----- Original Message -----
From: Ed Weick
To: Keith Hudson
Sent: Tuesday, July 27, 2010 10:52 AM
Subject: Re: [Futurework] Servants and Nannies?
Some further thoughts, Keith. When one talked to people who did charitable
work in the Sao Paulo favelas -- teachers, social workers, missionaries, etc.
-- one topic that often came up was the general absence of a middle class in
Brazil. They had a point. Generally, a middle class's aspiration for children
is upward and, if it is large and powerful enough, it can have a substantial
influence on politics to ensure that some good things happen. People living in
the favelas couldn't or wouldn't generally do that. They were in their place
and knew that they and their children would have to stay there.
There was a middle class in Brazil when I was there in the late 1990's, but it
was too small and disjointed to be of much influence. But maybe things are
changing now. Brazil is one of the rapidly growing BRIC countries and it is
highly probable that many new opportunities are being created. It's quite
likely that some of the walls around the favelas are breaking down, enabling
kids like Anselmo and Veronique to get out and do something with their lives.
(KH) True, but we also have to remember that the rear cortex (where all the
basic skills are learned and constantly rehearsed) is irremediably shaped in
pre-puberty childhood. Nothing clearer than this has emerged from both the
neuroscience labs on the one hand and educational surveys on the other. The
vicious circle of experiential poverty has to be broken at a very young age but
even this would not be enough if there were not also a rich swathe of new
opportunities available for the post-puberty teenager to have a go at.
It would seem to me that it might not only be a rich swathe of new
opportunities that would be important here, but change in general. Consider
immigrants. In moving to, say, Canada, they would have to adapt to a variety
of new circumstances. They and their children would have to be in a learning
mode much of the time. It is only when things have become totally stuck and
there is no social change of any kind for prolonged periods that the brains of
pre-pubescent kids might not develop as they should.
Because I'm a pessimistic and depressive person (an economist!) I think we may
be heading to stuckness. Ever so much depends on the advanced world, but there
is growing evidence that it may not perform very well in coming decades.
Sovereign debt levels are very high and employment is growing. Economists who
are even more pessimistic than I are predicting a prolonged deflationary
period. If they are right, one has to wonder what it'll do to the rear cortex
of the young.
Ed
----- Original Message -----
From: Keith Hudson
To: RE-DESIGNING WORK,INCOME DISTRIBUTION, EDUCATION ; Ed Weick
Sent: Tuesday, July 27, 2010 9:42 AM
Subject: Re: [Futurework] Servants and Nannies?
Ed,
At 15:40 26/07/2010 -0400, you wrote:
(EW) Thank you, Keith. When it comes to education, I believe that the
greatest force for positive motivation is rapid social change and the prospect
of further social change. I was born in rural Saskatchewan during the early
years of the great depression. Things were absolutely hopeless at the time.
University, even high school, were viewed as reserved for the priveleged and
well to do at the time. Then the war came along and changed everything.
Enormous possibilities opened up and kids from formerly dirt poor families
could go to university if they wanted to. Even kids with backgrounds like mine
could think of getting good professional jobs in a rapidly changing world.
What say you to the notion that in whatever society there happens to be the
best motivation is the knowledge that there are definite opportunities ahead .
Even in a no-growth hunter-gatherer society the adolescent boys know that the
girls will only marry those who can demonstrate sufficient adult skills.
(EW) You mention the Sao Paulo favelas. I have no idea of what the favela
I was in, ironically called 'Heliopolis', is like now, but when I put in my
month there some thirteen years ago it was what might be called an 'enclosed
place'. No matter how bright you were, there was little hope of getting out.
Yes indeed, Anselmo put in long nights of study because he might try to get to
university, and little nine year old Veronique was doing better at the
charitably run English classes than most of the adults in the class, but what
hope was there really? Universities were free (I believe) but most entrants
were from families that could afford the tutoring that enabled kids to pass
difficult entrance exams. If Anselmo got in, he'd have to do it all by
himself. As for Veronique, as a teenager she became an organizer trying to
keep slum kids from sinking into the drug and crime world the favelas offered,
but I don't think she ever got out of the favelas herself. If she did, she'd
probably be putting her english to good use by doing nanny work in one of the
fancy hotels downtown.
All this is very tragic. What I was suggesting before is that this is the
same sort of bleak prospect which lies in front of increasing numbers of young
people in what economists still call "advanced" countries. For me to have
written this, say, 50 years ago when I was a young man, when interesting,
worthwhile jobs were opening up in any part of the country, would have been
crazy. Today it is a realistic statement for anything up to 20% of young people
in the UK and a great deal higher in many northern towns and cities, even in
some of the areas of the most prosperous cities in the south. This started
about 20 years ago -- from before the credit crunch -- and was infrequent
enough to be overlooked by most in a London-dominated society but it's crept up
on us ever since. In several European countries -- those that "graduated" from
agriculturalism (the "Med" countries) or from USSR-domination (the Baltic trio
of countries) -- jobless figures are much higher still.
(EW) So, for poor young people to have positive, uplifting views of life,
to see themselves as having possibilities, something around them has to be
changing for the better. Otherwise it can't happen. Farm kids stay on the
impoverished farm, kids in mining towns get jobs in the mines, kids in fishing
towns try to make a living catching fish, kids in the favelas peddle drugs, but
it's really all about getting from today to tomorrow, if you're lucky.
I think that Margaret Thatcher's statement that prosperity trickles down from
the elite to everybody is quite correct -- but only in expansionary times. In
static times, however -- never mind really bad times -- the trickle stops and
the elite become highly protective of their jobs and social networks. So, in
practice, we can only really hope for full, satisfying employment when the
present type of economy changes to something entirely new.
I don't believe that kids from the poorest stratas of society are less
intelligent than middle or upper class kids.
True, but we also have to remember that the rear cortex (where all the basic
skills are learned and constantly rehearsed) is irremediably shaped in
pre-puberty childhood. Nothing clearer than this has emerged from both the
neuroscience labs on the one hand and educational surveys on the other. The
vicious circle of experiential poverty has to be broken at a very young age but
even this would not be enough if there were not also a rich swathe of new
opportunities available for the post-puberty teenager to have a go at.
(EW) However, unlike the kids from the middle and high stratas, they mostly
live in an enclosed place with little hope of finding a way out.
Well, I'm not quite so pessimistic as this because 90% of new ideas occur to
young people. Usually, of course, the good ideas are immediately taken up and
exploited by the world at large and we forget their youthful origin. But today
we've never had such a high proportion of young, unoccupied people, nor have
they been so interconnected as they are today -- as they are, with their mobile
phones and Internet links (both of which will become increasingly cheap in the
years to come). If there's going to be the possibility of a path to a new way
of living and working -- a new type of economy in which everybody has a chance
of a worthwhile, satisfying occupation -- then I'm in no doubts whatsoever that
young people will find it -- not governments or adult institutions. But I'm
also fairly sure that a set of brand new technologies (particularly concerning
energy) must also be created, so it's very much a matter of repeating that "If"
Keith
Ed
----- Original Message -----
From: Keith Hudson
To: RE-DESIGNING WORK, INCOME DISTRIBUTION,EDUCATION
Sent: Monday, July 26, 2010 9:42 AM
Subject: Re: [Futurework] Servants and Nannies?
Ed,
I don't agree with the original author of the article that there'll be an
increasing servants and nannie class. (a) The middle class have a host of
labour-saving devices now. (b) The bottom classes are nowhere near as
conditioned and biddable as they were in pre-WW2 days. (c) Residences are
highly stratified now.The rich and the poor don't live adjacently as they used
to a century ago. The rich and the upper middle class are increasingly living
in highly secure areas with no entrance for anybody without a specific purpose.
As real value-adding work moves upstream (educationally) then I think the
underclasses and the poor will be left where they live now. Already in many of
our housing ('sink') estates in the UK the shops have long left, the police
hardly ever visit, community premises are vandalized, schools have the lowest
grades of teachers (either inexperienced or those who have failed elsewhere),
there are no sports facilities, social workers (who don't live there, of
course) work from steel-containers offices, etc, As the welfare state is cut
back due to the new austerity even social workers will make sure of scheduling
their daily diaries elsewhere. Welfare benefits will be delivered by Securicor
vans and armed guards. Very little private charity work will be taking place,
as in Victorian England because the worthy ladies are now at work (usually
earning salaries several times more than the average person could earn)..
I think many parts of the big cities and many peripheral housing estates
will look more and more like the favelas that you knew in Sao Paulo. The only
entities (apart from drug gangs) that I can think of which will want to go into
these areas in a meaningful way on a daily basis will be private schools so
long as they receive a decent income per pupil (e.g. the same as the per capita
cost of the present state system). They'll be looking for, and teaching, pupils
with exceptional talent who are being increasingly sought by the universities
and for which, in due course, bonuses (like soccer transfer fees) will be paid.
The new government in the UK, since its election a couple of months ago,
is already opening application lists for businesses, charities, groups of
parents, groups of teachers, who want to start new independent schools in
September this year. About 600 such have already applied. Almost all these
applications so far are from middle-class people for schools in middle-class
areas. But, in due course, -- if the present impetus is maintained -- I think
we might see an increasing number of business proposals by competent firms able
to move into the most broken-down, untruly areas and run fine schools for those
parents (probably mostly single parents) who are strongly motivated to see that
their children are given worthwhile skills.
There has been too much whiff-whaff about education in the past few
decades. It is not about " a desire for learning" or "creativity" or "opening
young minds", etc. This is fine for children of the elite and upper middle
class who already have social confidence before they go to school, who know
during school that it's highly likely that there'll be a good job for them
somewhere in their parents' world, who have time, leisure and sports facilities
in a secure environment. But for 70% of the children in the past 50 years most
post-puberty education at school has been a waste of time, and half of those
children have been actively alienated from anything to do with "learning". What
they've really wanted were tangible skills.
Keith
At 08:41 24/07/2010 -0400, you wrote:
If I read this correctly, we are heading for a major socio-economic
split. Those with an aptitude for IT and all of its uses will rise and
everybody else will fall. This suggests the emergence or continuity of yet
another socio-economic category, that of the care-givers and organizers.
Assuming the growth of an increasingly impoverished nanny class, a world could
emerge in which a great number of people have little to do other than bow,
scrape and mill about when they are not peddling drugs and commiting petty
crimes. Given that the IT class, the best and the brightest, will spend its
time perpetually staring into and poking at little machines, there will be a
great emergent need to ensure that society does not collapse into chaos. A
leadership class, perhaps consisting of some of the best and brightest will
have to be present to ensure that everyone has a chance of staying alive and
healthy. Or perhaps all I'm saying is that we might expect to see lawyers,
doctors, bureaucrats, social workers, police and politicians to continue to
organize and look after things whatever other splits occur in society.
However, they would be increasingly indebted to the IT overclass, which would
make life easier for them by poking away and devising new programs.
Ed
Keith Hudson, Saltford, England
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Keith Hudson, Saltford, England
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