THE THIRD WAVE

The same principle can be extended to other functions of the family as well. Families should be encouraged to take a larger—not smaller—role in the education of the young. Parents willing to teach their own children at home should be aided by the schools, not regarded as freaks or lawbreakers. And parents should have more, not less, influence on the schools.

At the same time much could be done by the schools themselves to create a sense of belonging. Instead of grading students purely on individual performance, some part of each student’s grade could be made dependent on the performance of the class as a whole or some team within it. This would give early and overt support to the idea that each of us has responsibility for others. With a bit of encouragement, imaginative educators could come up with many other, better ways to promote a sense of community.

Corporations, too, could do much to begin building human ties afresh. Third Wave production makes possible decentralization and smaller, more personal work units. Innovative companies might build morale and a sense of belonging by asking groups of workers to organize themselves into mini-companies or cooperatives and contracting directly with these groups to get specific jobs done.

This breakup of huge corporations into small, self-managed units could not merely unleash enormous new productive energies but build community at the same time.

Norman Macrae, deputy editor of The Economist, has suggested that “Semi-autonomous teams of perhaps six to 17 people, who choose to work together as friends, should be told by market forces what module of output will be paid for at what pay rates per unit of output, and then should increasingly be allowed to produce it in their own way.”

Indeed, continues Macrae, “those who devise successful group friendship cooperatives will do a lot of social good, and perhaps will deserve some subsidies or tax advantages.” (What is particularly interesting about such arrangements is that one could create cooperatives within a profit-making corporation or, for that matter, profit-making companies within the framework of a socialist production enterprise.)

Corporations could also look hard at their retirement practices. Ejecting an elderly worker all at once not only deprives the individual of a regular, full-size paycheck, and takes away what society regards as a productive role, but also truncates many social ties. Why not more partial retirement plans, and programs that assign semi-retired people to work for understaffed community services on a volunteer or part-pay basis?

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