THE 1.983 CAIAVELl/ MEMOR J AL Ã¢ÂÂ   LECTURE

THE CONVIVIAL SOCIETY:

AUSTRALIA IN AN AGE OF TRANSITION

BARRY O. JONES

MINISTER FOR SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

MHR FOR LALOR

MANNIX COLLEGE.

MONASH UNIVERSITY.

MONDAY. 3 OCTOBER 1983

8.00 P.M.

TJIK CAJ.-\VKT,LÂ· MEMORIAL L ECTURE .1.983

Ar 1.1 inr CaLwell

I was very happy to accept an invitation to deliver the ninth

Ca Iwc] 1 Memorial Lecture .  I knew Arthur Cal we 11 very well,

enjoyed his company and admired his enormous capacity. I first

met him in 1946 during the Federal election campaign, when he was

.Minister for Immigration and Information and I used to hear him

speaking at street corner meetings.  He was the last of the great

stump orators, a style which went out of fashion in the age of

television sleekness and homogeneity. He had an enormous

vocabulary, an actor's timing, an impressive capacity to work up

the crowd and a sense of humour.

Arthur Augustus Calwell was born on 28 August 1896 at 100 Stanley

Street, West Melbourne,  the eldest of seven children.  His father,

a police officer who rose to be a Superintendent, was an Anglican

and a Freemason, while his mother was an Irish Catholic. Arthur's

great grandfather, an Ulsterman, migrated to Pennsylvania in 1800

and his son, Arthur's grandfather,  came to Australia in the 1850s,

during the Gold Rush. .

Arthur followed his mother's religion, and was educated at .

St. Joseph's CBC in North Melbourne,  matriculating in 1912. He

applied to join the Commonwealth Public Service and was rejected

for his poor eyesight. Accepted for the Victorian Public Service,

he became a clerk in the Department of Agriculture in April 1913,

transferring to the Treasury in 1923. He stayed there until his

2.

election to the House of Representatives in 1940. Incidentally,

he had splendid flowing handwriting but I don't know if lie

picked it up from school or the public service.

He joined the Young Ireland Society in 1914 and volunteered for

the Army in 1915. He was granted a commission in the Citizen

Military Forces, serving in the same unit as R.G. Menzies,  the

University Rifles, although he did not study at Melbourne

University. He was never sent on active service, partly because

of his eyesight, but essentially for his political views - his

passionate devotion to the Irish cause and opposition to

conscription. It was only many years later that he found from

official files how seriously he had been taken as a security risk

He was a champion debater with the A.N.A. in the 1920s.

It is not quite certain when Arthur joined the Australian Labor

Party; perhaps in 1913. He served on the Victorian Central

Executive from 1926 to 1949, becae a delegate to the Federal

Conferences 1930-51, and was State President 1931-32. He

exercised considerable power,  far more than his State public

service job indicated,  as a 'go between'  in the years of. the

Country Party minority government of Albert Dunstan,  when some

Labor policies were adopted in return for A.L.P. support in the

Victorian Parliament.

He served on the Melbourne City Council from 1939-45, and was the

last Alderman to be elected before that position was abolished in

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1940. Ho was Trustee of the Melbourne Cricket Ground from

1931 and ( . ' 1 ,  airman from . 1  9:>3 .

In August 1932 he married Elizabeth Marren, a journalist,  and in

1933 they published The Irish Review.  There wore two children,

Arthur,  who predeceased him and Mary Elizabeth who is here with us

tonight.

Arthur Calwel1 had been the dominant organisational figure in the

Melbourne Federal seat for many years.  It was accepted as

inevitable that when Dr. William Maloney,  MUR from 1904, turned

in his scalpel, Arthur would succeed'him. 1  The Little Doctor1

died in August ]940 at the age of 86 and at the general election

later that year Arthur was elected as MUR for Melbourne, remaining

there for 32 years, retiring at the election of December 1972.

In 1943 Calwel1 was the last man elected to the Curtin Ministry,

serving first as Minister for information and,  after 1945, as

Minister for Immigration, serving until Chifley 1s defeat in 1949.

As architect of Australia's great post-war migration programme

he changed the face of the nation.

He was Deputy Leader of the A.L.P. 1951-60 under Dr. H.V. Evatt,

Leader of the Opposition 1960-67, when E.G. Whit!am was his Deputy, Â·

coming within one seat of defeating Menzies in the 1961 election.

However in the 1963 poll,  held only a week after John Kennedy's

assassination,  and in 1966 when Holt's enthusiasm for the Vietnam

War ('All the way with LBJ1) won strong public endorsement, Labor's

vote fell sharply. .

4 .

In 3955 Arthur Cal v.el 1 had opposed Federal intervention in

Victoria because he foresaw that a split with traditional Catholic

Labor voters over the issue of attitudes to Communism would weaken

the party for some time. As a practising Catholic he was

bitterly hurt by the sectarian divisiveness which followed. In

3 970, no longer leader but still a powerful voice in the party,

he opposed a second round of Federal intervention in Victoria.

As his biographer Colm Kiernan has noted,  Arthur Calwell's stand

in politics "was essentially moralistic" and he was shaped,

first by the discrimination against Roman Catholics which

he observed as a young man, next by the bloody sectarian divisions

in Ireland,  later by the savageries of World War I, and the

needless cruelties imposed by capitalism during the Great

Depression.

There was a remarkable consistency in his career - opposition to

conscription in World War I, opposition to John Curtin's campaign

to extend the region for which young men could be conscripted

to fight during World War II, and vehement opposition to

conscription for the Vietnam. War in the last years of his career.

He did not trust intellectuals within the Labor.Party and it was

ironic that he should have served - with considerable tension in

both cases - in the highest.offices of the Parliamentary Party as

the Deputy of one (Evatt) and with another (Whitlam) as his

Deputy.

5 .

Despite all this,  he had strong claims to be regarded as an

intellectual himself - much as he would have disclaimed the

description. He was very widely read in history,  especially

,American history,  literature and science. He wrote extensively

and well - essays,  occasional pieces, reviews, and an autobiography.

He had a working knowledge of Mandarin,  at a time when it was rare

for any Australian to speak another language.  ,  He talked well

and confidently with experts.  He had a memory like an elephant

and performed innumerable acts of kindness. However,  he was

a good hater too.

I tried to win pre-selection for the Melbourne Federal seat in

1971, but Arthur declared himself against me on the grounds that

I was an intellectual and that the seat should be represented by

a blue-collar unionist. That was ironic, given his own backÂ­

ground.  I failed in my attempt to succeed him but, as a

consolation prize, gained preselection for the State seat of

Melbourne in 1972. Again, I was not Arthur's first choice but

after my election (June 1972) we worked together closely and

happily. .

He died on 8"July 1973, at the age of 77.

Arthur Calwell was an unfashionable figure who frequently moved

against the mainstream. He was a practising Catholic in an age

of mounting secularism and overt hostility to his faith,

especially after the split of 1955. Where Evatt was an advocate

of internationalism, his Deputy was a rugged Australian

nationalist; and - inevitably - a strong protectionist; where

6 .

Ã¢ÂÂ¢  .  .  '  '  '  i'U .

Whitlam insisted that wooing the middle class was the necessary

ingredient for political victory, Calwell emphasised the party's

links with blue collar workers, already in long-term decline as a

percentage of the labour force. When the ALP moved to the right,

in the 1960s, he moved to the left. lie had many Asian friends

but was the last major advocate of the White Australia policy.

He wore a butterfly collar until well into the 1940s; in an age

when politicians became hatless, he was the last to wear his

broadbrimmed squatter's hat (although not in the House, as

John Cain Sr. used to). In an age of television where others

were smooth, Arthur seemed increasingly rugged.

He was a strong opponent of the death penalty, but in some areas

such as changing sexual mores and censorship he was extremely

conservative, even authoritarian. In the Fitzpatrick and Browne

case (1955), no one took a tougher line against:the accused.,.

In retrospect, 1966 was his finest hour when he took the

courageous and highly unpopular course of opposing the Vietnam

War and conscription: it was also the year of the assassination

attempt by Peter Kocan (21 June) in which he exhibited grace under

pressure and showed a rare nobility of spirit towards his would-be

assassin, now an award winning poet.

He loathed trendies and berated me angrily when I grew a beard,

making adverse comparisons between the bearded Cavaliers and the

cleanshaven Roundheads. I was surprised at the enthusiasm he

7.

seemed to feel for Oliver Cromwell,  a rarity among Irish

Catholics. Although a republican, he was the last member of

the A.L.P. to accept appointment as a Privy Counsellor.

I proposed as the title of the 1983 Calwell Lecture: "The

Convivial Society: Australia in an Age of Transition" and I

now turn to that theme.

History is never static: all ages are ages of transition.

Arthur Calwell's life span of 77 years was marked by enormous

transitions. When he was born in 1896," Queen Victoria was still

ruling and the sun was yet to set on the British empire. While

some revolutionary changes were occurring in science and the arts,

and motor cars, telephones and electric lights were rarities,

for most of the world the Industrial Revolution was yet to occur.

George Steiner observed that when Winston Churchill first went

to war in 1899 the fighting would have been comprehensible to

Homer: he died in a thermonuclear age.

In 1913, the year Arthur started work, Charles Peguy remarked

"the world has changed less since the time of Jesus Christ

than it has.in the last thirty years", but it was to change even

more dramatically in the next decades. By 1973, the year

Arthur Calwell died, people had become blase about supersonic

transport, man's exploration of space, the atomic revolution

and the capacity of the super-powers to destroy all life on

8.

earth many times over,  a communications revolution with radio,

television and satellites, and the onset of the computer

revolution with its capacity to change man and society beyond

all recognition.

Australia in an Age of Transition

In 1896, about 28 per cent of Australians were employed as farmers,

far fewer than most people would think. By 1973 this figure

had fallen to s Per cent: now it is 6 per cent.

Although it was fashionable at one stage to talk about "the flight

from the land" we no longer regard this decline as a cause for alarm.

Nevertheless, some politicians and economists are inclined to

equate the size of a sector with its importance. Is this valid?

Country A has 72 per cent of its labour force working in agriculture

while Country B.has only: 3.51percent. In which of these two countries .

do children go to sleep hungry? You would be surprised at the

number of people who think the answer is "Country B": after all,

they reason, Country A has so many more farmers. When I eXpiain that

Country A is India and Country B is the United States, then people

start to grasp that the numbers do not really matter. When I  -  .  Rwanda .

say that Country C - the / Republic - has 90 per cent of its

labour force in farming, then you know its people are destitute, and

everybody is involved in a struggle for subsistence. So our

low employment figure in farming in world terms is actually a

sign of its strength. We would not improve our agriculture by

doubling its labour force - indeed we would probably destroy its

competitive edge.

9 .

Just pause for a moment to reflect on the profound social and

cultural implications of the Agricultural Revolution. 200 years

ago the overwhelming majority of our ancestors, no matter where

they came from, would have been farmers: it was taken absolutely

for granted that farming was just another name to describe how

people lived. It would have been literally unimaginable to

conceive of a society with only a small minority of farmers.

But now we take this absolutely for granted, because we have such

different cultural perspectives. .

In 1896 about 17 per cent of Australians were employed in

manufacturing. Except during the Great Depression this figure

grew steadily until it reached a, plateau in 1947, staying there

until 1965-66 when it started to fall from its high point, 27.6 .

per cent of the labour force. It is still falling - to 16.5 per

cent in 1982 - and will continue to do so.

Between 1965 and 1982, there were 2,060,000 new jobs created in

Australia: not one of them net was in manufacturing, indeed that

sector lost 150,000 jobs (-7.3 per cent) over 17 years, a 40.3

per cent sectoral fall. We are probably too close to this

phenomenon to see it as clearly and dispassionately as we now

see the Industrial Revolution. This fall is the 'post

industrial revolution' and it is a feature of the economies of

Japan, West Germany, the United States, Great Britain and Sweden.

Fewer people can produce far more goods, just as happened in

agriculture.

10.

Services have been the dominant employment sector in Australia

since the 1850s, accounting for 50.3 per cent of the labour

force as early as 1901. Now it is over 75 per cent.

I estimate that in Australia in 1983 barely 15 per cent of the

active population is currently employed in producing necessities

(food, water,  shelter,  fuel) while the remaining 85 per cent work

in producing increasingly marginal, discretionary and interÂ­

dependent services which we choose to have to improve the amenity

of life but which we could provide for ourselves if we wished or

(like cars, boats, holidays and entertainment) go without or

postpone acquiring. .

Australia employs more hairdressers than steelworkers: this often

comes as a surprise,  but it should not.  All towns and suburbs

have hairdressing establishments - few have steel works.  The

hairdresser's work produces a short term result, then the task has

to be done again. The steelworker's product has a durable life.

There are two basic and fundamentally contradictory forms of

employment and time use in modern society:

labour/time saving;

labour/time absorbing. '

Steelmaking is an example of labour/time saving work,  and

hairdressing of labour/time absorbing work.  <

(Karl Marx made a brief distinction between 'dense' work and

'porous'  work in Volume I of Capital.  but he did not develop this

idea any further).

11.

Labour/time saving work (usually called 'capital-intensive 1) is

directed towards the maximum output of sonic tangible 1  good'  (or

maximizing access to it) lor a minimum investment of labour and

time.  Its success is measured objectively — by market profitÂ­

ability, 'cost-efficiency' and productivity (a relative test).

With new employment patterns,  the development of a global economy,

and adoption of new technology, a decreasing proportion of

Australians need to be employed in labour/time saving work.

.  Labour/tirne-absorbing work (usually called '  labour-intensive '  ) is

characteristic of most service employment in sophisticated

economies.  Historically it included those for whom work and

existence were inextricably linked, unaffected by 'division of

labour 1  :  farmers, in subsistence agriculture, domestic work and

child-rearing by women,  and people devoted to a vocation-centred

life where market forces were irrelevant (religious, traditional

craftsmen, poets, musicians). Now it includes education,  health

and welfare, information services, administration,  research,

tourism and entertainment. Its products are increasingly costly

and their 'value1  notoriously difficult to measure. Productivity

cannot be high,  as many of the services are high in cost and low

in output because the ratio between servers and served is usually

low.

Subsistence agriculture helps to illustrate the distinction

between labour/time-saving work and labour/time-absorbing work

where farmers produce essentially to meet their own needs,  with

a small surplus to be stored or traded;  they are not concerned

with economic profitability, export potential,  return on capital,

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or concentrating on a single crop;  they are not racing the clock

or competing with their neighbours.  The rotation of the crops

matches the rotation of the seasons;  the work takes a lifetime to

carry out and is never completed.  The concepts of wages,  hours

or holidays arc not relevant. Relative success or failure is

determined by factors outside the farmer's control - flood,  drought

or other natural disasters.

Mexico is currently passing through a very rapid agricultural

revolution. Due to the enormous increase in population (3.9 per

cent per annum),  the demand for food can no longer be met by

subsistence agriculture.  Mexican farm labourers are said to have

worked for an average of only 135 days every year:  since the

traditional work ethic had less significance in Mexico, than the

heat,  the fiesta,  the siesta and manana,  Mexican rural life had a

slow and deliberate rhythm. But the consolidation of land holdings

mechanization, aerial spraying and other forms of modern farming

which are converting Mexican agriculture into a capital-intensive

industry make the campesino1s labour irrelevant - and displaced

farm workers are streaming into Mexico City at an average rate of

3000 every day. A rigorous application of cost-effectiveness to

subsistence agriculture would lead to massive unemployment in Asia

and South America,  and increase the already serious movement of

population from the countryside to the cities.

My (belated) insight was to recognize that labour/time-absorbing

employment was the norm in human experience until the eighteenth

century:  the agricultural revolution in Europe and North America

converted agriculture from a life-absorbing experience to an

13.

increasingly capitalized,  mechanized and specialized industry;

the Industrial Revolution had the same effect,on craftwork. The

worldwide growth of service employment after World War II

reverses this trend f  and greater inputs of time and labour result  .  relatively  in/smaller outputs.  However,  the development of computerized

machines possessing something analogous to intellectual skills, and

tireless and faster than their human rivals,  raises a challenge

to service employment that it has never faced before. The

technical capacity exists to produce low-cost high-quality

services which until now required heavy investment in human time .

and skill. We appear to be in the first stages of a 'postÂ­

service' revolution,  in which machines will do to human brain

power what the First and Second Industrial Revolutions did to

human muscle power.

Lewis Mumford has summarised the historical transition in a very

few sentences: . Â· Ã¢ÂÂ  Â· .  .

'Manual work into machine work: machine work into paper work:

paper work into electronic simulation of work, divorced

progressively from any organic functions or human purposes,

except those that further the power system1.

/  Â·Â·

D e n n i s  G a b o r  ( 1 9 0 0 - 7 9 ) ,  t h e .H u n g a r i a n - b o r n  B r i t i s h  i n v e n t o r

of h o l o g r a p h y  a n d  w i n n e r  of t h e  1 9 7 1  N o b e l  P r i z e  f o r  P h y s i c s ,

w r o t e  a p o w e r f u l  b u t  n e g l e c t e d  b o o k  I n v e n t i n g  t h e  F u t u r e  (1963).

In it h e  a r g u e d  t h a t  " t h e  p r e s e n t  s u m  of w o r k i n g  h o u r s  in t h e

W e s t . . .  is in no w a y  in c o n f o r m i t y  w i t h  t h e  l e v e l  of o u r

t e c h n o l o g y "  b u t  t h r e e  f a c t o r s  w e r e  k e e p i n g  e m p l o y m e n t  a t  h i g h

14.

levels - defence expenditure,  waste (overconsumption, packaging,

built-in obsolescence) and bureaucracy as illustrated by

Parkinson's law.

You may recall that C. Northcote Parkinson, the. British historian,

proposed (1957) the law that bears his name: 'Work expands so as

to fill the time available to complete it’.  Prof. Parkinson, a

political conservative, intended his law as a satire against

bureaucracy but it actually expresses a profound observation.

Bertrand Russell had made the same point in 1935: "What is

work? Work is of two kinds: first, altering the position of

matter at or near the earth's surface relative to other such

matter; second, telling other people to do so. The first is

unpleasant and ill paid: the second is pleasant and highly paid".

We have come to accept much inherently wasteful economic activity

without question, in the spirit of Hans Christian Andersen's

story about the emperor's new clothes.

In Sleepers, Wake!  I argued that: 1

Employment absorption tends to be in an inverse relation to

economic efficiency, to a chaos point of inefficiency beyond which

labour is not absorbable.

In other words: more waste = more jobs, but too much waste = no

jobs. In the 1960s, an expert from Western Europe was invited to

a country in Eastern Europe to give advice on the motor industry.

He inspected the government-run motor plant and noticed that there

were three or four workers performing tasks which would be carried

out by one man in Western Europe. After the tour, the manager

15.

was bubbling with enthusiasm. 'This is the most eii'icient car ,

plant in Eastern Europe.  Isn't it the best factory you have

ever seen? '  'Well,  I ...er,  urn,' the visitor responded uneasily.

'But don't you see? '  said the manager.  'The factory is entirely

appropriate to our needs. In this country we have a great need

to create an industrial working class and we have very little

need for cars.  The factory fulfils both needs.'

Job creation as a form of labour/time absorption is not new.

In the 1780s,  Catherine the Great of Russia liked to impress

foreign visitors with evidence of Russian development in the

Crimea so her lover Prince Potemkin built cardboard model villages

which,  from a distance,  achieved the desired effect. During

Roosevelt's New Deal,  the Works Progress Administration and other

agencies sometimes employed many people in 'boondoogling'  - the

carrying out of pointless tasks to create work for work's sake.

Market and convivial economies *  I

In Sleepers. Wake!  I pointed to the existence of two distinct

but interdependent economic sectors - the market sector and the

convivial sector.

I adapted the name 'convivial'  from the work of Ivan Illich

(Tools for Conviviality - 1973) and Simon Nora,  to describe

activities which promote the quality of life rather than the

pursuit of profit.

The market sector is essentially capitalist (even where the state

provides the capital) and investment aims to provide goods and

16.

tangible economic. services which are sold,  for profit, to satisfy

domestic needs (and,  where possible, for export).  The pricing

of goods and services is determined by supply and demand.  To

survive, and grow, the market sector must satisfy the test of cost-

efficiency by making a return on capital invested. Economics of

scale, mass production,  and technological advances enable

increasing volumes of goods and marketable services to be produced

with a decreasing labour input.  Some products are consumed

(e.g. food, energy) while others (e.g. housing, clothing, vehicles)

are durables.  The values of this sector have changed very little

from the time of Adam Smith and the classical school of economists.

The market sector tends to be hierarchical,  centralized and

profit-based. Its products are easy to quantify because they

are tangible and it can be seen where the sector pays its way

or not.

The convivial sector, is largely ,  and will be increasingly

publicly funded and/or managed.  It includes education, municipal,

health and welfare services, much entertainment,  sport and the

arts, and some information services.  Most of its products are .

non-economic and incapable of being exported or sold at a profit:

many of them (e.g. nursing services) are 'consumed'  each day and

have to-be provided' again.  The aim of this sector is primarily

community well-being - something w’ hich economists and

statisticians find notoriously hard to measure as yet - although

it makes an indirect contribution to the market sector through '

education and health, by influencing patterns of demand.  The

convivial sector is theoretically egalitarian and community-

based, although in practice it may become centralized and

bureaucratic.

17

The convivial sector Inevitably is dependent on taxation

collected from the market sector. The annual budget and

permanent appropriations are set to meet the costs of the

convivial sector,  which in turn sets the level of market  sector tax rates - illustrating how the commercial economy

is subject to control through taxation irrespective of

which party is in office. (Of course, teachers, social

workers and public servants all pay taxes too, which

reduces the funding needed.) Conservatives complain that

large sums are pumped into the convivial sector with no

marketable product emerging (e.g. education is seen as a   cost to the community, not as an asset). It is often  attacked for growing too rapidly and becoming too

expensive,  leading to popular demands for cuts in taxes  and public spending. Self-interested tax-payers who are  young or middle-aged, healthy and employed may increasingly

resent supporting the aged, sick and unemployed.  However,

elements of the market sector (such as motor manufacturing)  are dependent on consumption by convivial-sector workers

to stave off collapse. The money given to welfare  recipients does not stay in their hands - it is immediately

transfered back to the market sector.  1  Supply side1 economics depend, in the final analysis, on 1  demand side1

use.  ;  .

The market sector has generally operated a la Adam Smith,

and its employment levels are subject to a slow general  decline. The convivial sector, essentially Parkinsonian

in employment,  may be particularly susceptible to future

employment cuts, partly because this would be easy to  effect technologically but also because this sector is  often perceived as being essentially parasitic - aiding  the weak against the strong, crippling initiative through

high taxation rates,  and rewarding failure.  Politically,  however, both sectors should be seen as mutually dependent

and we ought to reject the idea that only things which

generate economic profit are worthwhile. There are good  goods and bad goods, good services and bad services.  Not

even the most unreconstructed Friedmanite endorses every

18

market activity, the heroin trade,  or the pinball and skin-

flick culture,  all of which aim at economic profit and are   not dependent on tax subsidy.  Similarly,  not all convivial

activities are justified: there are grave dangers in overÂ­

centralizing bureaucratic empires which overvalue means   and undervalue ends:, some educational activity is trivial,

and unworthy of time and effort by both teachers and the

taught:  small social investments made locally may produce   greater results than large ones made to massive

institutions .  The cost- effectiveness test of the market

sector needs to be applied to many convivial activities   - and the social-benefit criteria of the convivial sector   must be used in the market sector.  Employment in both

sectors should be encouraged,  especially where it enriches.   and extends the diversity of human experience.  It is better   to be employed in a worthwhile market-sector job than to

waste human resources in a worthless convivial one (like   Dickens' Circumlocution Office in Little Dorrit)  - and vice

versa.

Adam Smith argued that individual self-interest was the   factor that would best encourage economic growth.  But Smith

wrote at a time when population was determined by   Malthusian forces - war,  famine,  disease - which were even

more rigorous in their operations than the free market.

Expectation of life was relatively, low, with high infant   mortality; cripples and invalids died at an early age;  .

there was a high proportion of economically active people,   and welfare services were only provided domestically. Now

we live in a different world. Traditional family structures

are becoming non-viable in big cities. Welfare is   institutionalised and more are in need of it. Greater

longevity will change the proportions of active and .

inactive people in the economy dramatically. The convivial   sector will then grow very rapidly. The 1  invisible hand1

would be an increasingly inappropriate method of   determining the allocation of national budgets.

19

At present, more people are employed for wages in the

market sector, than in the convivial sector, but the latter

may have greater capacity for future job creation. (When

unpaid domestic workers - housewives - are taken into  account,  the convivial sector i^s larger already.) There

is a sumbiosis between growth in the market sector and  second and third order effects in the convivial one:  high

technology 'sunrise' industries (market sector) will not

be large employers per se but should be significant wealth  generators, with direct impact on employment in research  and education (largely convivial) and through taxation

making significant transfer payments to welfare (wholy

convivial)  .

It seems clear that the two greatest areas of employment

growth in the 1980s will be in leisure and education.

Since the 1970s, in the US and Europe employment and

expenditure has grown rapidly in these areas:  beauty care,   gardening, photography, video equipment and hire,  sport,

music (in 1973-74 Abba made more profit than Volvo),  gambling,  eating out, tourism, accommodation, the arts

generally,  hobbies, crafts, collectibles (in the US Tiffany  lampshades which were denied houseroom for decades were

selling for up to $70,000 in auctions), and fitness (where  $65 billion was outlaid in the US in 1982). The same trends

are already apparent here.  :

In Australia we aborted the educational revolution before

it reached.the working class. The people most threatened  by the post industrial transition: We adopted what Raymond

Williams calls 'that odd English principle'  that those who

are slowest to learn should have the shortest time to  learn, while those who learn quickly will be able to extend

the process for many years longer. It would make more

social sense to reverse this.

20

I have been arguing fur years that the 1  Informal' i  on *  sector

of the labour force in a four sector analysis is capable  of great expansion, but only if we make the transition from

'passive' to 'active'. This could only be done if we had

a far higher public commitment to education,  both in

quality and quantity. As Professor Tom Stonier from  Bradford University told the National Techno! ogy. Conference

last week, education will be - must be - the largest of  all our future industries.

We lmust recognise Information as a factor in production  at least as significant as capital,  labour and land.  This

point is made eloquently in Stonier's new book The Wealth  of Information (Thames Methuen,  1983). There is an

inextricable link between the availability of education,   our capacity in Research and Development,  and the building

up of our knowledge base which must be the preconditions  for generating new and expanding work forms to compensate

for those in irreversible decline,  and to generate new

wealth.

All we need is the confidence, will and persistence to  pursue the Convivial Society. I am confident that we can  succeed and that we are well on the way.  .

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