Motive forces…

If the only motive (propelling) force is money what society, workplaces etc. does this create? Are we making a better job with this motive force (something power and career people "firmly" believe is a drive for all people)? I wonder if (all) people are only driven by money as the main motive force? But all people need and are entitled to live a decent life.

Is this motive force (money) a good motive force for making a good job? Are we making a better job when we are rewarded with more money than our colleagues? Are we making a better job today then we did earlier (when we didn’t have individual salary or wage)? I don’t think I do. And maybe that has reasons.

What happens when people realize that they have been striving for something that will probably never occur? That they are trapped in a life where they have to work till they fall dead down? Is this freedom or slavery (serfdom)? A modern form of serfdom and slavery?

How will they react if and when they realize that other people at the same time retire at an early age (in their fifties for instance) with a much higher material standard?

How do they react when they realize that if you land in different life circumstances it hasn’t with competence to do? Or does it have with competence to do?

Is the society encouraging sound drives in people I also wonder?

And the people in power are loyal to each other (networking).

If one generalizes: loyalty, solidarity is something women devote themselves to and are interested in, men compete instead. But I don’t think we are born this way.

The grassroots are caught by helplessness and resignedness (but from where do those feelings originate? So would it be possible doing something about them?).

What would sound drives be?

Society is encouraging unsound forces in people I would assert. And this leads to the kind of inequality we see all over the world. Leads to the enormous cleavages between people.

A voice in Sweden, on bonus and retirement scandals and a woman highest up in the labor union movement (Swedish Trade and Union Confederation):

“Wanja Lundby-Wedin is made scapegoat for dissatisfaction, anxiety and indignant feelings that have become ripped open in the paths of the financial crisis. What has she done?

She has as a member of the board for AMF [insurance company, administering retirement money] approved of a ‘juicy’ retirement agreement to a former CEO.

A fact that has been available for reading in the company’s annual report for many years – as a Sverker Sörlin pointed to in Dagens Nyheter [a big newspaper here] but something nobody have breathed about earlier. It has been possible for all those capable of reading from the book to acquaint themselves with these facts [they haven’t been hidden. But I wonder, where have the press and media been? And why haven’t they reported about this? Because they take on the power’s businesses?].

But now, when people are losing their jobs and greedy CEOs are allowed to wind (fawn) and pretend that they are giving up their giant bonuses, then one go for Wanja, who as the chairwomen for Swedish Trade and Union Confederation ought to know better [and yes, in a way she ought to??]. Where all other people have been blind she should have seen. She hasn’t grabbed anything for her own sake, she has only, as all other up there, failed to adjust to a slower speed in a bolting capitalism. For this she is hated and has to become removed while the overpaid capital and trade and industry elite remain sitting biding their time.

Financial crisis, losing ones job and bonuses isn’t Wanja’s fault. Our society’s mentality isn’t her fault. My thought is the more the man on the street shuts him/herself off from the public affairs, from the local politics and doesn’t engage her/himself –in the school and care, in how people are living, jobs and the distribution from the fruits of the society – the distance to those in power, who are power professionals will increase and that’s why we are getting all those things such as bonuses and fantasy agreements.

I think our society is suffering from a political but also trade and union lack of interest and a lack of engagement from the general public.

When people leave walk-over to the power we have gotten a societal climate where the cream of those in power believe they can do whatever they like, because they don’t get any feedback from reality until it’s too late [this was pretty kindly said, quite ironically. Do they care about the man on the street, generally? Of course I think there can be and are exceptions]. And not until fantasy pensions and bonus agreements are known to people, in the gloomy light of a financial crisis, one gets upset and start to tell people off in letters to the press and voting on the net.”

Yes, the power is networking, but what are we, the men and women on the street, doing?

And why?

It has been shown that the social mobility has been greater in the Scandinavian countries (with a strong welfare state) than in countries like Great Britain and USA. See here, here and here (the first two texts are in Swedish, but maybe possible to translate and the third is in English, from New York Times).

My blogpostings have been looking very strange for a long time. But I haven't had time figuring out what it has been about. It looked much better when I started blogging. This has been really disturbing, because actually I care how my blogs are looking. I get the message that my HTML-code isn't accepted... But I have been capable of posting anyway.

What sort of self image – and self-esteem? On bonus and compensation scandals…

illustrating this with a nice old church bench, maybe not so comfortable to sit on, which was the purpose? :)

[A little edited and updated]. On Friday morning three people in a panel in a sofa in Good morning Sweden were talking about what had happened the previous week. For instance about bonus scandals here in Sweden concerning AMF and Folksam. AMF is administering retirement money for people and Folksam is an insurance company.

What they said is true for companies of all kinds all over the world. And it's maybe (probably) even worse in other bigger countries than Sweden.

In the panel, a man, Birger Schlaug, wondered (a little freely):

“What sort of self-image do those people have, when they take so many management commissions on them? Do they believe they are supermen [to different degrees? See about hubris]? Or do they have an enormous need to prove how clever they are [both to themselves and other people]? You take on those commissions pretty much like decorations to show how important you are?”

Here is Schlaug's blog (in Swedish).

Another man, a leader writer, wrote in a leader about motives for those sky-high compensations, about especially clever, competent and smart - men, something in the style "The Grounds to Hypocrizy. Ehrenberg examining the Great Mistake"…

“The Confederation of Swedish Enterprise’s outlook on man is that it is a certain elite, especially smart and clever/competent men that are demanded. Those are standing high above ordinary employees, fighting in entirely other divisions, and to protect the employees’ retirement money the labor unions have to accept, bend and bow and pay what is demanded.

The problem is neither that the CEO:s of Folksam or the former CEO of AMF are especially intelligent or over smart persons. They are salaried employees, good at organizing and delegating./…/THERE ARE NO SUPERMEN! And nobody is irreplaceable.”

No - and this is exactly what so many exhausted (not least women) have heard!

A female journalist in the article "Whom can we trust. Boëthius: Now the opposition has to rethink things":

“They earn a lot, they say, because of their heavy responsibility. However, this responsibility is now called in question.”

With all rights?

In another article you could read:

“However, the ones at the top in trade and industry as Göran Thunhammar and Urban Bäckström get through the criticism gallantly since they have no moral capital to loose. The capitalism is like that.”

And in another article “Time for a new world order” you can read:

“We consume to solve social and psychological problems, not practical [problems]./…/

The numbers of suicides are increasing in the material welfare.”

They write further that robots can’t be used everywhere. Culture, health care and other “soft parts” of the society then stand out as more and more expensive. This phenomenon is well-known and has gotten the name the Baumol Effect after the American William Baumol, who described the puzzling fact that the richer the society the less theater you can afford.

In the Swedish Wikipedia article you can read about the Baumol Effect that culture production can’t become more effective. To perform a play by Shakespeare or a music piece by Beethoven the same amounts of work and the same competence is needed now as when those pieces were written. I don’t know, maybe even more, because the high demands today? And everything we can compare with, all that is already written…

And on top, I don’t think that your efficiency (OR creativity, i.e. your capacity to solve problems for instance) can become especially high if you work six days a week or more and all your awoken time year after year with no breaks or any recovery, something a commentator on a blog referred to. But maybe that doesn’t matter for those highest up? The most important for them is that they can show or assert that they have been working all their awoken time.

And who have the greatest workload in fact? Quite ironically.

And some people are living in entirely other spheres… What are they fighting about compared to how other people have it in the world I wonder with a deep sigh.

I can’t help wondering what all those people have in their backpacks, what their inner drives are… Are they trying to fill bottomless needs? Trying to fill needs they should have gotten filled earlier and in other ways?

Yes, the most (psychologically) defended tend to lead.

And about work life in general; do we make a better job today and feel more satisfied than we did earlier? Are we happier? Do we laugh more and have more fun at work? Or less? Personally I think we have less fun and it seems as many people around me don't really get on well with their work or workplaces.

"The struggle for definition is veritably the struggle for life itself. In the typical Western two men fight desperately for the possession of a gun that has been thrown to the ground: whoever reaches the weapon first shoots and lives; his adversary is shot and dies. In ordinary life, the struggle is not for guns but for words; whoever first defines the situation is the victor; his adversary, the victim. For example, in the family, husband and wife, mother and child do not get along; who defines whom as troublesome or mentally sick?...[the one] who first seizes the word imposes reality on the other; [the one] who defines thus dominates and lives; and [the one] who is defined is subjugated and may be killed" (T. Szasz?. See more about him here and quotes here.).