I started writing this comment by copy-pasting the most salient quotes from your essay and adding "Yes!" , "This!!" and "Spot on!!!" I soon understood that I was, in essence, reproducing the essay quote for quote in the comments :-)
Another tack: We're holding local elections here in Norway next weekend, and it might be interesting. The result is fairly predictable: the 'conservative party' (Høyre = the Right) will most likely win comfortably, and the ruling Arbeiderpartiet (= Worker's Party) will perhaps have their worst election since their founding a hundred years ago. This is of no consequence -- they are just two sides of the same coin. The interesting bit is the small, new start-up parties, I think there are three or four of them, catering to the disgruntled voters, they being the 'properly conservative', the 'properly Christian' and the most promising one (on the polls): INP = Industri & NæringsPartiet (Industry & Business-party). Their policies seem realistic and centrist, the sort of stuff that would be considered sound commonsense ten years ago, and that nowadays is 'far right'. They are able to field candidates in all constituencies and polls suggest they could get representatives in some 'Kommuner' / Councils. Not that it will make any difference, in the short term, but who knows where the rabbit jumps? God knows we need alternatives to the stultifying regime we have today!
My paternal grandfather was a riveter on the Clyde all his working life ... but once shipbuilding - and the skills it required - was moved offshore he never worked again because there were few jobs that he was qualified or able, at 59, to do. The solution is to consider the TOTAL cost of outsourcing ; not only the cost of labour but to support the great gap it leaves in a community. As Harari, in his book Sapiens, says "What do we want to become?"
I started writing this comment by copy-pasting the most salient quotes from your essay and adding "Yes!" , "This!!" and "Spot on!!!" I soon understood that I was, in essence, reproducing the essay quote for quote in the comments :-)
Another tack: We're holding local elections here in Norway next weekend, and it might be interesting. The result is fairly predictable: the 'conservative party' (Høyre = the Right) will most likely win comfortably, and the ruling Arbeiderpartiet (= Worker's Party) will perhaps have their worst election since their founding a hundred years ago. This is of no consequence -- they are just two sides of the same coin. The interesting bit is the small, new start-up parties, I think there are three or four of them, catering to the disgruntled voters, they being the 'properly conservative', the 'properly Christian' and the most promising one (on the polls): INP = Industri & NæringsPartiet (Industry & Business-party). Their policies seem realistic and centrist, the sort of stuff that would be considered sound commonsense ten years ago, and that nowadays is 'far right'. They are able to field candidates in all constituencies and polls suggest they could get representatives in some 'Kommuner' / Councils. Not that it will make any difference, in the short term, but who knows where the rabbit jumps? God knows we need alternatives to the stultifying regime we have today!
*rant off*
My paternal grandfather was a riveter on the Clyde all his working life ... but once shipbuilding - and the skills it required - was moved offshore he never worked again because there were few jobs that he was qualified or able, at 59, to do. The solution is to consider the TOTAL cost of outsourcing ; not only the cost of labour but to support the great gap it leaves in a community. As Harari, in his book Sapiens, says "What do we want to become?"
Yes! I absolutely agree, John. Thank you.