrow shipyards, for example, turned their nuclear sub building skills to building a new fleet of carbon neutral cargo and passenger ships. Job satisfaction gained by participating in running an enterprise making social usefully products and services became more important and possible as new models of ownership developed. Making quality products and services that lasted and were sustainable became more important than chasing volume. Self-organised workplaces began to use productivity and efficiency gains to work fewer hours – by 2027 the worklife balance had been radically transformed with people coming together for only a few hours a week to engage in “workplace” based labour. More time was spent participating in planning and running their local enterprises, community and economy. Less time as a “wage slave” meant more time for creative family, educational, cultural and recreational activities.

More imaginative work to do……………

Do a diary week in the life of or a year in the life of…2018….2027….2050?

The old artificial and alienating divisions between “work” and “life” became blurred as more of the social relations to the “means of production, distribution and exchange” are not only localised but socialised – moved from purely private ownership to a mix of private, workforce and community ownership. By 2050 “private ownership” of the means of production etc is no longer the defining and organising principle of society.

Within the enterprise: how is it planned, organised and regulated to achieve the right/required quality of product or service, how does it self-organise to align goals, tasks, procedures, resources (people, materials, equipment etc) to the efficient and effective production of goods and services?
How do participatory enterprises secure external resources (material, finance, knowledge inputs) from the community or society and how does it distribute (markets) and exchange (money) the goods and services it creates (outputs)?

How do socialised services (health, education, governance) become more participatory and integrated with other productive enterprise?

What about the dialectic between the character of the economic base and the civil superstructures? How to work round the co-ordinator class or top-down party models?

How could pay and differential issues be resolved between different functions in the enterprise – should the manager-co-ordinator-leader function be paid more at all?

How does the lone creative, intellectual or craft worker relate to the community and organised/productive enterprise. What role for the entrepreneur?

How has our behaviour as a consumer evolved and changed?

Macro-economic vision? What to measure at the big aggregated levels to make sense of the new social relations and societal goals.

I have a thought about the two questions you fielded regarding economic salary parity and how the media handle transition as a possible solution or route forward: Are these questions not related? I mean, this is surely about how we measure various aspects of society living.

Do you think the real problem is that our entire society and the economy itself is measured in terms of growth, – and this is how it is reported to the masses? We judge our own and other’s progress in terms of financial consumption. We compare our neighbour’s car with our own, this translates to businesses targeting success in terms of their growth of market share and ultimately we can show that entire countries measure success in terms of growth in GDP compared to their neighbours.
This can only lead to disaster for those individuals and organisations who do not grow. And there are many more of them.

Whilst economic growth is our main measure in wider society, surely there is no chance that transition will be seen as a way forward? We need a new system of measurement which takes into account the more esoteric ‘products’ such as self-production, individual creativity (as opposed to external consumption), contentment, health, relaxation, etc. Don’t we?

Appreciate your thoughts.
Regards, haʊwi:

You can find my response at: http://transitiontowns.org/forum/topic.php?id=419 and it’d be great to hear more of your thoughts there.

Cheers,
Shaun

I look forward to reading your book.
Cheers!