Tag: industrialism

Chocolate

Posted on by philipdodson

chocolate

Today is Easter Sunday in the UK and a gorging of chocolate is what will occur across most of the country. Most of that chocolate will come from giant food corporations, where the stakeholders will reap the lion’s share of the reward, sadly not the workers.

In 1879, two Quakers George and Richard Cadbury founded a new model greenfield village near Birmingham, called Bournville, that they built for the expansion of their chocolate business.

The two businessmen (that’s entrepreneurs for any of you hustlers reading this) wanted to build something for their workers that was a real contrast to the squalid conditions of much of urban Britain during the 1800’s.

The welfare and health of their workforce were of high importance to them.

Today, the business they founded, loved and that they grew into one of the most famous chocolate brands, known around the world, is now part Mondelez, a giant global food corporation, where their corporate ‘values’ will be etched onto the walls of some faceless global HQ building.

There are a number of other examples of philanthropic business people who cared about the wellbeing of their workers in 18 & 1900’s.

Now the industrialised machine has become so fixated with profit and productivity enhancements, that they only concern themselves with wringing the most out the assets, including mainly their human assets (aka as people), that there is little consideration for a modern day Bournville.

Great business people care about their most important asset – you, their worker. She is what makes businesses great, ask George and Richard Cadbury.

What is work for?

Posted on by philipdodson

Philip Dodson Blog

I watched a TED by Seth Godin asking that very same question, only he was asking ‘what is school for?’ That got me thinking, what is work for?

This is perhaps a good thing to write about on the eve of going back to work for another week. Do we ever stop to ask that question? What is work for?

For most, it is simply an activity that they do in order to earn money. Then that money is used to buy stuff. Most of us have been prepared to do exactly that for the rest of our adult lives by school.

We have been trained to comply and be good workers in the mechanised, sanitised and industrial world.

We’ve been sold the dream that if we work hard, we’ll get more money, we’ll be able to get a bigger house, which we can use the bigger income, to fill with more worthless trinkets.

Most of those trinkets lose their shine and end up in a skip. We are encouraged to constantly replace our trinkets, with updated more ‘fashionable’ items, even if the trinkets are still perfectly usable.

So work is for the benefit, mainly, of the owners of work and not us. We are merely fodder to keep the system working.

Surely there is something more meaningful for human kind to be doing each day than simply working to consume stuff that benefits just a few.

Surely it is better to be creating something that enhances human kind? Surely it is better to be caring for one another? Surely it is better to be creating our own stuff and not simply working to line the pockets of a few.

Anyone for work? or perhaps we’d all be better off working in collaboration in communities creating our own individual stuff to share with each other?