Why we can't have nice things

[ritaxis]

I'm surrounded by young people trying to get the jobs they trained for. Or trying to get any job at all. And not just the very young: I have folks around me who are closer to forty than thirty, well-educated, well-trained, successfully employed in the past, who can't get work in their field or any other. Even the terrible jobs are ridiculously hard to get. And they are getting more terrible, as well. Wages are falling, conditions get ever more grueling, workers' rights are lost in the courts.

Is it any wonder I have taken my creaky old self out of the job market?

So what happened? I've seen automation take the blame. But it's just not true for the jobs my young friends are looking for. In many cases they are looking for jobs that will not be automatable until we have human-replacing artificial intelligence. Robots can do a lot of things, but they can't do these things.

What's happening is two things: work that needs to be done is not being done, and work that is being done is being done by people who are working too hard. People who work eighty hours a week (and like as not get paid for thirty), people who have to attend to too many tasks at once.

Roads are going unmended, schools are being allowed to deteriorate, hospitals are understaffed, inspections are not being done. How come? Because these are all public functions, publicly funded for the public good, and all the funds are being diverted to private hoards. While West Virginia's water supply went unprotected (and may be permanently damaged), the money was being shoveled into Scrooge McDuck's swimming pool.

Comments

[randwolf.livejournal.com]

Individuals, as well as governments, are buying less. The savings of what, in the USA, is called the middle class (but actually seems cognate to the Marxist working class) has been systematically looted, and their incomes have been steadily reduced, since 1980. There has been a downward spiral; people have less to spend, so people buy less, so there is less work. Spending from the very wealthy does not make up for the collapse of middle class wealth and income; even the most profligate of the 0.01% can only buy so much.

The reduction in public-sector spending plus private sector spending create what economists call a collapse of "aggregate demand." The popular solution is to reduce government spending, but to quote a certain squirrel, "That trick never works."

See Paul Krugman, passim.

[ritaxis.livejournal.com]

I think in the current case the crisis of over-production is mostly an artifact of the dismantling of the public sphere and the destruction of working-class power (which I believe are linked efforts). We did have some cyclical recession stuff going on way back there, but that would never have done this level of damage if the government had not been increasingly hampered from doing its job for the last forty years and the working class had not been systematically disenfranchised during that same time.

That's the thing about concentrating wealth in the hands of the few, too: they really can't increase their demand sufficiently to make a difference. There's just not enough of them . . .

[zeborah]

Indeed, the proper solution is to increase government spending, particularly government spending that puts money into the pockets of the people with the least of it. That could be by paying people to fix the failing infrastructure, which has its own benefits, or it could be by just handing out the dosh, it doesn't matter. People with no money will receive money and immediately spend it, thus a) acquiring things that will help them not to die, and b) keeping the money circulating in the economy.

But the culture of non-entitlement has well and truly spread. You can't read an article about a sick person lobbying for their rightful benefits these days (see this blog post and ensuing media attention) without comment threads full of "If she's well enough to lobby then she's well enough to work." I don't know why they don't just sit beneficiaries on ducking stools and have done with it.

[matrixmann]

Probably there is not much too add. Things speak for itself.
It's sad to see so many things taking place which don't follow any logic and what people get left behind with is unearned blame of "it's your fault, you're not trying hard enough!".
All round the globe same things take place; especially in those countries which follow the Western, America-driven model of economy and life.
Sometimes one might speculate how long this is going to last since the substance it's held up with is getting thin.
...If there only was not the fear of what might follow it is after.
It can get worse any time.

[al-zorra.livejournal.com]

I will not bore you with my experience attempting to mail a simple package at the post office this afternoon. All the problems would not have taken place if the post office had enough people working there instead of a truly stupid automated machine that effed up big time -- and will only accept a credit / bank card, not cash.

IOW, what you said.

Love, C.