[p2p-research] What's different about this economic downturn? -- the severe unemployment

Mon Sep 7 15:28:08 CEST 2009

Your arguments make sense on labour, Michel.  I'm not sure they are more
explanatory than others, but they make sense.  I do believe automation is
starting to bite significantly.  I agree that Paul is a bit out there on his
claims from my perspective, but I see the trend he senses coming.  The whole
of the service industry rise was about automation in a sense...computers,
specifically.  It is getting far worse.  I see it in government every day
where we could trivially automate away thousands of jobs and choose not
to.   It is the loss of a concept of value for money that is twisting
capitalism so badly now.  Markets just don't work for labor...without
complete mayhem ensuing.

I disagree with Sam on US corruption and have a lot of first hand data on
this topic...the perception is certainly true.  But I don't wish to find
myself defending US corporate interests which are dirty enough for me.
They're just not MORE dirty than the rest...and often are less
so--demonstrably.  I'd rate Italy, Russia and the UK amongst the worse for
corruption for mainline countries.  Transparency International is good on
both government and non-government topics here.  Most of the good governance
research and ideas ironically comes out of US business schools.  It isn't
offsetting for the harm, but it is still welcome.  The US corruption is out
in the open because we have a better and larger set of journalists than most
nations.  Again, perceptions are otherwise, but the US is overwhelmingly
bigger in blogging, small journalism outlets, offstream magazines, etc.
Most nations rely on a quality core (e.g. BBC / Economist) the US has
thousands of options to Russia, Britain, Germany or Chinas few.

Asia is the future of work...long hours, high stress, high GINI indices.  I
wish the future was Germany...high skill, low stress.  I do believe there is
far more human capital than we could ever put to productive use now.  My own
guess is that means exterminations in one way or another.  I really don't
share the view of most here that things turn out happy and healthy.  I work
for that...but I doubt that it will come to pass.  Of course I hope I am
wrong.  Perhaps it is the way my brain is wired, but I definitely sense
disaster looming...not prosperity and happiness.  That is why I relish
reading Paul's long paeans to progress.  It gives me a bit of hope.

Ryan

On Mon, Sep 7, 2009 at 2:15 AM, Michel Bauwens <michelsub2004 at gmail.com>wrote:

> within capitalism, jobs are dependent on the demand side ... and the policy
> of neoliberalism has been to gut the popular demand side by focusing on the
> top 1-10% .. if you'd restore the part of labour, demand would be restored
> ...
>
> overemployed is more difficult to gauge, certainly if you live in one of
> the East Asian countries which has chosen industrious development over
> industrial development, then you'd see that a typical westerner is doing the
> job of 3-4 people over here .. so it doesn't look much like overemployment
> seen from this side ... I would rather say most people are overworked, hence
> there is underemployment ..
>
> overpricing is I guess a matter of global competition ... services are less
> subject to that than industrial products and the more complexity embedded in
> knowledge work, the more unique it becomes ...
>
> there is another way to look at it: as we are able to be more and more
> productive and create more and more social wealth, many people could share
> more of humanity's wealth ... but this requires a different redistribution
> of human wealth ..
>
> I do not give credence though to the automation argument of paul .. this
> has been a recurrent theme in every crisis, yet employment has been growing
> steadily, with woman entering the workforce etc... The simple reason is:
> human needs are evolving,and there is plenty of cultural work, environmental
> work, relational work that is very hard to automate, and even should not be
> automated ... (machine massage sucks, for example, because it doesn't give
> you the human relation that is part and parcel of such a service). There is
> enough 'work' for everybody, even given industrial automation,
>
> but of course, a deeper question is whether we should continue to talk
> about 'work' at all ..
>
> Michel
>
>   On Sat, Sep 5, 2009 at 8:38 PM, Ryan Lanham <rlanham1963 at gmail.com>wrote:
>
>>  For those watching for the end of capitalism...it is the loss of
>> employment that has people particularly spooked.  No one knows where future
>> paying jobs are coming from...several industries...e.g. academia, social
>> networking, manufacturing, traditional energy, banking, law, government,
>> seem overpriced and overemployed.
>>
>> http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/20090904.gif
>>
>> --
>> Ryan
>>
>>
>>
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-- 
Ryan Lanham
rlanham1963 at gmail.com
Facebook: Ryan_Lanham
P.O. Box 633
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