{"id":150207,"date":"2019-12-23T12:00:25","date_gmt":"2019-12-23T12:00:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=150207"},"modified":"2019-12-20T09:18:28","modified_gmt":"2019-12-20T09:18:28","slug":"three-cheers-for-the-cheerfully-deluded","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2019\/12\/three-cheers-for-the-cheerfully-deluded\/","title":{"rendered":"Three Cheers for the Cheerfully Deluded!"},"content":{"rendered":"

A compassionate realist acknowledges the positive social functions of delusions, of which there are many in CWP [Community Work Programme] at Orange Farm [a suburb of Johannesburg]: Delusions about how many jobs there are (\u201cMany people are excited about the new mall. People are thinking about job opportunities<\/em>.\u201d) Delusions about public employment being a temporary stopgap until participants find work and exit (\u201cWe do not want to see a participant remaining a CWP participant \u2013 we want them to exit the programme and open space for other needy people to benefit from it.\u201d) <\/em>Delusions about the power of education and training to guarantee employment (\u201cMost of them are saying why you don\u2019t take us to school to learn things like welding and plumbing.? If I could do such a thing and get a certificate I would be fine\u201d.<\/em>) And so on.<\/p>\n

But delusions often have positive social functions. Indeed, if it had not been for their shared dreams, their ceremonies, and the stories that defined their loyalty to one another, our ancestors would not have survived, and we would never have been born.<\/p>\n

In today\u2019s neoliberal world, people whose self-esteem is so high that they overestimate the probability of their success are likely to become optimists.\u00a0 Complete optimists are people who, when in a single day they fail an examination, are dismissed from their employment, and dumped by their lover hit the books to study for the next exam that very same night.\u00a0 The next day, they are pounding the sidewalks with a CV in their hand, a smile on their face, and their shoes nicely shined.\u00a0 The next evening, they are flirting on Facebook.[i]<\/a><\/p>\n

People whose self-esteem is so low that their estimate of the probability of their getting a good job is close to the truth are bad news.\u00a0 They drain the emotional energy of their friends.\u00a0 They swell the ranks of the whiners, of the depressed, of the alcoholics, of the addicts, and of the delinquents.\u00a0 Pessimists may have truth on their side, but there is little else to be said in their favour.<\/p>\n

CWP in Orange Farm is different things for different people.\u00a0 It relates to illusions and to truth in more than one way.\u00a0 For young eager-beavers CWP is perceived as<\/em> a pathway to a career.\u00a0 For many rejected by the labour market CWP means dignity at last. Remember that unlike many other public employment programmes, CWP provides support for participants for as long as they need it.\u00a0 CWP is a way of life for participants who find joy in service. \u00a0But for many men CWP is not an attractive option, because it pays less than they need to get by.\u00a0 Men sometimes join, participate for a while, and then drop out.<\/p>\n

Given a world in which, year by year, there is a larger precariat[ii]<\/a> whose members even when they are well educated and have technical skills, never achieve steady employment, and where even among people who do have steady employment[iii]<\/a> most are poorly paid, the observations on CWP at Orange Farm highlight two crying needs: (1) to create soft landings for the large fraction of the young eager beavers who will inevitably be disappointed, and (2) to raise wages.\u00a0 To raise wages means to raise wages in public employment programmes, and to raise the wages of the poorly paid in general.\u00a0 The two are connected.\u00a0 As we saw in the chapters on India and Sweden, public employment guarantees build a floor under private sector wages.<\/p>\n

This chapter\u2019s (the chapter based on Malose Langa\u2019s study of Orange Farm in a forthcoming book on Economic Theory and Community Development<\/em>) encounters with the realities of life on the south side of Johannesburg tell a story that could be told with variations about many other places.\u00a0 Similar stories could be told about the south side of Chicago, the south side of Mexico City, the south side of Paris, the south side of Cairo, the south side of Mumbai, and so on; and about their north, east, and west sides too.<\/p>\n

In the Spring of 1972, Michel Foucault participated in a panel discussion on life in the public housing projects in the banlieues <\/em>of Paris, where he described the global trend as one where the plebeians increasingly outnumber the proletariat.[iv]<\/a>\u00a0 The proletariat are the workers with steady jobs.\u00a0 The plebeians are the excluded.\u00a0 Foucault\u2019s distinction appears to be widely applicable. Many other cities can sing of Joburg what The Beatles sang of the Nowhere Man: \u201cIsn\u2019t he a bit like you and me?\u201d<\/p>\n

Intelligent policy makers will not waste time imagining a future when private for-profit employers offer good jobs to every person who needs one.\u00a0 They will accept the reality that in the present there are, and in the future there will be, dispossessed millions living on transfer payments or, worse, somehow subsisting without them.<\/p>\n

But there is another reality too, and it is also part of the world as it is.\u00a0 There are millions of optimists who believe <\/em>that they can get a good job or successfully run a business of their own.\u00a0 They want that.\u00a0 Their good attitudes are a big plus for society.\u00a0 If, in the coming years, they are regularly frustrated, then many will defect to the pessimists.\u00a0 Then there will be even more people with bad attitudes than the many we already have.<\/p>\n

There are creative outside-the-box solutions that combine traditional social support with modern private enterprise.\u00a0 One of them is the city of Joburg\u2019s urban agriculture programme.\u00a0 Discrete subsidies make it possible for mini-entrepreneurs to enjoy the dignity of earning their own living.\u00a0 The City of Rosario in Argentina has gone further than Joburg in the same direction.[v]<\/a>\u00a0 In Rosario every Child Development Centre[vi]<\/a> has an agricultural adviser.\u00a0 A Child Development Centre is a combination kindergarten, community centre, and drop-in study hall for older children.\u00a0 The families with children in the Centre are advised on what food they can produce, even if it is only rabbits kept in a small space and fed on kitchen scraps.\u00a0 Private and public entities lend land for free.\u00a0 Private and public entities give free courses on everything from how to comply with sanitation laws, to how to cultivate worms in compost.\u00a0 Free advertising touts the health benefits of the urban farmers\u2019 organic products.\u00a0 They get free stalls in the municipal marketplaces.\u00a0 It is their business<\/em> but community support makes it possible.<\/p>\n

So, let\u2019s hear three cheers for the cheerfully deluded!\u00a0 Instead of telling them that their dreams are very likely to be disappointed, let\u2019s change the world to make it possible for more of their dreams to come true.\u00a0 Urban agriculture both in Johannesburg and Rosario represents a communitarian principle that can be widely amplified:\u00a0 the belief of the optimists that they can make it on their own can be gently brought into synch with economic reality through discrete subsidies.\u00a0 Soul medicine.\u00a0 What is not possible in pure neoliberal markets is possible in impure African and Latin American markets.\u00a0 Public policies and human sympathy can rescue not only the bodies of the poor, but also the dignity of the poor.<\/p>\n

NOTES:<\/strong><\/p>\n

[i]<\/a>This literary image of the optimist is suggested by the cheerfulness of the young people at Orange Farm who treat CWP as an opportunity to start on the path of success.\u00a0 Empirical studies tend to show that optimism rewards the optimist only when it is moderate.\u00a0 See for example Puri, M., & Robinson, D. T. (2007). \u2018Optimism and economic choice\u2019. Journal of Financial Economics<\/em>, 86 (1), 71-99.<\/p>\n

[ii]<\/a> Guy Standing, The Precariat.\u00a0 <\/em>London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2011. (op cit)<\/p>\n

[iii]<\/a> Guy Standing, \u2018Economic Insecurity and Global Casualisation\u2019 <\/a>\u00a0Social Indicators Research<\/em>.\u00a0 Vol. 88 (2008) pp. 15-30.<\/p>\n

[iv]<\/a>\u00a0 Michel Foucault et al, Table Ronde<\/a> in Esprit<\/em> for April-May 1972.\u00a0 Pp. 678-703.\u00a0 Reprinted in Michel Foucault, Dits et \u00c9crits<\/em>.\u00a0 Paris: Gallimard, 1994.\u00a0 Pages 316-339.<\/p>\n

[v]<\/a> Howard Richards, Solidaridad, Participaci\u00f3n, Transparencia: conversaciones sobre el socialismo en Rosario, Argentina.<\/em><\/a>\u00a0 <\/em>Rosario: Fundaci\u00f3n Estevez Boero, 2008.<\/p>\n

[vi]<\/a> Centro Crecer<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

_____________________________________________<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/em>Prof. Howard Richards now teaches at the University of Santiago and the University of Cape Town.\u00a0 He is a member of the\u00a0<\/em>TRANSCEND Network for Peace Development Environment<\/strong><\/a><\/em>. He was born in Pasadena, California but since 1966 has lived in Chile when not teaching in other places. Professor of Peace and Global Studies Emeritus, Earlham College, a school in Richmond Indiana affiliated with the Society of Friends (Quakers) known for its peace and social justice commitments. J.D. Stanford Law School, MA and PhD in Philosophy from UC Santa Barbara, Advanced Certificate in Education-Oxford,\u00a0 PhD in Educational Planning from University of Toronto. Books:\u00a0\u00a0<\/em>Dilemmas of Social Democracies\u00a0with Joanna Swanger,\u00a0<\/em>Gandhi and the Future of Economics\u00a0with Joanna Swanger,\u00a0<\/em>The Nurturing of Time Future, Understanding the Global Economy\u00a0(available in PDF on line),\u00a0<\/em>The Evaluation of Cultural Action, <\/em>Following Foucault:The Trail of the Fox (with Catherine Hoppers and Evelin Lindner),\u00a0 <\/em>(on Amazon as an e book), Unbounded Organizing in Community (with Gavin Andersson, also on Amazon),\u00a0 Rethinking Thinking <\/em>(with Catherine Hoppers),\u00a0\u00a0<\/em>Hacia otras Economias\u00a0with Raul Gonzalez, free download available at\u00a0<\/em>www.repensar.cl<\/strong><\/a><\/em>.\u00a0<\/em>Solidaridad, Participacion, Transparencia: conversaciones sobre el socialismo en Rosario, Argentina.\u00a0<\/em>Available free on the blogspot lahoradelaetica.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Let\u2019s hear three cheers for the cheerfully deluded!\u00a0 Instead of telling them that their dreams are very likely to be disappointed, let\u2019s change the world to make it possible for more of their dreams to come true. Soul medicine. What is not possible in pure neoliberal markets is possible in impure African and Latin American markets.\u00a0 Public policies and human sympathy can rescue not only the bodies of the poor, but also the dignity of the poor.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":139551,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-150207","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-transcend-members"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150207","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=150207"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150207\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/139551"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=150207"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=150207"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=150207"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}