I would opt as well for massage "therapists"... But we need only do a search on Craigslist for services offered for the correct terminology... This bridges very well BTW into the economy of "experiences" as the next stage beyond the economy of "things" (the point I was making countering Keith's continuing hypothesis re: the drive for novelty of consumption being the basis for economic "growth".
M -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Arthur Cordell Sent: Saturday, July 24, 2010 4:36 AM To: 'RE-DESIGNING WORK, INCOME DISTRIBUTION,EDUCATION'; 'Keith Hudson' Subject: Re: [Futurework] Servants and Nannies? Not servants or nannies. How about personal trainer and/or personal stylist. arthur -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Sandwichman Sent: Friday, July 23, 2010 4:01 PM To: Keith Hudson; RE-DESIGNING WORK, INCOME DISTRIBUTION, EDUCATION Subject: Re: [Futurework] Servants and Nannies? "there is no reason to believe that these armies of servants and nannies won't earn decent wages..." -- Annalee Newitz Such an oddly magical statement of untruth. There are plenty of reasons to expect less than decent wages, beginning with current wages levels for servants and child care workers, continuing on to trends in wages over the last thirty years and concluding with the projected elimination of other options resulting in a buyers' market for servant labor. On Fri, Jul 23, 2010 at 11:06 AM, Keith Hudson <[email protected]> wrote: > From Forbes magazine, 23 July > > Will Your Children Grow Up To Be Servants And Nannies? > > Reihan Salam > > > > Why the labor market of the future will be even more polarized. > > Will large numbers of today's children grow up to become servants and > nannies in the homes of the digital bourgeoisie? There is good reason > to believe that the answer is yes. > > The most pressing issue of the day remains sky-high unemployment. > There is, > however, almost no consensus about how to think about the the depth of > the problems facing the U.S. labor market. Many believe that the > staggering unemployment rate is purely cyclical. Karl Smith, an > economist at the UNC School of Government, has written a post on "the > myth of structural unemployment", arguing that "the structure of the > American economy hasn't changed that much in the last 24 months." > > Yet one wonders if the last 24 months are the right place to look. In Wired > for Innovation, MIT economist Erik Brynjolffson and Adam Saunders of Wharton > offer an insightful portrait of how the U.S. economy has evolved over > the last decade. Their analysis strongly suggests that the shift > toward a more IT-intensive economy will lead to even more polarization > of the U.S. labor market. Brynjolffson has dubbed the "Great > Recession" a "Great Restructuring," adding gravitas to arguments > advanced by thinkers like Jeff > Jarvis and Richard Florida who've argued in a similar vein. "As growth > resumes," Brynjolffson writes, "millions of people will find that > their old > jobs are gone forever." > > Smith is undoubtedly right that we can't neglect the cyclical > dimension, and > that journalists and would-be visionaries have a tendency to grasp at > sweeping rather than narrowly tailored explanations for high > unemployment. In Smith's view, for example, construction employment > will likely recover, as the building boom of the 2000s was not out of > step with the earlier building boom of the 1970s. But consider the > following counterfactual. As Barry LePatner argued in Broken > Buildings, Busted Budgets, the trillion-dollar U.S. construction > sector is unusually fragmented and undercapitalized, and thus ripe for > consolidation. Economic as well as environmental imperatives could > drive consolidation, leading to a construction sector that is leaner, > more skill-intensive and more IT-intensive. This would mean far higher > productivity. And it would also mean that the labor market position of > less-skilled construction workers would deteriorate. > > There will, of course, always be a place for less-skilled workers, > albeit at > low wages. At a certain point, wages in the informal sector might look like > a more attractive alternative. Discouraged workers who've stopped > looking for work in the mainstream economy would, in this scenario, > remain on the margins. Indeed, the steady deterioration in the labor > market position of less-skilled men is one key reason why male labor > force participation has declined so markedly over the last 30 years. > The pressing question is whether we are likely to see this trend > accelerate. > > Between 1973 and 1995 U.S. labor productivity grew at an average rate > of 1.4% a year, a rate that means living standards would take 50 years > to double. In contrast, the 2.7% growth rate in productivity from 1948 > to 1972 > doubled productivity in 26 years. And that earlier period is > remembered as an economic Golden Age, when working and middle class > Americans saw extraordinary progress in their living standards and the > U.S. economy was without peer. > > From 1995 to 2000 the productivity growth rate increased to 2.6% per > year, almost matching the Golden Age. As Brynjolffson and Saunders > observe, this productivity boom was traced to the deployment of IT > investment across a wide range of sectors, particularly retail. The > more interesting productivity boom, however, occurred between 2001 and > 2003, when the productivity growth rate hit 3.6% per year. This > productivity spike was driven less by investments in IT than by > investments in organizational capital, a catch-all term for > productivity-enhancing business practices. > > The authors observe a sharp divergence between firms that successfully > transformed themselves into effective digital organizations and those > that did not. Very bluntly, digital organizations flourish while > others wither and die. Brynjolffson and Wharton economist Lorin Hitt > identified the defining characteristics of digital organizations, and > the most striking were those centered on valuing the strongest > performers within an > organization: In digital organizations, employees are empowered to make > decisions and they are subject to performance-based incentives. Recruiting > and investing in top performers is a high if not the highest priority. > > The logical implication is that the transition to digital > organizations is a > recipe for even more inequality. In "Performance Pay and Wage > Inequality," economists Thomas Lemieux, W. Bentley MacLeod, and Daniel > Parent maintain that the increasing use of performance pay can account > for "nearly all of the top-end growth in wage dispersion". Assuming > this pattern holds, there is no reason to believe that we will see any > decrease in wage dispersion. Quite the opposite: The most skilled > workers will cluster in digital organizations, and wages at the top > will continue to expand at a healthy clip. > > This raises the question of what will happen to those trapped in the > low end > of the labor market. Recently, the cultural critic Annalee Newitz > offered a > provocative hypothesis: "We may return to arrangements that look a > lot like > what people had over a century ago," Newitz writes. As more skilled > women enter the workforce, and as the labor market position of > millions of less-skilled workers deteriorate, we'll see more servants > and nannies in middle-class homes. While this future might seem > disturbing at first, there > is no reason to believe that these armies of servants and nannies > won't earn > decent wages. But let's just say that this isn't the future most of us > envision for our children. > > Reihan Salam is a policy advisor at e21 and a fellow at the New > America Foundation. The co-author of Grand New Party: How Republicans > Can Win the Working Class and Save the American Dream, he writes a > weekly column for Forbes. for Forbes. > > Keith Hudson, Saltford, England > > _______________________________________________ > Futurework mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework > > -- Sandwichman _______________________________________________ Futurework mailing list [email protected] https://lists.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework _______________________________________________ Futurework mailing list [email protected] https://lists.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework _______________________________________________ Futurework mailing list [email protected] https://lists.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework
