Peter,
I get the sense that you may be reading more into my comments than I wrote
into them. I am certainly not advocating legal rights as the sole or even
primary instrument for alleviating poverty. And I strongly agree with your
reservations about the questionable potency, lack of uniformity and
vulnerability of such an approach. However, where I see the issue of legal
rights as important is as a last resort -- better a blunt instrument than no
instrument at all.
I also agree that we need to be realistic about the capacity of policy
instruments -- both their limited capacity to do what we want them to do and
their perverse potential to do what we don't want them to do. You mention
your reservations about using the state's coercive power to redistribute
working hours and here's where I have to question whether you might be
responding to conventional proposals for shortening the work week rather
than to the position that I actually hold. I maintain that the state
_already_ uses its coercive powers extensively, albeit unintentionally, to
redistribute work time. Not only is that a blunt instrument, but an utterly
pointless one. It is extremely difficult to get people and states to stop
doing something that has become a habit. If the effects are unintended, it
is even harder to get people to admit that the results derive from their own
actions. By the way, this fits one definition of madness: doing the same
thing over and over and expecting different results.
Which brings me to a question about the Project on Governance Implications
of Labour Market Polarization. It seems to me that the key terms of
"governance" and "polarization" portend troubling issues regarding the
foundations for a democratic society. With this in mind, I would like to
inquire about the criteria governing who is involved in the research group:
who gets access to the group's deliberations and on what terms? who controls
the process? and to whom must the process be legitimated?
More specifically, I would be interested in knowing what proportion of the
research group's members have made a claim for employment/unemployment
insurance during, say, the last five years? What proportion of the group
have experienced frequent and/or extended periods of joblessness during the
past ten years? What proportion of the research group are members of
households with incomes qualifying them for maximum child tax benefits? What
proportion of the group have received social assistance in the past five
years? ten years? ever? What proportion of the group work at minimum wage
jobs? What proportion work part-time or on-call even though they would
rather work full-time?
I ask these questions with all due respect to the intelligence, insight and
integrity of group members. I fully expect that there are members of the
research group whose analyses I would embrace. It just seems to me -- and I
note Thomas Lunde's and Colin Stark's similar comments -- that there are a
lot of people whose voices don't get heard or acknowledged on labour market
issues. I would also be most grateful if you would pass these questions on
to the other members of the group and to Harvey Lazar.
Regards,
Tom Walker
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Vancouver, B.C.
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The TimeWork Web: http://www.vcn.bc.ca/timework/
