The Work of Care and the Limits of Productivity

Maura Conlon-McIvor

Our wonderful Maura Conlon-McIvor - Certified Conversation Leader and now program facilitator - ran across this very interesting New York Times opinion piece "Let's Be Less Productive" which challenges the conventional wisdom that increasing productivity is the best driver of economic progress.

The author, Tim Jackson, does a very nice job of calling out how the work of care and craft is different from other kinds of work:

"The care and concern of one human being for another is a peculiar “commodity.” It can’t be stockpiled. It becomes degraded through trade. It isn’t delivered by machines. Its quality rests entirely on the attention paid by one person to another. Even to speak of reducing the time involved is to misunderstand its value."


Read the complete article here:  Let's Be Less Productive 


Thanks Maura!