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

Mon Sep 7 16:06:55 CEST 2009

Hi Michel,

I don't know much about Asia.  I have studied with many from the nations
there, but I have not travelled in Asia as I have in the Caribbean or Africa
or Europe.  I believe Thailand is undoubtedly a very special culture and
have known many charmed by its ethos.  I would hesitate to say poverty in
Asia has more dignity from what I know of India and China...my sister-in-law
is Chinese and my brother-in-law (her husband) speaks excellent Chinese and
the stories they tell are devistating.  It doesn't start or end with girl
children, etc.  It goes throughout workplace violations with horrible
chemicals, unprotected machine tools used by children, etc.  I've even heard
horror stories from Taiwan.

The US and Western Europe dealt with child labor laws 100 years ago.  I
regularly saw children working (often as slaves, I'm sure...in South
Africa.)   That still happens in London or New York, but it makes headlines
when it is discovered...it isn't accepted.
Brazil and Argentina are no doubt as bad.  Mexico is very scary at a number
of levels...and has well over 100 million people...

If I had to pick moral nations, I'd go with Canada and New Zealand in the
English speaking world...and as I have said, they both have big and current
black marks against them.  Denmark, Holland, Finland, Norway, Sweden, etc.
all do a good job as far as I am concerned.

As for big nations, the world's hopes still rise and fall with the US, I'm
afraid.  Perhaps that is one reason I am so pessimistic about the future.
The US has suffered a long stretch of ugly politics and a very difficult
battle in its move toward becoming a legitimate social democracy.  I'm not
sure it will ever find its way wholly there.  The bad sort of libertarianism
runs deep there now, and will for a long time.  My own guess is that the US
begins to fragment...a number of Federalists wanted to break off New England
in the early 1800s when they anticipated this...those groups will again
rise...even with the Civil War in hindsight.

Keep on being optimistic...optimism is the correct response and one I hope
to some day reach.

It is true I mock hippies because I've never been able to be one.  Wish I
could be.

Ryan

On Mon, Sep 7, 2009 at 8:38 AM, Michel Bauwens <michelsub2004 at gmail.com>wrote:

> Hi Ryan,
>
> I agree that we cannot know if things will turn happy and healthy, get
> worse before they get better, or any other scenario, and like you, I work
> for the 'better' to the degree that we can ourselves see what is indeed
> 'better'. Nevertheless, I think there are very powerful trends towards
> transparency, openness, participation and trust-modes, with tremendous
> potential. I must admit that my belief is that after a certain chaotic
> intermezzo, we'll have a new balance in society with a substantial more
> beneficial social contract for the commoners.
>
> As for Asia, my perception may indeed be skewed. Certainly in Thailand,
> there are long hours, low wages, but also substantially less stress, and the
> middle class lives demonstrably better than in Europe and the U.S., because
> of the cheap services and personal care they can get, though they make up
> only 25% of the population. I also think, that it is possible to be poor
> here with a lot more dignity than in West. It could be that in countries
> with Chinese dominance, there is also high stress, my visits to Singapore
> and Hong Kong would certainly suggest that.
>
> Just observations of course, nothing scientific <g>
>
> Michel
>
>   On Mon, Sep 7, 2009 at 8:28 PM, Ryan Lanham <rlanham1963 at gmail.com>wrote:
>
>> 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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>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> Work: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dhurakij_Pundit_University -
>>> Research: http://www.dpu.ac.th/dpuic/info/Research.html - Think thank:
>>> http://www.asianforesightinstitute.org/index.php/eng/The-AFI
>>>
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>>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Ryan Lanham
>> rlanham1963 at gmail.com
>> Facebook: Ryan_Lanham
>> P.O. Box 633
>> Grand Cayman, KY1-1303
>> Cayman Islands
>> (345) 916-1712
>>
>>
>>
>>
>
>
> --
> Work: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dhurakij_Pundit_University - Research:
> http://www.dpu.ac.th/dpuic/info/Research.html - Think thank:
> http://www.asianforesightinstitute.org/index.php/eng/The-AFI
>
> P2P Foundation: http://p2pfoundation.net  - http://blog.p2pfoundation.net
>
> Connect: http://p2pfoundation.ning.com; Discuss:
> http://listcultures.org/mailman/listinfo/p2presearch_listcultures.org
>
> Updates: http://del.icio.us/mbauwens; http://friendfeed.com/mbauwens;
> http://twitter.com/mbauwens; http://www.facebook.com/mbauwens
>
>
>
>
>

-- 
Ryan Lanham
rlanham1963 at gmail.com
Facebook: Ryan_Lanham
P.O. Box 633
Grand Cayman, KY1-1303
Cayman Islands
(345) 916-1712
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