So you're telling me you wouldn't be depressed at being forced to work for £1.25 an hour?
"Work is the Best Medicine" Says Paul Flynn MP
- Thread starter Udo Erasmus
- Start date
So you're telling me you wouldn't be depressed at being forced to work for £1.25 an hour?
That's not the message I got. I don't think the piece is arguing that. It's more about accepting there are firmly entrenched attitudes to work that are also bound up with ideas of what it is to be a man or a woman in the Valleys. It's not making a value judgement as much as it's describing a social phenomenon. It's surely valid to say that service industry work is 'feminised' within valleys culture in comparison with the traditionally masculine world of heavy industry work, without implying that blokes who work in Burger King are 'feminine' yourself.
Udo Erasmus
Well-Known Member
I agree with Llantwit, but just leaving aside the point about gender, the general point stands and is quite poignant regarding changing patterns of work.
It comments that, in the past, someone might leave school at 16 with no qualifications and get a job as a steel worker and derrive a certain sense of dignity, self-respect and pride, but that the sons of these laid off steel workers who come into a world where the jobs on offer are stacking shelves or working on supermarket checkouts don't see these as dignified, meaningful jobs, but rather as demeaning of their dignity and self-respect.
Hence, it argues it is not so much the attraction of being able to receive money for not working - a culture of dependency - that is driving this type of unemployment, but rather a repulsion from the jobs on offer which are regarded as unmanly, demeaning and lacking in dignity. (of course, someone might reply that if there wasn't the possibility of welfare that people would take whatever job was on offer to live), but for us, we should fight for an improvement of working conditions.
More broadly in society, it is an interesting that we live in a world where people's identity is bound up in the work they do. For example, when you meet someone new at a social gathering, how often is the question asked 'what do you do'? as if your job somehow says something about you. This seems strange in a world where people rarely do a career of choice or their ideal job, but I would suggest that there is much dislocation and lack of a sense identity around young workers who will do a series of crap jobs compared to many older workers who will have done the same job for most of thier life.
Call-centres have been described as the modern factories, but there is possibly less satisfaction and dignity gained from working in a call-centre than in a factory where at least you may be producing a material product.
It comments that, in the past, someone might leave school at 16 with no qualifications and get a job as a steel worker and derrive a certain sense of dignity, self-respect and pride, but that the sons of these laid off steel workers who come into a world where the jobs on offer are stacking shelves or working on supermarket checkouts don't see these as dignified, meaningful jobs, but rather as demeaning of their dignity and self-respect.
Hence, it argues it is not so much the attraction of being able to receive money for not working - a culture of dependency - that is driving this type of unemployment, but rather a repulsion from the jobs on offer which are regarded as unmanly, demeaning and lacking in dignity. (of course, someone might reply that if there wasn't the possibility of welfare that people would take whatever job was on offer to live), but for us, we should fight for an improvement of working conditions.
More broadly in society, it is an interesting that we live in a world where people's identity is bound up in the work they do. For example, when you meet someone new at a social gathering, how often is the question asked 'what do you do'? as if your job somehow says something about you. This seems strange in a world where people rarely do a career of choice or their ideal job, but I would suggest that there is much dislocation and lack of a sense identity around young workers who will do a series of crap jobs compared to many older workers who will have done the same job for most of thier life.
Call-centres have been described as the modern factories, but there is possibly less satisfaction and dignity gained from working in a call-centre than in a factory where at least you may be producing a material product.
Gmart
Well-Known Member
We need to encourage a move towards a more service economy where the cost of setting up in a shop is small.
We need to go back to being a nation of shopkeepers.
When I was in Korea I noticed that often the small shops there would stay open until 8 or 9 in the evening! Why? Because there was good trade to be had then. People around.
I appreciate that preferably we would have our ideal job, but that's what further education is there for, if you don't manage to get it the first time round.
Better late than never.
We need to go back to being a nation of shopkeepers.
When I was in Korea I noticed that often the small shops there would stay open until 8 or 9 in the evening! Why? Because there was good trade to be had then. People around.
I appreciate that preferably we would have our ideal job, but that's what further education is there for, if you don't manage to get it the first time round.
Better late than never.
i know where you're coming from but I know quite a few people that get more satisfaction from dealing with people than dealing with stuff.
It's intersting in all these discussions we project the jobs we personally hate the most. For me the worst "forced labour" would be a high paid/high stress office job where the reason you are paid so much is the compromises you have to make with your health, time, life, family......
surely there is more than picking litter e.g. conservation work, social enterprise work etc.
FridgeMagnet
Administrator
If I've understood you properly here, I would agree - it's an interesting study but the idea that people are actively rejecting good jobs because of social pressure I find rather unconvincing, and also very "blame the victim". People, particularly young people, are good at rejecting social pressure when it's in their interests and they find what's on offer rewarding. The example of their parents and relatives having had better jobs in the past might put them off even trying to get the ones on offer, but I don't know whether that's actually a bad thing in any case.
LilMissHissyFit
Disturbed in a pink bra
Proof?? Link??
where is anyone proposing people are forced to work for 1/5 of the min wage?
LilMissHissyFit
Disturbed in a pink bra
again, proof please that anyone is going to be forced to work for less than min wage?
FridgeMagnet
Administrator
Proof?? Link??
where is anyone proposing people are forced to work for 1/5 of the min wage?
Latest green paper with the workfare proposals.
Regeneration?
Work in a callcentre for 12K ad infinitem. Or in a bar / restaurant. Basically take the next fucking job your given and do it until you're made redundant. Don't expect progression training or self betterment through that process. And be glad of it. Cos the POllish / Chinese will do it otherwise.
Welcome to the world.
Work in a callcentre for 12K ad infinitem. Or in a bar / restaurant. Basically take the next fucking job your given and do it until you're made redundant. Don't expect progression training or self betterment through that process. And be glad of it. Cos the POllish / Chinese will do it otherwise.
Welcome to the world.
Gmart
Well-Known Member
panpete
Blokes name, birds body.
If work is the best medicine, then why was my mental health made worse by it.
When I was eighteen I did a YTS course, even though I had quiet doubts about my capability. At that time, It was better for my egotistical fragile pride to sit in an office twiddling my thumbs all day, than be labelled a doley, who had the time to work on improving themselves for future work capability.
When I was eighteen I did a YTS course, even though I had quiet doubts about my capability. At that time, It was better for my egotistical fragile pride to sit in an office twiddling my thumbs all day, than be labelled a doley, who had the time to work on improving themselves for future work capability.
panpete
Blokes name, birds body.
For some, but not for all.
The error in which Purnell is making, is a blanket assumption, that all nonworkers are bored and depressed. It is, therefore, one sided.
The choice, for disabled people, and offerance of increased flexibility etc, is a great thing for those willing disabled people, whos only obstacle back to work, previously, was limited conditions, finance, and flexibility.
The workfare attitude, isn't about choice, it's about forcing them into situations which are clearly not suitable for some.
The real motive behind the clumsily disguised draconian measures, is control of people's time.
panpete
Blokes name, birds body.
I was on the drugs when I worked (prescribed pharms), now I don't need them.
Udo Erasmus
Well-Known Member
Our line is that while staying in watching Trish might not be good for you mental health, neither will being forced into a shit McJob!
One thing that people haven't really touched upon is the UK governments recent forecast that unemployment could rise to 2 million by Christmas due to the credit crunch. So simultaneous to a coming recession that is going to force many working class people into unemployment through no choice of their own, the government is whipping up hostility to those on benefits and introducing a more draconian regime.
I was speaking to a friend who works for an employment agency who commented on a sudden surge of people registering in Cardiff who had been working in sectors like construction who had lost their jobs. At the same time, the agency was finding that they had less jobs available as their clients were cutting back.
Things are bleak. This is about disciplining the working class and should be fought back tooth-and-nail.
It is shameful that the trade union movement and left are doing so little to fightback against welfare reform.
One thing that people haven't really touched upon is the UK governments recent forecast that unemployment could rise to 2 million by Christmas due to the credit crunch. So simultaneous to a coming recession that is going to force many working class people into unemployment through no choice of their own, the government is whipping up hostility to those on benefits and introducing a more draconian regime.
I was speaking to a friend who works for an employment agency who commented on a sudden surge of people registering in Cardiff who had been working in sectors like construction who had lost their jobs. At the same time, the agency was finding that they had less jobs available as their clients were cutting back.
Things are bleak. This is about disciplining the working class and should be fought back tooth-and-nail.
It is shameful that the trade union movement and left are doing so little to fightback against welfare reform.
ymu
Niall Ferguson's deep-cover sock-puppet
Preventing worklessness sounds progressive. It's easy to work it into soundbites so that morons think "Ohh yes, that's an excellent policy!".
Because there aren't any jobs available to force people into. What are they gonna do - ring round the corporate donors and ask them to create 2 million new jobs?
Sssssh. You're not meant to notice that bit.
Well, obviously they should just turn to crime. Better pay, same penalty.
They will be made redundant, go onto the dole for a year and then be forced back into their old job at a fraction of the pay.
_angel_
.
Proof?? Link??
where is anyone proposing people are forced to work for 1/5 of the min wage?
Proposing fulltime work for anyone unemployed more than 1 yr or two, seemingly for ever (as well as signing on everyday - how they plan to combine the two I've no idea). It sounds like badly thought out crap.
If there's a recession a lot of people could be penalised thru no fault of their own esp the ones employers don't want (bad health record, older people, mothers who've been stay at home mums for a long time)
Agent Sparrow
AGENT TRAITOR; fools 8 year olds
Hmmm, from what I've seen of James he's not intellectually honest about the alternative interpretations of the data he uses. Which if they were obscure alternatives, perhaps wouldn't be a problem. However, the criticism of the idea more diagnosed mental illness = more definite mental illness/distress is one of the first things you look at in clinical psychology!
Anyway, I am aware that there is data suggesting that if people can't get back to work within a certain time frame (I think it's a year) after a health problem then they're more unlikely to work again. And I do suspect that if people are given jobs they enjoy, which they are capable of, which they have time for (which say, a single mother might not) and for which they are given sufficient support, it could improve self esteem and quality of life for many. However, the problems come when you consider how many people targeted would acheive all of those things. I suspect the answer would be few, and working a job which you hate, that pushes you beyond your capabilities and for which you have insufficient support will have the opposite effect on mood and quality of life.
who is "our"?
I can't understand why, at the time of a recession, the govt are actively swelling the ranks of the 'officially' unemployed and a lot of people losing their jobs are going to get even harsher treatment. It's like they are trying to alienate their voters on purpose.
They could be planning to create division between current claimants and the people about to lose their jobs?
Udo Erasmus
Well-Known Member
Well, I'm a member of Cardiff Left Alternative and we oppose the current welfare reform 110% but I was just being needlessly rhetorical.
Isn't it incredible that at a time when the government is predicting that unemployment will reach 2 million by xmas with thousands of workers being made redundant that they now want to introduce tougher penalties?
In my opinion, the coming recession is also going to lead to an increase in mental health problems. All that stress over getting a job or keeping the one you have, wage cuts, paying the mortgages. rising food prices and bills all are going to have a detrimental effect on public health. But then you face a much tougher regime with the abolition of incapacity benefit etc.
The government has also made an assumption that most of the people on incapacity benefit are capable of working with no evidence other than New Right rhetoric to back it up.
To be honest, I don't find Oliver James a very theoretically rigorous writer. Though given the complex social issues, any data is going to be contradictory or open to different interpretations. I find his writing interesting in the sense that he tries to understand mental illness in society sociologically and link it in with trends in wider society/economy
fair enough.
Are we a bit naive (me included) to link micro/meso-policies and outcomes (welfare/mental health) with temporal macro-issues (global economic downturn)?
Maybe I don't understand the nature of dynamic and reflexive policy development and delivery but continually changing policies because of potentially short-term events seems a tad reactive and short-sighted. no?
ymu
Niall Ferguson's deep-cover sock-puppet
Well, no. If you run an economy that has too few jobs to go around, expend a disproportionate proportion of press release inches to benefit fraud (compared to, say, corporate tax fraud) demonising those you have made workless by design, force benefit claimants into low paid dead-end jobs whilst forcing others off those same dead-end jobs onto benefits in order to force them into another, even lower paid, dead-end job, forcing others onto benefits... Then yeah, you are going to get more mental health problems amongst those who are being continually fucked over without any realistic prospect of a proper social democracy forming any time soon. Stress does that to people.
As for the rest, you seem to support this move as economically necessary. I disagree, but I guess it depends what kind of society you want to live in. I don't want to live in one that is continually siphoning money from the poor to the rich. Capitalism does not work well in conditions of full employment - there is no chance on earth that this government is trying to achieve that with these measures. If there was ever any danger of such a thing occurring the CBI would simply demand relaxation of immigration controls to create unemployment and force wages down.
It is entirely likely that this move will "boost" the economy, but that's a meaningless statement unless you look at where the increase in GDP actually goes as a result.
Forcing those who have the least into increasingly low paid and insecure jobs in order to make just the top 5% richer is a shit policy, IMO. I can understand why the rich and greedy support it, but why anyone else would is beyond me.
I sort of get where you are coming from but I don't see the causality as clearly as you probably do. If I'm right, you seem to be suggesting at the top order there isn't enough jobs to go around so "the government" demonise people into working in jobs that didn't really exist in the first place and this creates mental health problems because people feel demeaned by working in jobs that have been handed to them by the state. Is this what you are saying?
The dynamics of inequality in capitalism are well known and nobody disputes this. It would be interesting to follow your line of thinking above in the context of whatever system you are trying to propose as an alternative.
i'm not sure if this is referring to me. I don't think I have supported anything yet. My last post had nothing to do with economics but was questioning reactive approaches to policy making and delivery.
ymu
Niall Ferguson's deep-cover sock-puppet
You might want to reread and/or think about the process. Capitalism requires unemployment - it keeps wages down, maintains a pool of workers ready for new work that becomes available. When we come close to full employment, the government steals a few more workers from the former colonies and/or relaxes immigration controls. This is why the CBI went apeshit when the Tories started talking about immigration quotas a couple of years back.
Forcing people into jobs that do not exist for a fraction of the minimum wage does not help them back to work, it just puts them under even greater stress by denying them the time or opportunity to find anything better or get training whilst doing nothing to improve their already stressful financial situation. These people are extremely likely to be used for the sort of work already being done by unskilled minimum wage workers, trapping both groups on a merry-go-round of low paid job -> dole -> lower paid job.
Why do I have to propose an alternative system in order to point out that the current one is crap?
I want a government that is elected by the voters, not bought by big business. I want politicians whose wages are fixed at the median of those that voted them in. I want a social security system that actually provides security. I want a system that doesn't spend disproportionate amounts trying to catch people claiming paltry benefits whilst ignoring those who are stealing billions. I want a government that requires industry to provide training for their own employees and to pay the full market value for the privilege of being allowed to squat in our society. I want a government that doesn't run a corporate tax haven overseas to allow the super-rich to siphon their profits out of the economy. I want a media that explores the implications of policy rather than regurgitating neo-liberal sound-bites to convince the moronic that this time they'll benefit, despite having seen fuck all in the last 25 years of economic growth.
It was referring to you. I may have misunderstood, but you seemed to be arguing that short-term negative effects are not a reason for government not to implement sound long-term policy. If that's what you meant, you have to think it's a sound long-term policy in the first place. That requires some justifying.
i don't know anyone that actually wants this and I think most people would agree with you. I'm trying to simplify the issue.... Can you package your list of wants into a coherant system and then explain how your system will actually improve the situations we are talking about in this thread? How do we get from a list in our heads to sometihng real.
you're right I wasn't clear, sorry. I was pointing out that basing long-term social policies on, what appear to me to be, external macro-level problems that nobody (except a few clever sods) can predict how long will last is not good policy making. It is reactionary and knee-jerk and I can't see how it solves the problems we are all concerned about. This has nothing to do with the content of the proposed policy.
ymu
Niall Ferguson's deep-cover sock-puppet
Well, I framed my list of wants above in reformist language - so I'm pretty obviously talking about social democracy. Whether or not true social democracy can be achieved through reform, given our current starting point, is another question. However, there are plenty of countries with more social democratic systems than the UK, and they tend also to be amongst the richest countries in the world as well as those with the lowest income inequality. You're going to have to convince me that it'll never work before I worry about inventing a whole new system for you.
As a general point, that's fine. But what does it have to do with the argument? There's no point in dismissing the potential for harm (of which this is only one example, obv) as trivial/unknowable unless you're trying to argue that the benefits of the policy outweigh the harms.
Sweden?
ah here, are you a politician?
I might just do a jeremy paxman on you and keep repeating my question (whatever it is) 
I'm not suggesting that it doesn't/won't work. I'm just trying to tease out how we actually get it.I admit to having a habit of challenging people I fully/partially/barely agree with to see if we can strengthen the "consensus". It usually means I end up being told I'm defending the policies/systems I don't agree with...
this is a valid point. maybe I'm being a bit lazy in expecting those that are challenging a policy to convince me (robustly and in as clear language as possible) of their argument and alternative.
ymu
Niall Ferguson's deep-cover sock-puppet
Sweden?
ah here, are you a politician?
I admit to having a habit of challenging people I fully/partially/barely agree with to see if we can strengthen the "consensus". It usually means I end up being told I'm defending the policies/systems I don't agree with...
this is a valid point. maybe I'm being a bit lazy in expecting those that are challenging a policy to convince me (robustly and in as clear language as possible) of their argument and alternative.
You seem to think social democracy is a whole new untried and untested concept?
And no, it's not just Sweden. Here's an old post on the subject because I've done this before.
It depends on your point of view. But if you were a middle-class well paid worker type with typical middle of the road politics, it'd be because as a society, extreme income inequality damages your quality of life and is a very bad thing for your (personal) financial stability.
[-> cut'n'paste mode as we've done this a few times recently]
The countries with the most equal income distributions are also amongst the richest countries and the countries with the lowest violent crime and highest standard of living. There are no downsides to a more equal society.
And is this just a coincidence?
