MessageJust a few points on this. One is the impact of internet technology on the number of jobs available. When I started work in the federal bureaucracy some five decades ago, there were no computers. There were steno pools to take dictation and type up your message, and messengers to deliver it. That's all gone. Another is that assembly lines were not automated. Workers were still needed to put things together. That's changed considerably. Yet another was bargaining power. Unionization was widely prevalent. Now it continues to exist in the public sector but has almost disappeared in the private sector. Even in the public sector unions no longer have the power they once had and governments, facing huge debts, are cutting back. And of course there is globalization, which has provided access to cheap labour, even highly sophisticated cheap labour, in other parts of the world.
What appears to have happened over the years is that while we are now very widely connected globally, we are far less closely connected locally. When I use an 800 number, I make a point of asking where the person I'm talking to is located. The answers are quite surprising -- the Phillipines is an example. Perhaps a rebuilding of local economies and the use of local currencies is an answer, but things seem to be moving the other way. With all of the foregoing trends, one thing that is particularly worrisome is that people no longer seem to give much of a damn about each other. Partly because of the growing importance of the finance, insurance and real estate sector in the advanced world, the very rich are getting very much richer, the middle class is fading out, and the growing number of poor are getting poorer. Not sure of what can be done about the foregoing. And because global population is growing and resource scarcities are bound to occur, perhaps there isn't much that can be done about it. Perhaps, before too long, the advanced world will be faced with the same kinds of rebellions of the young now occurring in the Midle East and North Africa. And then what? Ed ----- Original Message ----- From: Michael Gurstein To: [email protected] ; 'RE-DESIGNING WORK, INCOME DISTRIBUTION,EDUCATION' Sent: Monday, March 07, 2011 8:34 AM Subject: Re: [Futurework] NYTimes.com: Degrees and Dollars Thanks very much for this Sally... It is an argument that has been waiting to be made for almost a generation -- going back to the earliest days of automating white collar work in offices. The question is where to go with this... As I mentioned in the blogpost I pointed out to Lawry, the issue being raised here is probably most immediate in the MENA revolution countries since the revolution there was in large part by youth against their immediate situation of unemployment, including the unemployment among educated youth. The solution that will need to be found will not be the easy one (sufficient only to postpone the requirement to address the issue directly) that is how to create meaningful employment for vast numbers of young people when the solutions of "modernization" i.e. neo-liberal privatization, automation, outsourcing etc. have (even if corruptly) been partially introduced already over the last half dozen years at the urging of the usual gang of Big Four consultatns, World Bank, IMF, USAID etc.etc. (I've discussed this to a limited degree in a different blogpost on Tunisia http://wp.me/pJQl5-4o My feeling is that there will be a need to change the paradigm and go for intensification of human service delivery (with ICT supports) and withdrawal from global markets especially for services and very likely the use of alternative currencies to pay for this through local exchange systems rather than globally convertible ones. It will be wrenching and may not be possible but the current track to my mind, at least in those countries and others (with the likely exception of China and possibly India) is more or less completely blocked. Nothing of this is of course, possible in the short run in the US--we've seen the reaction to the beginnings of this for years there already with the vast increase in the numbers incarcerated, the dumbing down of the education system which reduces the demand for intellectually fullfilling jobs, and the externatlization of the anger onto immigrants. Mike -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of [email protected] Sent: Monday, March 07, 2011 9:58 AM To: [email protected] Subject: [Futurework] NYTimes.com: Degrees and Dollars This page was sent to you by: [email protected] OPINION | March 07, 2011 Op-Ed Columnist: Degrees and Dollars By PAUL KRUGMAN The hollow promise of good jobs for highly educated workers. Copyright 2011 The New York Times Company | Privacy Policy ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ _______________________________________________ Futurework mailing list [email protected] https://lists.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework
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