I believe the key to a thriving society is meaningful fulfilling employment. This enables us to earn our living and support ourselves. It also gives us purpose (energy) and keeps us healthy. What do I mean by meaningful? Well, for me, meaningful means ethical…of positive good to society as a whole.

It is becoming increasingly difficult to find ethical employment. Many of us become wage slaves to predatory corporations only interested in maximising their shareholder value. (See [[A Stony Story]].) And it will get more difficult with the advance of artificial intelligence leading to more jobs lost (see [[Dependence on Machines]].)

YOUTUBE 1t-gK-9EIq4 Depeche Mode: Everything counts in large amounts

Ironically, if we don’t have a society based on meaningful employment, we create employment opportunities in crime and health. These are some of our biggest employers. Our police, lawyers and prisons service rely on crime. The health service relies on ill health. A plethora of charities rely on continuing problems to survive. This is a big incentive to ensure existing problems persist.

I ask what do we want? Do we want a society based on ill health, crime and predatory corporates? Or do we want a society based on meaningful employment? If, like me, you prefer the latter then there are things we can do about this together:

Firstly, we can stop supporting unethical businesses. This means thinking hard about where we spend our time (who we are prepared to work for) and money (what goods and services we buy and where.)

The vote that makes the key difference is not the vote we make every 5 years for a new government! It is the votes we make each day of our lives in the way we spend our time and money.

Wow! Isn’t that amazing. We are all so powerful!

Secondly, we can seek out and support ethical businesses. These are likely to be small and local. This is good because (a) the money stays local, and (b) it makes environmental sense. Thriving local businesses are a sign of a thriving community.

Thirdly, we can create new local ethical businesses. Note that this will only work if we support them (see my second point.) A great idea would be to help young people create new ethical local businesses. In this way we help prevent them becoming wage slaves in big corporates.

Fourthly, we can share this message. We can start local conversations in our communities about what we really want and support each other to help make it happen.