Our Socioeconomic Position is at Risk

Link writes:Western Europeans and Americans are about to suffer a profound shock. For the past 30 years governments have explained that, while they can no longer protect jobs through traditional forms of state intervention such as subsidies and tariffs, they can expand and reform education to maximise opportunity. If enough people buckle down to acquiring higher-level skills and qualifications, Europeans and Americans will continue to enjoy rising living standards. If they work hard enough, each generation can still do better than its parents. All that is required is to bring schools up to scratch and persuade universities to teach "marketable" skills. That is the thinking behind Michael Gove's policies and those of all his recent predecessors as education secretary.But the financial meltdown of 2008 and the subsequent squeeze on incomes is slowly revealing an awful truth. As figures out last week from the Office for National Statistics show, real UK wages have not risen since 2005, the longest sustained freeze in living standards since the 1920s. While it has not hit the elite in banking, the freeze affects most of the middle class as much as the working class. This is not a blip, nor the result of educational shortcomings. In the US, which introduced mass higher education long before Britain, the average graduate's purchasing power has barely risen in 30 years. Just as education failed to deliver social democratic promises of social equality and mobility, so it will fail to deliver neoliberal promises of universal opportunity for betterment."Knowledge work", supposedly the west's salvation, is now being exported like manual work. A global mass market in unskilled labour is being quickly succeeded by a market in middle-class work, particularly for industries, such as electronics, in which so much hope of employment opportunities and high wages was invested. As supply increases, employers inevitably go to the cheapest source. A chip designer in India costs 10 times less than a US one. The neoliberals forgot to read (or re-read) Marx. "As capital accumulates the situation of the worker, be his payment high or low, must grow worse."

jar writes:If so, only by choice. And if that is what they want, it is what they will get.

jar writes:We live in the world we create. Huh? The world, particularly the US is exactly how it is because the people voted to make it the way that it is.

jar writes:We live in the world we create.

jar writes:True until you change the system.

jar writes:We live in the world we create.

jar writes:The world is as it is.

jar writes:I had lots to say. Unfortunately what I had to say was ignored.

jar writes:It's pleasant to be able to say "wasn't MY fault", but that also changes very little.

jar writes:Reality don't much care what I think.

jar writes:The world, particularly the US is exactly how it is because the people voted to make it the way that it is.

jar writes:The world is still the world we created.

jar writes:If it is not as you would like then it is up to you to try to create one that does meet your needs.

jar writes:If you feel you do not have equal opportunity to voice your opinion, then guess what? That is because you created a world where the media could be controlled by a very small number of people.

jar writes:If you feel that money talks, then that is because you voted for people that created the laws that allowed that.

jar writes:It will take at least 25-50 years minimum to effect change unfortunately, and realistically, likely longer if we are to do it with minimum pain

jar writes:Looking at history the more likely scenario is that we reach a point of a revolutionary change.

jar writes:But the world is still what we created, it is the world we built.

jar writes:You can say whatever you want. The people still vote.

jar writes: The results were pretty obvious to anyone that thought about it even fifty plus years ago.

jar writes:We means all members of a given society. For example, when speaking of the current state in the US, we would refer to all those living in the US including citizens and non-citizens, voters and non-voters.

jar writes:We, as a people, decided to consolidate media control, to place "News" reporting under a capitalistic based system where "News" became what people would pay to see or hear as opposed to what people need to hear.

jar writes:We, as a people, decided to place education within a capitalistic based system where education would be what business and the students wanted, not what they needed to learn.

jar writes:We, as a people, decided to commit our resources to wars of aggression where the return on investment was almost nil.

jar writes:We, as a people, decided to deregulate utilities and transport and thereby move investment in infrastructure and maintenance from the asset side to the liability side.

jar writes:We, as a people, decided not to point out that the decades following WWII were an aberration.

jar writes:The results were pretty obvious to anyone that thought about it even fifty plus years ago.

jar writes:But the world is still what we created, it is the world we built.

jar writes:I did do something about it. I spoke out, I tried to explain what the results would be, I was not believed and so I made arrangements to make sure I'd likely live through the consequences with as little pain as I could.

jar writes:The world is still the world we created

jar writes:It was our choice that that should be true.

jar writes:Because we made decisions that allowed and in fact created that situation.

jar writes:The world is still the world we created

jar writes:We live in the world we create.

Straggler writes:Are you seriously suggesting that "the world" is exactly as it is due to everyone having an equal say (in the form of voting) as to how they think the world should be?Are you seriously suggesting that the US is exactly as it is due to every US voter having an equal say as to how they think their country should be run?

jar writes:Yes, that is exactly what I am suggesting.