As an offering to Ben's "History", I would mention that at least three
things appear to have impacted upon recent changes in the country's
economic profile. One is the differentiation between the "educated" and
"uneducated" workforce prior to and after WWII.
Another is the profound effect (upon the economy/workforce) of women in
the workforce in substantially larger numbers following WWII.
A third would appear to have been the impact of the GI bill, allowing for
loans for business start-ups and educational expenses.
A fourth may have been a change in "theme" proposed by many former blue
collar families (as stated by parents); "we worked hard doing what we had
to do and sacrificed so that you don't have to do what we did".
A fifth is the impact of the Roosevelt era programs (WPA, TVA et al) that
allowed for such things as rural electric cooperatives and migrations to
parts of the country not formerly hospitable.
A sixth may have been the impact of the courts upon corporate enterprise,
allowing for internationization with accompanying lowering of
responsibilty in areas such as health of workers and degraded environment.
A seventh may have been a movement spurred by unionization, that being a
belief that workers are not cattle and need not be treated as such.
Neither are they in the military so that they must be formed into units,
divisions, departments, brigades etc, utilizing the corporate/military
structure of organization.
An eighth might be the belief, despite all evidence to the contrary, that
corporations are human entities, and as such can and should be dealt with
as if they were people. When the corporation (a non-human entity) chooses
to increase profits by lopping off a division here or there, cutting
40,000 or 100,000 jobs, it is not doing so on the basis of its humanity.
This is not a family we are dealing with, although it sounds nice in
corporate publications and press releases.
I think that's enough for now...
Anybody?
--Regards, John Constantine Rainbird Management Consulting Santa Fe, NM http://www.trail.com/~rainbird
Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>