Work or employment have for centuries been the
foundation-stones of society, providing the means for living and the
opportunity for advancement. A perfect storm of factors may be about to change
this permanently, in Western society at least as the work available to be done
may no longer be valued sufficiently to sustain the majority of workers and the
dependents.
These factors include neo-liberalism’s stranglehold on
power; new technologies and the digitisation of jobs; and mass migration.
Neo-liberalism describes a political mindset particular to
the powerful and wealthy who control the levers of power. These, the so-called
1%, have effectively used the media they control to persuade sufficient voters
to support their “small State” doctrine, in which the markets which their
organisations dominate are given free rein to decide the value and price of
everything, with minimal control or regulation from government. Markets like
low costs and high profits. Where labour is a significant cost element in the
price of goods or services, its costs is reduced wherever possible. Jobs which
demand high skills pay most but wherever possible these are kept to a minimum.
So whilst in this country political leaders have decreed that more and more
young people should go to university, fewer and fewer of the skilled graduates
will be needed in work-places. How can this be achieved? Through the
application of market forces – competition – and of the digitisation of
functions previously thought to depend on human expertise. New technologies
have enabled paradigm shifts already in how society goes about its business.
Jobs which used to pay good, living wages have disappeared as new ways of doing
things have been made possible, often without significant skills or large
numbers of workers. Dock work was destroyed by containerisation of shipping
decades ago. Coal-mining went in the face of alternative fuels. Secretaries are
nowadays mere vanity items for the few instead of essential lubricants of
business, as anyone can make arrangements, keep records and manage
communications using a tiny hand-held device. Shops have disappeared as
consumers buy online, leaving retail staff without jobs or with squeezed wages.
Financial and medical advice has migrated from thousands of local experts to
websites staffed by tiny numbers. Travel agents cling on to service
technophobes whilst the majority can arrange travel, find the best
accommodation and arrange currency for themselves, online. True, employment
numbers have been upheld as new employments like call-centres and coffee-shops
have grown; but these are low-paid, insecure and not career roles.
This trend shows no sign of slowing. What other, even more
skilled historic functions may decline or disappear into the Internet? Teaching
looks vulnerable to the ideologues of neo-liberalism as they week to remove
standards and accreditation and encourage “any willing provider” to try their
hand, turning the profession into a low-wage employment at best; or into an
online endeavour for self-educating students. And what of drivers? Today there
are millions of drivers of cars and trucks, buses and trains. How many of these
will be left after the advent of the driverless vehicle? Uber has already
demonstrated how the use of new technology can devalue the skills of the
black-cab driver. It is not beyond imagination that Uber cars will become
driverless, is it? And how many even higher-skilled jobs may be more accurately
carried out, without human error, by robots? City trades can be automated and
increasingly it is realised that humans are quite poor at betting, so maybe
even the bonus-enriched may be replaced. Even film-acting may give way to CGI.
And why does mass migration matter, if the Right can slam
the country’s doors shut? First, this is no passing event which will end
when/if Syria is emptied. Climate change will perpetuate the drift northward of
millions from Africa, the Middle East and subcontinent. Wire fences will not
stop this. The influx of more and more workers, many highly skilled, desperate
to earn a living and willing to work for lower wages, undoubtedly creates ever
greater competition for those jobs which remain. So there will be more people, fewer jobs and
lower wages, for the foreseeable future.
Governments of the Right point to record high employment
numbers and to how wrong the Luddites of history were in such warnings in the
past, as evidence that these warnings are baseless. This time, though, they
cannot point to high wages nor future opportunities beyond for a small minority
of highly skilled researchers and developers of the next generations of
non-employing enterprises. So how will they continue to persuade young people
to indebt themselves to go to universities when at the end of their education
there will be a graduate premium for only a few engaged in the most valued and
creative fields of science, the Arts and, cherish the thought, good governance;
but a lifelong struggle for subsistence for most? The inequalities already
bemoaned in US and UK economies can surely only grow in these circumstances unless
a new model for life and remuneration is found. Experiments with a Living
Income – paid regardless of work status are worthy of attention. Just as Gordon
Brown instigated Working Tax Credits to supplement low paid work, perhaps the
State should simplify matters and just settle for everyone having leisure for
life. No means testing; no transport to work requirement; no benefits system. Utopian
– or inevitable?
Tom Serpell
No comments:
Post a Comment