At some point (maybe you already have and I'm not up to speed), you need to do an "explainer" for non-Australians) about the tax cut isse you allude to so frequently. As a US tax increase hawk, i'd be particularly interested.
Of course it is perfectly OK for me and other US writers to assume the rest of the world understands what's going on here! [Irony emoji]
But Professor Quiggin, what about those for whom WFH is by the very nature of their jobs, impossible? Those who (for example) had to keep turning up to an outside workplace, whether they wanted to or not, even during COVID?
Excrement and vomit will not clean themselves up from hospital floors. Trucks bringing equipment and groceries from factories and warehouses are not self-driving. Nor are ambulances. Triage nurses and aged-care workers whose jobs involve being spat at or physically threatened do not have the luxury of disconnecting after hours, except perhaps in an emotional sense; and if they are emotionally disconnected enough, they will do harm rather than good.
In all the journalistic commentary which I have read advocating what might cynically be called WFH Imperialism ('Wider still and wider / Shall thy bounds be set'), I have yet to see the above questions honestly answered. The loneliness - with consequent plunges in mental health - of those workers without family ties, who were cut off during the lockdowns from all ordinary social interaction with colleagues save through a computer screen, is well documented; but nothing about these matters characterises Professor Quiggin's assessment.
Comparisons with the Catholic Church after <I>Humanae Vitae</I> do have relevance to Australia's corporate sector, though in a sense that goes unmentioned by this article. Namely, that the Vatican made no serious effort to enforce its own policies - we know from L..J. Podles's book on priestly sex abuse, <I>Sacrilege</I> that this was an entirely conscious refusal on Paul VI's part - and that corporate Australia's empty suits will make no serious effort to enforce their own policies on getting employees back into the office.
Oh sure, they'll whine on talkback radio and Sky News. More than that, they won't do.
But that's the trouble with authority, and it's a problem which Professor Quiggin's argument appears to overlook: authority is a zero-sum game. If A loses it, then B automatically accrues it.
The hordes of Catholics who became ex-Catholics after 1968 seldom became bashful agnostics. Many, and perhaps most, of them adopted Pentecostalism at its craziest, despite or because of the Houston clan's own well attested problems in the pedo department. A small yet outspoken minority of ex-Catholics turned to Islam. A larger minority decided, God help us, that Gwyneth Paltrow's Gospel of Goop and similar manifestations of woo-woo would save the world.
I wish I could say that the more militant manifestations of WFH doctrine were likely to be any better than Australian Catholicism at avoiding the Law of Unintended Consequences. Then again, I admit to being horribly old-fashioned.
The socialism that was preached, and often practised, in my childhood involved justice for people who did horrible jobs and got their hands dirty. Is membership in the vanguard of progress now to be dependent upon owning a laptop? If so, it's a wrinkle which R.H. Tawney never thought of.
I think it's worth remembering there are two ways to tell these stories. In the case of the Catholic Church, the commission were prevented from reaching the correct conclusion on birth control by the devil, and so the Pope, who has a direct line to God, had to overrule them with the true will of the Almighty.
At some point (maybe you already have and I'm not up to speed), you need to do an "explainer" for non-Australians) about the tax cut isse you allude to so frequently. As a US tax increase hawk, i'd be particularly interested.
Of course it is perfectly OK for me and other US writers to assume the rest of the world understands what's going on here! [Irony emoji]
Absolutely loved this. Never thought of the parallels to the church but it *totally* resonates.
But Professor Quiggin, what about those for whom WFH is by the very nature of their jobs, impossible? Those who (for example) had to keep turning up to an outside workplace, whether they wanted to or not, even during COVID?
Excrement and vomit will not clean themselves up from hospital floors. Trucks bringing equipment and groceries from factories and warehouses are not self-driving. Nor are ambulances. Triage nurses and aged-care workers whose jobs involve being spat at or physically threatened do not have the luxury of disconnecting after hours, except perhaps in an emotional sense; and if they are emotionally disconnected enough, they will do harm rather than good.
In all the journalistic commentary which I have read advocating what might cynically be called WFH Imperialism ('Wider still and wider / Shall thy bounds be set'), I have yet to see the above questions honestly answered. The loneliness - with consequent plunges in mental health - of those workers without family ties, who were cut off during the lockdowns from all ordinary social interaction with colleagues save through a computer screen, is well documented; but nothing about these matters characterises Professor Quiggin's assessment.
Comparisons with the Catholic Church after <I>Humanae Vitae</I> do have relevance to Australia's corporate sector, though in a sense that goes unmentioned by this article. Namely, that the Vatican made no serious effort to enforce its own policies - we know from L..J. Podles's book on priestly sex abuse, <I>Sacrilege</I> that this was an entirely conscious refusal on Paul VI's part - and that corporate Australia's empty suits will make no serious effort to enforce their own policies on getting employees back into the office.
Oh sure, they'll whine on talkback radio and Sky News. More than that, they won't do.
But that's the trouble with authority, and it's a problem which Professor Quiggin's argument appears to overlook: authority is a zero-sum game. If A loses it, then B automatically accrues it.
The hordes of Catholics who became ex-Catholics after 1968 seldom became bashful agnostics. Many, and perhaps most, of them adopted Pentecostalism at its craziest, despite or because of the Houston clan's own well attested problems in the pedo department. A small yet outspoken minority of ex-Catholics turned to Islam. A larger minority decided, God help us, that Gwyneth Paltrow's Gospel of Goop and similar manifestations of woo-woo would save the world.
I wish I could say that the more militant manifestations of WFH doctrine were likely to be any better than Australian Catholicism at avoiding the Law of Unintended Consequences. Then again, I admit to being horribly old-fashioned.
The socialism that was preached, and often practised, in my childhood involved justice for people who did horrible jobs and got their hands dirty. Is membership in the vanguard of progress now to be dependent upon owning a laptop? If so, it's a wrinkle which R.H. Tawney never thought of.
Watching the ways many try to pushback against remote work is fascinating. The Economist had a piece that grotesquely misrepresented research on the topic in order to make it look like remote work has massive negative productitiy impacts - https://open.substack.com/pub/nominalnews/p/work-from-home-benefits-research?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=1ueob6
Just an fyi - it was demographer Bernard Salt who started the whole avocado toast thing…not Tim Gerner.
And he did so ironically
I think it's worth remembering there are two ways to tell these stories. In the case of the Catholic Church, the commission were prevented from reaching the correct conclusion on birth control by the devil, and so the Pope, who has a direct line to God, had to overrule them with the true will of the Almighty.