An honest day's work

When RiVA and the Dooryard Arts Festival first got started, one of the things I was trying to do was create an economic 'node' for the arts in Carleton County. 

Sounds fancy, but basically I was looking for ways for artists/musicians/craftspeople to do their work and get paid for it.  This may seem obvious but if you work in the arts, you know it isn't.  Requests such as "Could you play for free?  It's a fundraiser," or "We're asking artists to donate a piece of their work," are more common than you might realize.

When you have an entire sector of the economy that works but don't get paid, this is a problem.  First of all, it creates inequalities - people whose work is not valued are more likely to a.) become bitter b.) stop doing that work or  b.) move elsewhere.  It also sends the message that the things these people do is a 'hobby' which literally has no value. 

In Carleton County, where we have a small economy to begin with, leaving people out only gives us less leverage with larger economies such as Fredericton, Halifax, Montreal etc..  We need more people contributing - not just so money changes hands but so those people have some measure of economic security.

But even as I have my arts axe to grind, I think that the issue of working and getting paid is becoming more and more of a sticking point for everyone in the workforce.  I know people who have gone from working in IT to working in the trades.  The IT worker gets paid by the hour, regardless of productivity.  The tradesman gets paid by the project, regardless of how many hours it takes to do the job properly - and that time is always underestimated. 

Looking at the Canada Post and Air Canada strikes, it seems that nobody wants to pay anybody a living wage, which is what I'm really trying to get at here:  people are raised into debt but good jobs are disappearing. 

In many cases, young men and women graduate high school, get a student loan, are forced to buy a car (at least in the Maritimes) attempt to buy a house and then all of a sudden, look around for a job that will pay for these things.  And those jobs are disappearing.

Real incomes have been in decline for 30 years and the rich and poor are way farther apart than you think.  Check out this graph from a great Mother Jones magazine article you should read.

This morning I read an article about "zombie consumers" - how people are dangerously financially over-extended, yet government wants to find a way to get us spending again.  I don't see how this is possible - they can't borrow any more money, and it's unlikely they have a job which supports their spending habits.

Ultimately, I guess this is what capitalism means - in order to create profits, some work must be undervalued, and in order for the economy to "grow," some things must remain cheap (ie. oil, foreign labour). 

Will we ever get past this to an economy which values putting people to work, building societies instead of fragmenting them?    In real terms, what would that even look like?  Sometimes I think the biggest challenge in all this is just to see it in our mind's eye.  If we can't imagine it, how will we ever get there?