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To: LowCountryJoe
I understand your point and to a point I agree with it. However, we cannot forget that people are involved in the process, with all of the additional baggage that implies.

The problem with companies treating employees like disposables -- which is what you're essentially saying that people should accept -- is that people tend to put a lot of themselves into their work, not to mention basing a lot of their financial decisions on the assumption that their job is "theirs." In a "faceless capitalism" scenario, the company's stake is far different than that of its employees.

As such, the natural response to something like outsourcing is resentment, and resentment breeds a variety of unwanted results, especially political ones. It's all very well to say that people shouldn't think that way, but the fact is that people do think that way.

299 posted on 03/01/2006 6:22:59 PM PST by r9etb
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To: r9etb; ninenot; sittnick; steve50; Hegemony Cricket; Willie Green; Wolfie; ex-snook; FITZ; arete; ..
people tend to put a lot of themselves into their work, not to mention basing a lot of their financial decisions on the assumption that their job is "theirs."

It is normal. The work is a natural healthy part of human life. People cannot be separated from what they are doing, their labor is not a mere commodity, it is part of what means to be human.

Trying to marketize workers or their labor is as wrong as slavery or serfdom.

Today even for the freemarketeers it is obvious that slavery and serfdom are wrong. But it is because these institutions are in the past and far away, they have problem with seeing what they face now.

Work remains a good thing, not only because it is useful and enjoyable, but also because it expresses and increases the worker's dignity. Through work we not only transform the world, we are transformed ourselves, becoming "more a human being."
[...]
History teaches us that organizations of this type [unions] are an indispensable element in social life, especially in industrialized societies. Catholic social teaching does not see unions as reflecting only a "class"' structure, and even less as engaged in a "class" struggle. They are indeed engaged in the struggle for social justice, but this is a struggle for the common good, and not against others. Its aim is social justice and not the elimination of opponents.
[...]
Human work is the key to the solution ... of the whole "social question." To consider work is of decisive importance when trying to make life "more human."
[...]
Yet the workers' rights cannot be doomed to be the mere result of economic systems aimed at maximum profits. The thing that must shape the whole economy is respect for the workers' rights within each country and all through the world's economy.
[...]
Created in God's image, we were given the mandate to transform the earth. By their work people share in God's creating activity....Awareness that our work is a sharing in God's work ought to permeate even the most ordinary daily activities. By our labor we are unfolding the Creator's work and contributing to the realization of God's plan on earth. The Christian message does not stop us from building the world or make us neglect our fellow human beings. On the contrary it binds us more firmly to do just that.
[...]
But above all we must remember the priority of labor over capital: labor is the cause of production; capital, or the means of production, is its mere instrument or tool.
[...]
Workers not only want fair pay, they also want to share in the responsibility and creativity of the very work process. They want to feel that they are working for themselves -- an awareness that is smothered in a bureaucratic system where they only feel themselves to be "cogs" in a huge machine moved from above.
[...]
Workers not only want fair pay, they also want to share in the responsibility and creativity of the very work process. They want to feel that they are working for themselves -- an awareness that is smothered in a bureaucratic system where they only feel themselves to be "cogs" in a huge machine moved from above.
[...]
The most profound motive for our work is this knowing that we share in creation. Learning the meaning of creation in our daily lives will help us to live holier lives. It will fill the world with the spirit of Christ, the spirit of justice, charity, and peace.
[...]
The justice of a social and economic system is finally measured by the way in which a person's work is rewarded. According to the principle of the common use of goods, it is through the remuneration for work that in any system most people have access to these goods, both the goods of nature and those manufactured. A just wage is a concrete measure -and in a sense the key one- of the justice of a system.
[...]
Through work people must earn their daily bread and contribute to the continual advance of science and technology and, above all, to elevating unceasingly the cultural and moral level of the society within which he lives in community with those who belong to the same family.

And work means any activity by human beings, whether manual or intellectual, whatever its nature or circumstances; it means any human activity that can and must be recognized as work, in the midst of all the many activities of which people are capable and to which they are predisposed by their very nature, by virtue of humanity itself. (Introduction)
[...]
The purpose of unions is not simply to defend the existing wages and prerogatives of the fraction of workers who belong to them, but also to enable workers to make positive and creative contributions to the firm, the community, and the larger society in an organized and cooperative way.
[...]
The church's constant teaching on the right to private property and ownership of the means of production differs radically from the collectivism proclaimed by Marxism, but also from the capitalism practiced by liberalism [free market ideology] and the political systems inspired by it.
[...]
Yet the workers' rights cannot be doomed to be the mere result of economic systems aimed at maximum profits. The thing that must shape the whole economy is respect for the workers' rights within each country and all through the world's economy.
[...]
We must pay more attention to the one who works than to what the worker does. The self-realization of the human person is the measure of what is right and wrong.
[...]
Work is in the first place "for the worker" and not the worker "for work." Work itself can have greater or lesser objective value, but all work should be judged by the measure of dignity given to the person who carries it out.
[...]
We must consequently continue to study the situation of the worker. There is a need for solidarity movements among and with the workers. The church is firmly committed to this cause, in fidelity to Christ, and to be truly the "church of the poor."
[...]
The means of production cannot become a separate property, called capital, as opposed to labor. They cannot be owned against labor or to exploit labor. They cannot be owned just for the sake of owning them. The only title to their ownership - whether private, public, or collective- is that they serve labor. This means that under suitable conditions the socialization of certain means of production could be acceptable.
[...]
Work is a duty, because our Creator demanded it and because it maintains and develops our humanity. We must work out of regard for others, especially our own families, but also because of the society we belong to and in fact because of the whole of humanity.
[...]
We inherit the work of the generations before us, and we share in the building of the future of all those who will come after us. All this should be kept in mind when considering the rights that come with work or the duty to work.

(Laborem Exercens - On Human Work
Pope John Paul II, 1981
transl Joseph Donders)

303 posted on 03/01/2006 7:00:46 PM PST by A. Pole (XIV century English rhyme: "When Adam delved and Eve span, who was the gentleman?")
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