On March 8-10 The University of Iowa hosted a conference on

OUR TIME FAMINE:
A CRITICAL LOOK AT THE CULTURE OF WORK AND A RE-EVALUATION OF 'FREE' TIME. 

                    *** ADVANCE PRESS RELEASE ***

Our mothers and fathers thought that ours would be the century when the
machine and technology freed human beings - freed us to live a life beyond
"necessity" and work, in which our major concern would be "the question of
freedom."   People who lived at the turn of the last century fully expected
that future generations would be better off not just in material goods, but
in the goods of life - in abundant hours and days free from jobs and economic
concerns.

But we who toil in the century's last decade dare not imagine such a thing.
Instead of our work continuing to decline, as it did, steadily, for a
hundred and fifty years before mid-century, it has expanded.  Now more of our
populations work, and more of us work longer hours than our mothers and
fathers.  Instead of proving to be "labor saving devices," our machines
create more work for more of us to do!  Instead of the "problem" of leisure,
we face an array of problems caused by overwork;  such as families that erode
because we have no time to be at home, troubled and troubling young people
who share little or no time with adults, anemic communities bled dry of time,
their life's blood, and institutions that focus solely on teaching people how
to work rather than how to live together freely.

Even though ours has become the wealthiest nation in history, we languish in
a time famine with no relief in sight.  What happened? 

This conference will bring together leading historians, economists,
educators, labor leaders, and politicians to explore the phenomenon of work's
expansion, the problems overwork has caused, and possible ways to address
them.

The historical rise of the culture of work and the politics of work creation
will be critically investigated.  Alternative historical visions of active
and democratic cultures based in time outside modern work and consumerism
will be remembered.  The recent, unfortunate results of work's ascendancy
will be explored, including;  the maldistribution of work (the widening
division between the overworked with good jobs and the under-worked who are
unemployed or marginally employed); the time-starvation of families; and the
decay of communities and institutions outside work/consumption/mass
amusements in what Jurgen Habermas calls the "collapse of the discussional." 

Traditional, but neglected solutions and remedies, alternative to the
prevailing faiths in perpetual economic growth and politics of eternal work
creation, will be investigated, including;  work redistribution (or work
sharing); regeneration of what Cornel West called "democratic culture" in
leisure, and volunteerism.  Strategies to reclaim free public spaces
"outside" work/consumerism/amusements, and recover "free activities" that
return culture making and transmission to the communities will be proposed.