A GNA Feature by Rex Annan

Accra, Oct. 19, GNA - It is said that good name is better then riches but nowadays it appears Ghanaians do not attach much importance to 'dignity'.

In the not too distant past one could hear students in secondary schools saying this is 93infra dig=94 meaning that thing that particular person had done was not an acceptable behaviour.

Things seem to have changed. Today any behaviour seems to be acceptable. The chunk of the people has come to believe that the only way to get ahead in life is by avoiding doing what is right with the gift, and talent God has freely invested in us and choosing to cut corners. Ever so often, one hears some frightening commentaries that reflect the values of the times.

One hears people saying that even the Bible has it that a man shall eat from the altar where he works. So who needs to work hard? All you have to do is to know those influential people in the society and you are on your way.

This Writer wants to suggest that this approach to prosperity is not a sustainable path. And that is one of the reasons why the country remains, unfortunately, far from where it should be in terms of economic possibilities that are available to us.

The dignity of the human person is tied closely to work. And when we work well; when we recognise the dignity of other human beings as they work; we essentially elevate the ordinary to the level of the engagement of the divine.

In that process we create and in becoming co-creators with God, we get our own nourishment and are able to improve on the possibilities that are available to us.

One has heard it so often said that man works because man fell from grace, explaining that at the beginning of times, as stated in the book of Genesis, Adam fell into temptation. He, thus, had to live off the sweat of his forehead.

However a critical look at this interpretation of the Scriptures would reveal some flaws. This is because from the very beginning man was made and put in the Garden of Eden to tend it. The fact that he was put in the Garden to tend it indicates that man was designed to work. But he was to work in a context of a certain dignity and perhaps the nature of that dignity is what the challenges of man's fall may have to do with. But was man meant to work? Yes. Man eats from the bread produced by the work of his own hands. Since man eats of the bread produced from his hands, the need to work becomes fundamental to the nature of man. If work is fundamental to the nature of man; then it helps to define man. Therefore, man elevates himself when he does that work well. Those who deal with man in the context of work have to note the primacy of relationship between man and work. The proposition that work is a derivative or function of sin leads to and is at the heart of many false interpretations of the value of work today.

The challenge of the dignity of man begins to emerge in terms of the evolution of the means of production. The means of production essentially in the earliest of time were fairly simple, they were not complex. But when James Watts designed the steam engine, man was able to use power to produce more than he was able to produce before that time in the history of the human race.

And this puts man in a new peculiar position in terms of relationship between him and the machines of production. And the big challenge that bore out of that process of the industrial revolution is to determine who had a greater dignity 96 the means that lead to greater production (capital) or man.

In the course of the industrial revolution, there was a tendency to elevate the material above man. And this created much tension in Europe. The tension attracted philosophical re-examinations of the nature of the relationship between man and production.

Karl Marx's materialist interpretation of history came about as a reaction to the industrial revolution's attempt to place capital above man. But the Marxian thesis ended up becoming an extreme response, which did exactly the same thing that the capitalists were doing by again reducing man and elevating the material above man.

The struggle for the dignity of labour has essentially been rooted in the fact that man was designed to work for his goodness; the subject of work was man and not the object of work.

In an effort to understand why nations are poor, it comes out that there are a certain sets of key drivers that are responsible for economic advancement. And of these key drivers of course, is the human capital.

And human capital is not just an abstraction that deals with education and skills; it is about the skills of the human person in the context of the values of that person; how that human being is valued and his well-being.

Where there is no human capital, the dignity of the human person is undervalued and the performance in the work place is not optimal. The economies that have been competitive in recent history have been those economies that have been able to invest in human beings. This must have informed the decision of the Government to make the development of the human capital as one of pillars for overall national development.

Human being elevated above the machine uses his know-how, his sense of who he is to increase productivity and thereby increase value for the society.

With the value that is created for the society because man is able to produce, economic advancement takes place. The quality of life of people improves and man is able to live in harmony with his neighbour because he is not an object of deprivation that comes from poverty. The challenge, therefore, is to grow the skills and values of the people to them to the point where they would not be subject to capital but where capital is kept under subjugation and used to improve the quality of lives of the people.

Therein lies the dignity of the human person, therein lies the dignity of labour, therein lies the reason why everybody's role in an organisation - be they Cleaners or Chief Executives 96 must be respected.

Flowing from this is the necessity to treat every worker with compassion. Unless this is recognised, employees would always feel alienated and feeling of 93we versus them=94 would persist and thereby become continual source of discontentment at workplace. Greater effort needs to be exerted in bringing man into a greater participation in this co-creation business with God for a higher quality of life. 19 Oct. 06