What Is New Work?
Some very basic ideas...
New Work is a ladder, up from the Economy, Politics, Society, Culture that we have now up to an Economy, Politics, Society, System of Work and Culture that will be more humane, more intelligent, and yes, more cheerful !
New Work says No to the absolute, dead-certain conviction that there is no alternative to the creation of more businesses, the stimulating of the economy, the making of more jobs. No. There is an alternative. It is New Work.
New Work is a commotion, an uprising, a rebellion, the explosion of an impatience, a raised fist, but it has in spite of that a very tested, developed idea of where it is going, and crucially not just of the goals it means to achieve, but also and very specifically of the HOW, of the steps, that one by one, in a delineated way, will realistically and even skeptically considered, take us upwards to an amazingly, not easily imagined, vastly superior condition than the one in which we flounder and deteriorate now.
New Work is comprehensive - its arms are spread-eagled out to the limit. It wants by no means only a new organization, or framework and structure for work. O the contrary, our view is that we cannot have New Work, unless we also have a totally New Economy, and that the result will be a vastly different culture. In a nutshell: This is not about some small change, but about making a new, vastly superior, ball of wax.
New Work is an innovative and invigorating response to far-reaching, unsettling changes in the global economy that have battered the current job-system. Open-minded and experimental, New Work emphasizes pragmatic steps that can be implemented immediately in order to transform how people pursue their livelihoods.
New Work is neither a fixed doctrine nor an absolute formula. Rather, it is an umbrella term for an evolving set of ideas about work and the human spirit. The core values of New Work are self-reliance, individual freedom, and community involvement. Looking beyond the job-system as we know it, New Work envisions a society that is more humane, more cheerful and decidedly more efficient than what exists today.
From a letter: “Ever since my book On Being Free (1977) I have tried to evolve an organically integrated set of policy proposals that would have the power not only to stop the appalling deterioration of our country – her accelerating descent into a pit of cynicism, passivity, violence and despair – but that, instead, would define a step by step process leading us back to the path of our original mission: to becoming the greatest force on the globe in the struggle for a more humane, a more intelligent and a more life-giving culture."
- Brochure (German/English) explaining concepts and technologies behind New Work may be found here.
