Ed,
At 15:14 27/07/2010 -0400, you wrote:
(EW) 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.
Yes, a good point. But it was surely a case of there having been an
insufficiently sizeable middle class? It seems to me that all
post-hunter-gatherer societies have had middle-classes -- small nuclei of
stewards/advisors around land-owners in agricultural cultures, a much
broader swathe arising during industrialization. And, surely, it is not
just the middle-class that have upward aspirations -- potential ones
anyway, if there are opportunities.
(EW) 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.
I would doubt that very much is happening there by way of new opportunities
(though this is only a guess, of course -- I know very little about
Brazil). In 19th century England the pace of industrialization was so wide
and so rapid that much of the new middle-class was due to upwardly aspiring
working-class people, whereas in 20th century England the middle-class was
consolidating (together with several socio-economic strata below it -- as
able to be well-defined by governmental statisticians, but would have made
little sense in the previous century).
(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.
(EW) 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.
Yes, but what I find extraordinarily interesting is the differential
success of different ethnic immigrant groups. It's as though they don't
absorb/learn/are not constrained by the host country's culture completely
but find chinks in it, push their way through and express themselves to
much further extents (positively or negatively) than might be expected. For
example, in 1972, 30,000 Hindu Indian shop-keepers and businessmen kicked
out from Uganda by Amin in 1972 were offered asylum in the UK. They were
largely penniless when they arrived and had to exist initially on welfare.
However, as a body, they've thrived far beyond the average English person,
and now have many businesses (there are even two or three billionaires).
They shine academically and have become doctors and lawyers, etc far beyond
their proportion. However, I can think of two more sizeable ethnic
immigrant groups of the same era, this time directly recruited (one by
government departments mainly, the other by industry) into full-time jobs
but which subsequently fastened onto welfare benefits in a big way. Each
subsequently recruited at least half a million more of their kin to share
in the largesse. Neither has integrated with the English culture and so far
shows little sign of doing so. One dominates violent crime and hard drugs,
the other largely lives as a distinctly separate culture in largish areas
of some cities .
(EW) 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.
True, but I was thinking mainly about the restricted development of
children in their very earliest years when at home. In the case of one of
the ethnic groups mentioned above the majority of the children are raised
by single mothers. Teachers in many large-city primary schools are now
saying that an increasing proportion of children who start school have only
learned English passively, mainly stuck in front of TV, and have to be
taught to converse.
(EW) 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.
Well, whatever the (manipulated) GDP economic growth figures might say the
Western world is certainly in a deflationary period right now. Fortunately
it looks as though, on balance, Obama won't unleash any more substantial QE
on his side of the water.
But I think the whole problem of Western countries is much deeper than is
usually portrayed. It's something to do with the overall cost structure of
our urban way of life and of the accumulation of mass -- albeit largely
invisible -- inefficiencies, of the breakdown in the chain of novel
consumer goods, of no jobs for a growing number of the young, of parents
not bringing a replacement number of children into the world, etc.
Just as hunter-gatherers reached the end of their road (in simple terms,
shortage of prey) and agriculturalists reached the end of theirs (in simple
terms, too much population for the land available) so this industrial
society has also reached the end of the road (even though we can't yet
express it in simple terms). I cannot see any way forward without a new
socio-economic system but this, as in the two previous cases, will have to
await a new energy technology as its basis.
Keith
----- Original Message -----
From: <mailto:[email protected]>Keith Hudson
To: <mailto:[email protected]>RE-DESIGNING WORK,INCOME
DISTRIBUTION, EDUCATION ; <mailto:[email protected]>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: <mailto:[email protected]>Keith Hudson
To: <mailto:[email protected]>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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Keith Hudson, Saltford, England
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