When we consider the 6 major problems of humanity that Alice A. Bailey wrote about in the 1940's (book: Problems of Humanity), the problem of Capital, Labor and Employment is arguably the most demonstrative and influential of the major problems she wrote about. It literally involves every person on Earth who works, regardless of occupation or work location including anyone who interacts with products and services from their nation or any other. It involves economic systems, which largely drives the political, economic, social decisions and those persons or groups who control the means of production and the world's resources. This is a problem about how capitalism and materialism effects everyone in today's world.
Here at the beginning of the 21st century, the problems of Capital and Labor have evolved to create better relations between labor and management. This improved relationship has produced a more comfortable and productive workplace. However, given the sophistication of the world’s economy and workplace, issues between labor and management are more complex than in years past. They now involve new relationships that didn’t exist before, such as trade alliances among nations, redefining how business and commerce are conducted, teaching cooperation and goodwill in the workplace, changing attitudes toward protecting the environment and enabling the principle of sharing.
“The responsibility for the widespread misery to be found today in every country in the world lies predominantly at the door of certain major interrelated groups of business-men, bankers, executives of international cartels, monopolies, trusts and organizations and directors of huge corporations who work for corporate or personal gain. On the whole, They are not interested in benefiting the public except in so far that the public demand for better living conditions will enable them—under the Law of Supply and Demand—to provide the goods, the transportation, light and power which will in the long run bring in heavier financial returns. Exploitation of man-power, the manipulation of the major planetary resources and the promotion of war for private or business profit are characteristic of their methods.”
Problems of Humanity, p. 71
To better understand the influence and origins of today’s capitalists on governmental policy, one must look at historic developments, namely European history over the last 800 years. During this time, the power of wealthy landowners and the Church (the capitalists of their day), had a virtual total dominance over labor and the control of natural resources through the practice of feudalism. Later, during the age of Exploration (ca. 1500), many nations of Europe established trade and commerce with many cultures in remote areas of the globe. This can also be construed as the beginning of a conquest of the earth’s resources such as tea, silk, spices and of course gold. Here in the 21st century, as civilization has flourished in most parts of the world, petroleum has become the most valuable resource to control. In fact, for many nations around the world to maintain a prosperous economy and the welfare of their people, they are compelled to secure a continual access to the oil fields in Africa, the Middle East and the Americas.
We know that the quest for resources has dominated thinking of nations for centuries, but what were the conditioning factors that drove their conquests? For thousands of years, the rays have been present - conditioning and influencing how life, including the businessman and how his company is organized and operates. Over time, these ray energies, through their higher expression and distorted through their glamours has given rise to the modern capitalist. For example, the power of the 3rd ray manifests and capitalists took this energy and formed companies and corporations, which are organized in a structured way to make them function like a well run machine. The 6th Ray reveals that that power comes from a central source such as one authoritarian figure making decisions within a company. The 7th Ray, on the other hand has evolved many companies in the last 25 years to invite people within the company (group) to contribute to the whole (the company), thus diffusing the power of central figure’s policies. The 7th Ray also presents the concept of unity or the strength of the group. This also manifests in people wanting to create mergers, alliances and trade pacts.
In a broader sense, the combined influence of the rays and man’s reactions to them, that has contributed to the consumer driven, materialistic civilization we now live in. This influence has not been entirely a healthy one. Ironically, due to the success of intelligent business practices around the world, humanity has created for itself a civilization that constantly demands products and services 24/7. This civilization as we have allowed it to evolve, has severely impacted life, stressed the environment, depleted the world’s resources and has clouded any clear vision for a sustainable future. It is precisely due to a lack of long term vision and wisdom that the current power and influence of the corporation, poses the most significant threat to world peace and stability because of their effect on the environment, their influence over the world’s governments, economies and culture.
Labor and Management – a long term relationship
We’ve looked at corporations and their development, but what of the worker that directly contributed to the companies success? For the worker in Western nations, just in the last 100 years, so many positive changes have occurred regarding labor’s working conditions, company benefits and their interaction with management, that they cannot all be listed here. However, one of the major changes that’s occurred is the value placed on the contribution of the employee to the company's success. Employees are now treated as strong contributors to fulfilling the business goals and policies of the company. In the US, the company values highly skilled workers by rewarding them with benefits, such as higher salaries or wages, bonuses and special pension plans. In Europe, the full time worker has full medical benefits and enjoys 5-6 week vacations per/year. Similar benefits, although more sparse can also be found in Japan and other Asian nations.
In an effort to attract workers who are well educated and experienced to a particular profession, job recruiters search out the best skilled workers and offer them more money and benefits to work for a competing corporation. This weakens the sense of loyalty that the professional worker has for his company and makes many workers more transient. In most cases, the American worker has much greater mobility and can move to another job easier than most places in the world due to a number of favorable economic conditions in the US, such as available and more affordable housing. In Europe and Asia, this type of free movement of the labor force is much more difficult and expensive.
Among the greatest changes in the workplace for the worker is the relationship between the worker and their employer. For example, in the last 25 years many companies have adopted open door policies to encourage direct communication. This is management’s desire to institute cooperative business practices with their employees. This policy allows the average worker in the company to talk directly to the company’s leadership and offer suggestions and in so doing, participate in the company's success. This practice when used, encourages loyalty and a sense of responsibility among the company’s personnel. In some cases, workers can actually receive a monetary reward for a suggestion that helps the company. Other positive changes for protecting the worker include the enactment of anti-sexual harassment policies, anti-discrimination laws and worker’s compensation. In addition, the Family and Medical Leave Act passed by the US Congress in the late 1990’s, allows the employee to leave their job for up to 12 weeks while preserving their job. This law is mainly designed for maternity leave but can also be used for family emergency situations such as death in the family and caring for another sick family member.
In Asia, e.g. China and Japan, protection for the worker is considerably more precarious than in Western nations. There, laws protecting the worker hardly exist. In many places of China and Japan, if a worker is injured while on the job and makes a claim, the government tends to side with the company. Since there are few experts in disability law or advocates representing the legal rights for the worker, any disability claims made by the worker are difficult to resolve.
Millions of people from numerous Asian countries often contribute to the labor pool in countries distant from their homes. Even if they do hold labor contracts, employers have been known to run off when they can't come up with workers' wages. Arbitration in China, for example is a complicated and time-consuming process, impossible to initiate when one works all day and irrelevant if no labor contract is signed. For China's migrant workers, confrontation is often the only way to obtain their wages. Recently, China's government’s state run media has touted the success of courts in helping migrant laborers receive unpaid wages after successful arbitration. Through the economic ties and political influence of the Western corporations in China for example, working conditions and benefits will improve over time for the average worker.
With regards to immigration, another issue exists about restrictions on immigration for workers coming from Asia to Europe and workers wanting to immigrate or work in the United States. Per EU agreements, migrant-citizens can freely travel within the 27 countries of the EU. Although migrants coming from abroad (such as from Turkey, Africa, Asia and Eastern Europe) are allowed into the EU to work, they are often treated as second-class citizens throughout the EU. Locals accuse the migrants of increasing unemployment, establishing ghettos and driving down wages. Much of these claims are unfounded but the feelings persist. In the US, the problems over Mexicans crossing the border illegally and working in the US is also a major political issue and an ongoing controversy.
"Wrong capitalist practices caused labor unionism. The conditions were so bad that the public supported the right to strike at its own obvious inconvenience and the momentum of the picture of the sufferings of the laborer remains as a hangover habit of attitude unreal in fact in the case of almost all strikes. If those controlling labor policies do not see the handwriting on the wall, the public will ultimately abandon their labor support, the right-to-strike laws will lose their chief remaining weapon which is, hurt the public enough."
Things to Come (Foster Bailey) p. 193
Most of the tensions between labor and management in the last couple of centuries have been around workplace and benefits issues. In the US workplace, the employee is expected to work and produce more. In many other countries, the motivation and expectation is often not quite as strong and thus their ability for producing more goods and services is less. It wasn’t until the latter half of the 20th century that the skilled worker began to be seen as a valuable asset to the company. Often companies and corporations were controlled by greedy and authoritarian bosses who were unwilling to share the companies’ prosperity, largely made possible by that individual worker. Gradually, as the decades passed, the worker has gained more benefits and shared in the company’s success.
With the main weapons of the union being able to organize and strike, they forced many companies to grant the average worker benefits such as more reasonable working hours, better pay and better working conditions. In the post-WWII era, labor unions continued to exist but began to lose control because some of them became too greedy. Today, labor unions in the US still exist but are considerably weaker in influence. What remains comprise mainly the teamsters union of truck drivers, warehouse workers, auto plant workers, United Farm Workers and Teacher’s unions.
Educational facilities also grew and with this came the demand by the laboring classes for better living conditions, higher pay and more leisure. This the employers have constantly fought; they organized themselves against the demands of the awakening mass of men and precipitated a condition which forced labor to take action.
Problems of Humanity, p 75
The unions were largely successful in creating better working conditions and better benefits for the average worker. There have been however, some unforeseen negative consequences for American workers. Now that the worker gets paid more, has better working conditions and benefits, this has cost the employer more money to operate. As a result, this has contributed to the company not being able to profitably operate in the US anymore. Consequently, many manufacturers in clothing, computers, tools and equipment have relocated offshore to other developing countries such as Bermuda, China, India, and Central America. This allows the company to operate and make a product for a fraction of what it would comparatively cost to make in America. The net result, dozens of manufacturing plants and warehouses have been closed across the US, particularly in the South and New England where thousands have been put out of work.
Another recent phenomena in the last 10-15 years in the US, has been a shortage of engineers to work in the technical fields. This issue is most visible in the flourishing computer industry where thousands of highly skilled people from India, Pakistan, Singapore, Southeast Asia and other countries are competing for American jobs. Many of these workers are highly skilled and will work for considerably less than their American counterparts. This has caused considerable tension in the white collar community in the US as the competition and demand for highly skilled jobs increases.
With the further expansion of the globalized economy, many companies in the US and Europe that own and manufacture technical products, such as computer software and hardware have expanded the offshore practice of hiring highly skilled technical support personnel. Just in the last 10 + years, India for example, supplies a significant share of workers who provide both excellent and cheap labor for computer manufacturers. “Offshoring” labor to India is largely a result of companies not wanting to pay the higher salaries and benefits to the similarly trained workers in America. This practice only benefits corporations for the short term. Over the long term, labor markets in both Europe and the United States will be hurt. This will inevitably cause less of a demand for jobs in the technical fields in the future and will ultimately limit the amount of research and development in the US.
Finally, billionaire capitalists Ted Turner, Bill Gates and Warren Buffet are using a portion of their wealth for philanthropic purposes. Ted Turner founded the organization “Responsible Wealth - a national organization of business leaders and other affluent Americans seeking to reduce economic inequality in the United States”. Bill Gates and Warren Buffet have teamed together to use a portion of their enormous wealth to help eliminate disease and pestilence in Africa. Bill Gates has contributed hundreds of millions of dollars towards putting computers in libraries across the United States and making the Internet accessible to those who can’t afford the computer and the Internet service.
“Problems of Capital, Labor and Employment” - Conclusions
“To own, to possess, and to compete with other men for supremacy has been the keynote of the average human being—man against man, householder against householder, business against business, organization against organization, party against party, nation against nation, labor against capital—so that today it is recognized that the problem of peace and happiness is primarily related to the world's resources and to the ownership of those resources.”
Problems of Humanity, p. 80
The principle that the Earth and its bountiful resources belong to all was elevated from the photography of the Apollo Missions of the 1960’s where we saw the Earth from space. For the first time, we saw our planet, whole with no borders or political boundaries. Up to this point, governments and society have not supported this concept but if humanity can realize its essential unity as one human family through education, we will be closer to embracing the concept that the planet and its riches belongs to all and not the selfish few. Here, in early part of the 21st century the spirit of humanity, despite its glamours and illusions, is driving onwards towards a more spiritual civilization and culture, with positive changes in the workplace, perhaps, being one of the most obvious examples.
In her book “Problems of Humanity”, Alice Bailey said “….the changes between capital and labor is a strive for freedom”. When the spiritual concept of freedom is fully realized from within by individuals and groups then the new paradigm will take shape on the physical plane and thus reflect this new understanding.
For centuries, both labor and capital are so inseparably connected, that any changes to either group will effect the other. With the continual advances in automation and technology we’ve seen a dramatic increase in productivity over the decades, which has benefited both capital and labor. This has made the workspace more amenable for the worker for promoting productivity and creativity and allowing the capitalist to be more prosperous. On the other hand, it should also be noted that automation has caused unemployment and created economic dead zones in many places of the world, e.g. United States South.
Among the greatest benefits (intangibles) and changes that have occurred that both labor and management (Capital) enjoy are:
- The principle of cooperation – for the business to expand and increase profits and expand it markets, capitalists have found a need to create new alliances, partnerships, through mergers and acquisitions
- Open door policy – This is managements’ desire to institute cooperative business practices with their employees. This gives the employee a way of participating in the operation of the company and a sense of ownership
- Advent of technology - The concept of a virtual team is used around the world. When people are located in different places, Internet technology such as e-mail and video-conferencing allow management and workers to be connected as a virtual team. With the virtual team located in multiple locations, each team and its members depend on each other to fulfill their responsibilities for keeping the company functioning.
We have also seen that just in the last 25 years for example, globalization is bringing together the political, economic and social elements of society under the guidance and control of the 3rd and 7th rays. This is another indication that the concept of unity is taking hold in the international political and economic consciousness despite the frictions of all the players. It should be noted that the activity of these rays and others will continue to influence civilization for hundreds of years into the future by conditioning humanity to create cross-border cooperation through trade.
Another challenge for humanity is that the continual want or desire for more products that drives consumerism. Capitalists are naturally responding to the public’s insatiable appetite for more products. This appetite, however has serious karmic consequences on the environment as corporations strive to meet consumers wants, they are depleting the Earth’s resources and creating more pollution. There’s no easy answers and civilization has become used to an increasing voracious desire for more products that the environment cannot sustain. Its the combination of grass roots organizations supporting sustainability, science showing us where we’re at and offering solutions and wise leadership from the governmental sector are what's needed to guide humanity at this critical juncture. From this must come the realization that consumerism can’t maintain its current pace if we want a vital and prosperous civilization for our children for generations to come.
It is the companies and capitalists particularly from the Western nations that have learned so much about the day-to-day interactions between labor and management. They know about how to successfully run a business and as a result have much to share of their knowledge and resources with other developing nations in Africa and Asia. It is a hope, that with the ever expanding globalized economy that capitalists and their economic ties with governments around the world, will continue to strive for creating a sustainable and more egalitarian economic system for everyone.
What are the Rays? see the following references for some background:
http://www.sevenraystoday.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_Rays
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