As someone who has been unemployed for almost a year…despite my best efforts, I have been saying for months now, something is wrong with the jobs numbers and something is wrong with this shift to self-emoloyment, gig culture, and side hustle culture. This isn’t normal.
Thank you Pamela. So much to take in and to process, but well worth the effort. Knowledge being power, anyone who is interested in the future of not only labor but the very quality of our lives, will find much to chew on. This is just the beginning of a conversation that must happen!
Another comprehensive and devilishly detailed analysis that rings true, from my personal protracted experience in soul-destroying administrative and bureaucratic jobs, even in the endlessly grant-chasing and value-compromising non-profit “civil society” sector. And also in many unworkable “freelance” gigs. Thank you Pamela, for providing such nourishing food for thought. May it lead to action on all fronts - personal, community level, and national.
I am a Norwegian, and for me to read this is very depressing and upsetting. Even though I have heard the warnings for decades. It all started when Ronald Reagan won the election in 1980. The manufacturers had started moving their factories to China before that, but then it exploded. It's all so easy to understand: when the factory that made jeans closed its doors, thousands of people were out of a job. Then the guy who owned the joggingshoes-factory saw how smart the other guy was, so he also closed down his factory and moved it to China. After a very short while, it was a domino effect of factories moving. The same happened in Norway. A company that was making fish-balls in tin-cans, very popular, had been growing for a hundred years, never experienced a year without growhth. In a very small community, fifty women had their stable job making those fish-ball-cans. Until the owner closed from one day to another, and moved the factory to China. The fish had to be sent by airplane to China, and then be sent back again in cans, and still it was a lot cheaper to produce. The fifty women, mothers and grandmothers, were out of jobs. And there was nothing there in that little community, for them to do. What can make a very rich man, who actually has a thriving business, that is growing every year - to just close it down, make all those women unemployed - for what? For making a little more money for each can? He was already the richest man in the community, and his family had been for a hundred years. But the guy in the city did it, and he wouldn't be regarded as more stupid than the smart capitalists in the city. And like that, they went on, until they had all cut off the branches they were sitting on, because no-one could afford the jeans and the joggingshoes, when they didn't have any income any longer. So the solution was first to sell the wildly expensive jogging shoes to Europe, which went well for a while. And then they moved the factories from China to even more slave-like labour in the poorest countries in the East, to make the jeans even cheaper. The jobs that were left were what they call "cutting eachothers hair" - and serving coffee. And the wages for those jobs were so low that it wasn't to live from. MacDonald started work-days divided into four or five slots, where the employees had to come in from early in the morning to late in the evening - and stay only in the slot when they were needed, and had to leave the work-place when business was slowing a bit, and got paid for the hours and minutes they were there. And if they didn't like it - there were plenty of people out on the street who would take their job and do it even for less pay. Johan Galtung, the Norwegian peace-professor, said that the wages in the US stopped in 1980, and hasn't moved especially since then. It's a very sad situation when there is no labour unions that has any power to talk about, and no political parties on the left, which traditionally will take the case for the workers. The two big parties in the US are both for the rich and the richer. I guess what is needed is a grassroot-movement. Or maybe just to vote Green this time:)
It's a global phenomenon for sure. In the US much of this is about how our "democratic" political system has been captured by special interests. From AIPAC to the weapons industry to the real estate lobby... They just lie and lie and lie to the public... They wiped small businesses out during the pandemic and now we have a corporate chain on every corner - the rent's too high for anything else. And the more people think their job situation is about their personal failures, the easier they are able to keep us in line. People here are going to be shocked when the real collapse hits. This can't go on forever.
As someone who has been unemployed for almost a year…despite my best efforts, I have been saying for months now, something is wrong with the jobs numbers and something is wrong with this shift to self-emoloyment, gig culture, and side hustle culture. This isn’t normal.
Literally all of this.
Thank you Pamela. So much to take in and to process, but well worth the effort. Knowledge being power, anyone who is interested in the future of not only labor but the very quality of our lives, will find much to chew on. This is just the beginning of a conversation that must happen!
Yes, it's time to un-gaslight ourselves. Thanks so much for commenting!
Another comprehensive and devilishly detailed analysis that rings true, from my personal protracted experience in soul-destroying administrative and bureaucratic jobs, even in the endlessly grant-chasing and value-compromising non-profit “civil society” sector. And also in many unworkable “freelance” gigs. Thank you Pamela, for providing such nourishing food for thought. May it lead to action on all fronts - personal, community level, and national.
We can only hope! Thanks so much for the positive feedback, Michael! The time for change is always now.
"It must be about providing people with the stability, dignity, and opportunities that make life worth living." #this
I am a Norwegian, and for me to read this is very depressing and upsetting. Even though I have heard the warnings for decades. It all started when Ronald Reagan won the election in 1980. The manufacturers had started moving their factories to China before that, but then it exploded. It's all so easy to understand: when the factory that made jeans closed its doors, thousands of people were out of a job. Then the guy who owned the joggingshoes-factory saw how smart the other guy was, so he also closed down his factory and moved it to China. After a very short while, it was a domino effect of factories moving. The same happened in Norway. A company that was making fish-balls in tin-cans, very popular, had been growing for a hundred years, never experienced a year without growhth. In a very small community, fifty women had their stable job making those fish-ball-cans. Until the owner closed from one day to another, and moved the factory to China. The fish had to be sent by airplane to China, and then be sent back again in cans, and still it was a lot cheaper to produce. The fifty women, mothers and grandmothers, were out of jobs. And there was nothing there in that little community, for them to do. What can make a very rich man, who actually has a thriving business, that is growing every year - to just close it down, make all those women unemployed - for what? For making a little more money for each can? He was already the richest man in the community, and his family had been for a hundred years. But the guy in the city did it, and he wouldn't be regarded as more stupid than the smart capitalists in the city. And like that, they went on, until they had all cut off the branches they were sitting on, because no-one could afford the jeans and the joggingshoes, when they didn't have any income any longer. So the solution was first to sell the wildly expensive jogging shoes to Europe, which went well for a while. And then they moved the factories from China to even more slave-like labour in the poorest countries in the East, to make the jeans even cheaper. The jobs that were left were what they call "cutting eachothers hair" - and serving coffee. And the wages for those jobs were so low that it wasn't to live from. MacDonald started work-days divided into four or five slots, where the employees had to come in from early in the morning to late in the evening - and stay only in the slot when they were needed, and had to leave the work-place when business was slowing a bit, and got paid for the hours and minutes they were there. And if they didn't like it - there were plenty of people out on the street who would take their job and do it even for less pay. Johan Galtung, the Norwegian peace-professor, said that the wages in the US stopped in 1980, and hasn't moved especially since then. It's a very sad situation when there is no labour unions that has any power to talk about, and no political parties on the left, which traditionally will take the case for the workers. The two big parties in the US are both for the rich and the richer. I guess what is needed is a grassroot-movement. Or maybe just to vote Green this time:)
It's a global phenomenon for sure. In the US much of this is about how our "democratic" political system has been captured by special interests. From AIPAC to the weapons industry to the real estate lobby... They just lie and lie and lie to the public... They wiped small businesses out during the pandemic and now we have a corporate chain on every corner - the rent's too high for anything else. And the more people think their job situation is about their personal failures, the easier they are able to keep us in line. People here are going to be shocked when the real collapse hits. This can't go on forever.