Conservatives Forcing People To Work

[Evil Goblin]

The existing system of order is also unsustainable.

You may well be right there, Pongo. As production requires fewer and fewer workers there will be an increasing number of people who are not needed in the production process and who business will therefore not support. How will they be provided for? Not to mention the effect of the demographic situation on pension costs.

 

As Homo Rapiens is already ravaging the Earth to maintain present non-sustainable production levels there are going to be very major changes ahead.

[P.K.]

The idea of there being dignity in labour really only works with the sort of work which could have been idealised in a 19th century painting or Soviet propaganda. The idea of there being dignity in labour utterly fails with respect to most modern work which is disconnected and boring. Most people do it because they have no choice. For example there is no dignity in administration or sales. It's just work. Pretending that there is a greater sense or meaning to it than that is delusional.

 

I suspect you are confusing the public and private sectors.

 

Remember this: "Ah yes, those bloody foreigners! Coming over here with their work ethic..."

 

Consider the statement "All work is honourable" - true or false?

[pongo]

That brings us right back to the challenge of what is the alternative

 

Democratic and fair systems of orders are unsustainable. Unfair and undemocratic systems of orders are equally unsustainable. The idea that there are workable alternative puts you in the same camp as the Marxists and Christians etc. It's just chaos

[jimbms]

The existing system of order is also unsustainable.

You may well be right there, Pongo. As production requires fewer and fewer workers there will be an increasing number of people who are not needed in the production process and who business will therefore not support. How will they be provided for? Not to mention the effect of the demographic situation on pension costs.

 

As Homo Rapiens is already ravaging the Earth to maintain present non-sustainable production levels there are going to be very major changes ahead.

The other problem is and even though I don't like this it has to be said that we are getting too good at eliminating disease, increasing fertility and preventing starvation etc, previously these amounted to what could be classed as a natural culling of the species or weaker parts and as such kept the population at a sustainable level, whereas now a far higher percentage world wide are surviving and thus more need feeding. If you look at not that many years ago the average per family was 2.4 children this was not actually children but meant for every 2 people on earth there was a growth in effect of 0.4, due to our efficiancy and higher fertility rate this has bow more than doubled, I think you can see where I am coming from in growth. What is the answer? There is none unless you take China's method and restrict the population growth by limiting the amount of children allowed. The unfortunate thing though is that as we are making more and more anti bacterial and viral drugs nature is now making drug resistant bacterial and virus until one day an epidemic like bird flu or aids will break out that there is no artificial cure for and will devistate the population by culling the weak, the young and the old, this will be natures revenge and allow things to start again, either that or some scientist will do it artificially.

[spook]

If there is work in the comunity to be done and the community are forking out for wpople without work then it is right and proper that people being supported by the community should do that work.

 

End of.

[pongo]

If there is work in the comunity to be done and the community are forking out for wpople without work then it is right and proper that people being supported by the community should do that work.

 

End of.

 

Shouldn't they get, at least, the minimum wage, pensions etc ? Same as everyone else who works ?

 

Alternatively why not put all the existing national and local state workers on rates and conditions equivalent to unemployment benefit ? Doing useful work in the community - like collecting taxes, digging holes in the road.

[Cambon]

 

Shouldn't they get, at least, the minimum wage, pensions etc ? Same as everyone else who works ?

 

They will. It is only part time after all. I doubt they will miss too many episodes of Jeremy Kyle!

[Chinahand]

Opps, this post is over long and not very coherent, but my tea break is over and I've no time to edit it, so it will have to do.

 

Moving forward there will be more and not fewer unemployed as the need for workers decreases. There is not enough work left to do. This will also be compounded by the need for existing workers to retire much later because pensions will not be affordable. The US and Europe seem to be banking on the gentrification of the so called *developing* countries to provide new markets into which to ultimately sell financial instruments, insurance, intellectual property etc. There are likely going to be food shortages.

 

Making the unemployed pick up litter is a complete diversion from the chaos.

 

 

Democratic and fair systems of orders are unsustainable. Unfair and undemocratic systems of orders are equally unsustainable. The idea that there are workable alternative puts you in the same camp as the Marxists and Christians etc. It's just chaos

 

My goodness Pongo [and Evil Goblin, JimBMS etc] aren't you negative.

 

What a world view to have.

 

Certainly its all just chaos, and the only certainty is change, but I find the idea that large segments of the population are damned to long term unemployment as there aren't productive things for people to do laughable.

 

That implies that you think society fulfills everyone's needs, which is absurd!

 

The question is how to find productive ways to meet society's outstanding needs.

 

The dilema of how to meet an outstanding need has existed since the first cells started multiplying and 4 billion years later we are only marginally better at solving it than nature has been - certainly chimps now do fare worse than people, but 10,000 years ago the difference wasn't so great - and even today 20% of the worlds population are subsistence farmers experiencing the massive waste of human talent involved in sitting around watching your livelihood grow with few other resources to do anything more useful.

 

I do have to say that I agree in some ways with the idea that there is more to life than simply building more things and providing more material goods. But Pongo et al seem to think that is the only ideal of work there is - building/making things. Nonsense.

 

The fear people have that there won't be anything to do if the Chinese go and MAKE everything shows a very limited view point of life.

 

Its a huge exaggeration - lets say everyone in the world is equally productive and everyone trades perfectly - then you'd have everyone buying goods from everyone else in proportion to their populations - 20% of what you'd buy would be Chinese, 20% Indian, 5% American and goodness knows how little from the UK - ie the UK's proportional output. But there would be equal employment all over the world and so it wouldn't matter that the UK contributed so little - it would be doing its proportional bit.

 

But firstly not everyone is equally productive - the average Chinese (who is well above average in world productivity) is as productive as the average citizen of that economic powerhouse Albania - and secondly you can't trade fresh bread, or hair cuts, or teachers etc etc. So the UK has a huge advantage in productivity AND many of the jobs that people do are not tradeable and so at risk of off shoring.

 

So seriously don't worry - China isn't going to damn everyone to the dole queue. There is plenty that needs doing improving in our society, and that involves solving problems and getting on.

 

This is my problem, I don't accept in almost any shape or form the Marxist paradigm where there is some teleological class struggle over labour power.

 

Ownership of the means of production is not the issue, its people saying this is a problem and so being willing to support people who can solve that problem. That problem needn't be building an object whether its a rocket or a dinky toy, it can be things like how to keep an old person fed and bathed, how to improve housing, how to ensure needs are met.

 

Certainly society doesn't need lots of mindless factory fodder. It needs people who can communicate issues and solve problems. That is a real challenge - agrian societies, and those going through industrial revolutions have it easy, because they don't need their populations to think, they just leave them in the fields or cram them into factories doing piece work.

 

And no those jobs are no fun at all, people who get all misty eyed for factory work are in my mind bonkers - society is slowly, groping its way to find better ways to solve problems and to live.

 

We aren't really very good at it at the moment, I agree, just look around at the problems we face, but human ingenuity is always trying to push that rock up the hill.

 

Sure, sometimes we mess up and find we've pushed it the wrong way and so down it rolls - over-population, environmental damage, CDOs! etc - but I find the idea that its all tits up and lets turn of the lights for the IOM/UK just such meaningless noise i really wonder why the likes of Pongo and Evil Goblin et al feel the need to spout it.

 

There are lots of problems that need fixing, jobs that need doing. The issue is trying to find a way to do that and that takes a proactive thinking population.

 

I have enough faith in humanity to think we can solve these problems. I believe that the pace of innovation justifies my faith reasonably clearly. No doubt society will alter and change, but to say that long term unemployment is our lot, along with apocalypse from environmental change is to undercut what makes humans unique - our adaptability and social ability to solve problems.

[La_Dolce_Vita]

In other words you refuse to answer the questions because it does not suit you or is the truth...

Because nobody else requires others to explain their familial, education, and employment background to ascertain if something someone says is true. It's not relevant.

 

From all I see it is this type of envy of normal society that is driving the constant bitterness and hatred of society and it's ideals as it stands, that emits from your poisonous mind, it seems to me you have decided that if you can never have it you will instead attack and hope to undermine it.

I don't have a hatred of society. Just hate certain aspects of how it functions. So do you! Shall we talk about your dislike of how criminals are treated?

[pongo]

But Pongo et al seem to think that is the only ideal of work there is - building/making things. Nonsense.

 

Nope. Did not say that. It was about perceptions of the 'dignity of labour'.

 

The fear people have that there won't be anything to do if the Chinese go and MAKE everything shows a very limited view point of life.

 

Responding to a point not made.

 

Its a huge exaggeration - lets say everyone in the world is equally productive and everyone trades perfectly - then you'd have everyone buying goods from everyone else in proportion to their populations - 20% of what you'd buy would be Chinese, 20% Indian, 5% American and goodness knows how little from the UK - ie the UK's proportional output. But there would be equal employment all over the world and so it wouldn't matter that the UK contributed so little - it would be doing its proportional bit.

 

But firstly not everyone is equally productive - the average Chinese (who is well above average in world productivity) is as productive as the average citizen of that economic powerhouse Albania - and secondly you can't trade fresh bread, or hair cuts, or teachers etc etc. So the UK has a huge advantage in productivity AND many of the jobs that people do are not tradeable and so at risk of off shoring.

 

Responding to a point not made.

 

So seriously don't worry - China isn't going to damn everyone to the dole queue. There is plenty that needs doing improving in our society, and that involves solving problems and getting on.

 

Responding to a point not made.

 

I find the idea that its all tits up and lets turn of the lights for the IOM/UK just such meaningless noise i really wonder why the likes of Pongo and Evil Goblin et al feel the need to spout it.

 

I think what you are doing, in general, is seeing as negative points of view which are essentially neutral and dispassionate. And then extrapolating.

 

[Chinahand]

Pongo I was responding to this:

Moving forward there will be more and not fewer unemployed as the need for workers decreases. There is not enough work left to do. This will also be compounded by the need for existing workers to retire much later because pensions will not be affordable. The US and Europe seem to be banking on the gentrification of the so called *developing* countries to provide new markets into which to ultimately sell financial instruments, insurance, intellectual property etc. There are likely going to be food shortages.

 

Making the unemployed pick up litter is a complete diversion from the chaos.

If you think I am just extrapolating from a neutral statement then I'm going to disagree - I feel this is melodrama of the worst sort.

[pongo]

Pongo I was responding to this:

Moving forward there will be more and not fewer unemployed as the need for workers decreases. There is not enough work left to do. This will also be compounded by the need for existing workers to retire much later because pensions will not be affordable. The US and Europe seem to be banking on the gentrification of the so called *developing* countries to provide new markets into which to ultimately sell financial instruments, insurance, intellectual property etc. There are likely going to be food shortages.

 

Making the unemployed pick up litter is a complete diversion from the chaos.

If you think I am just extrapolating from a neutral statement then I'm going to disagree - I feel this is melodrama of the worst sort.

 

Which bit do you specifically disagree with ?

[spook]

If there is work in the comunity to be done and the community are forking out for wpople without work then it is right and proper that people being supported by the community should do that work.

 

End of.

 

Shouldn't they get, at least, the minimum wage, pensions etc ? Same as everyone else who works ?

 

 

No.

 

Alternatively why not put all the existing national and local state workers on rates and conditions equivalent to unemployment benefit ? Doing useful work in the community - like collecting taxes, digging holes in the road.

 

The basic rate should be that, with increases for additional responsibility.

 

A great deal of the work delivered by local authorities, though valuable to the public in terms of the services being provided such as bin men and street cleaners, could almost be done by trained monkeys.

 

The value of the job should not affect the wages paid, the skills required to do the job should be the determining factor.

[Cambon]

Making the unemployed pick up litter is a complete diversion from the chaos.

Well, I disagree with that point. That is the idea the Daily Mail and other similar media want you to think. There is a myriad of jobs that can be done. It is typical of gutter press to point towards the lowest possible point.

[Evil Goblin]

China - I do not see my view as unduly pessimistic - just realistic. The fact is that modern industry is so phenomenally productive that it simply doesn't need as many people as there are who need employing - and that where industry, in terms of what it is demanding from the natural environment, is unsustainably over-producing. This problem is not just besetting us in the West - it will hit the developing East with their expanding populations even harder. The future is certainly going to have to be very different - probably with much more service type jobs utilising local currencies (as opposed to "Legal Tender") along the lines of the system working in Japan for care of the elderly. We are all going to have to get used to a world of limited resources i.e. a lower material standard of living. I don't think this is pessimistic as I strongly suspect that a less materially-oriented society and world will offer a much higher quality of life for us. Of course, the consequences of change in climate may come to assist by decimating populations - if we assume that the recent population spike follows a Normal Distribution we can expect the global population to reduce to 500m/1b souls over the next 100 years or so - how that reduction will occur is a Big Question.