I admit it, I find this both amusing and satisfying. My unreconstructed socialism coming out again, no doubt.
UAW union may take over Chrysler (from The Guardian).
Showing posts with label jobs. Show all posts
Showing posts with label jobs. Show all posts
Wednesday, 29 April 2009
Sunday, 1 February 2009
The Future of Globalisation? - Part 2
The Prime Minister tells us, in words of wisdom from his icy ivory tower in Davos, that protectionism must be avoided. The participants at Davos tell us how de-globalisation is not an option, that we must not start to dismantle the system they created, that made them so rich, so powerful.
And you know what? They're right.
Well, in so far as they go.
The rise of globalisation has been met with mistrust in many countries of the world, by many sections of society. In the UK, the gap between rich and poor has steadily grown. Relative poverty has increased. Some of us have felt uneasy that the prosperity of our country, that our own increased purchasing power, that the cheap prices of the shiny goods we want, have all been built on the backs of workers in China, India, around the world. In the back of our mind, we know they are likely to have been exploited, exploited for our benefit.
Yes, these workers in foriegn climes may even be happier with their lot than with their alternatives. Hordes of Chinese continue to abandon the fields, the crushing peasant lives they had been living in the country, to try and find a better life in the cities and factories. And in their eyes, it may indeed be better. But is that really all we can hope for? That things get a little better for the people we exploit? That they get a little better, slowly, while things get a lot better, quickly, for the people at the top?
Globalisation has produced an uneasy feeling in many people. But while prosperity was rising, we silenced that little voice of our conscience, and got on with spending. Now, however, prosperity is deserting us, and the tensions and distaste over globalisation are starting to come to the boil across Europe.
But we can't go back and change the system we now have. Demanding British jobs for British workers gives rise to protectionism, an ugly nationalistic kind of protectionism. It is a protectionism that seeks to protect British workers at the expense of everyone else, and ultimately it will be at our expense too.
There is no doubt in my mind, however, that something needs to be done. Globalisation has benefitted capital. World trade has made those rich enough to take advantage of it richer, while those unable to move as easily as the flows of digital capital have suffered. Companies wishing to take advantage of this now appear to be shipping workers wholesale from one country to another, to work on a temporary contract, at lower rates than the resident population.
Regardless of the economics of it, treating workers like cattle to be shuttled from building site to building site, from country to country, is just wrong. It degrades them. It degrades us.
But globalisation is an invincible tide, we are told. We cannot turn back the clock. To fight against it is futile.
Which is why I am suggesting embracing globalisation instead.
But it isn't the globalisation of capital, the one system of international co-operation that those at Davos want us to believe is possible. They call for reform of the IMF, the World Banks, anything to prop up the system they built. But now is the time for us to start building our own system, our own organisations to deal with the world as it is.
The case of the Portuguese and Italian workers is not an argument to block companies bringing in foreign workers to work on British sites. No, as I said, we depend on providing incentives and disincentives in this system. But instead of focusing on how to disincentivise workers taking action, it is time to focus on how to disincentivise companies taking advantage.
The globalisation I am calling for is a globalisation of working rights, of unions, of wage negotiations. In late 2007, two European Court rulings effectively allowed companies to undermine existing collective agreements in countries where they work. Both cases said that trade union action against overseas companies that had refused to apply pay and conditions of a host country had infringed the freedom of the company to operate freely under European Union law.
The protectionist way to deal with this would be to try and get the European Union to accept a change in the rules that stopped foreign firms being able to do this.
The new globalisation way to deal with this is to organise with unions in all European countries to negotiate coordinated agreements with companies.
Companies and capital are now global. Labour is becoming increasingly global. Now is the time to make our labour organisations global as well. And this means moving beyond the fraternal organisations that exist, the chummy little talking shops for union leaders. No, now is the time to build a truly international union, committed to protecting the rights of workers in each company, not in each country.
So yes, we need to build a union that can have workers striking across the continent, across the globe, if a company tries to take advantage of workers in one of the countries they operate in. Yes, we need to build a union that is willing, no, that demands to negotiate wages for workers throughout a company, not just those in a certain country.
Labour is becoming globalised. Unions need to do so too. Because now companies are seeking to play workers from one country off against workers in another, not from one factory against another. Because capital seeks to migrate to where it can take advantage of workers, regardless of the land they end up in.
And most importantly, because we need to be united against a new global capital that has more power than ever before to exploit us around the globe. We are stronger together, in a global union, regardless of the language we speak. And that, my friends, is acting in our own economic self-interest, that is playing the capitalists' game in a way they won't like.
And you know what? They're right.
Well, in so far as they go.
The rise of globalisation has been met with mistrust in many countries of the world, by many sections of society. In the UK, the gap between rich and poor has steadily grown. Relative poverty has increased. Some of us have felt uneasy that the prosperity of our country, that our own increased purchasing power, that the cheap prices of the shiny goods we want, have all been built on the backs of workers in China, India, around the world. In the back of our mind, we know they are likely to have been exploited, exploited for our benefit.
Yes, these workers in foriegn climes may even be happier with their lot than with their alternatives. Hordes of Chinese continue to abandon the fields, the crushing peasant lives they had been living in the country, to try and find a better life in the cities and factories. And in their eyes, it may indeed be better. But is that really all we can hope for? That things get a little better for the people we exploit? That they get a little better, slowly, while things get a lot better, quickly, for the people at the top?
Globalisation has produced an uneasy feeling in many people. But while prosperity was rising, we silenced that little voice of our conscience, and got on with spending. Now, however, prosperity is deserting us, and the tensions and distaste over globalisation are starting to come to the boil across Europe.
But we can't go back and change the system we now have. Demanding British jobs for British workers gives rise to protectionism, an ugly nationalistic kind of protectionism. It is a protectionism that seeks to protect British workers at the expense of everyone else, and ultimately it will be at our expense too.
There is no doubt in my mind, however, that something needs to be done. Globalisation has benefitted capital. World trade has made those rich enough to take advantage of it richer, while those unable to move as easily as the flows of digital capital have suffered. Companies wishing to take advantage of this now appear to be shipping workers wholesale from one country to another, to work on a temporary contract, at lower rates than the resident population.
Regardless of the economics of it, treating workers like cattle to be shuttled from building site to building site, from country to country, is just wrong. It degrades them. It degrades us.
But globalisation is an invincible tide, we are told. We cannot turn back the clock. To fight against it is futile.
Which is why I am suggesting embracing globalisation instead.
But it isn't the globalisation of capital, the one system of international co-operation that those at Davos want us to believe is possible. They call for reform of the IMF, the World Banks, anything to prop up the system they built. But now is the time for us to start building our own system, our own organisations to deal with the world as it is.
The case of the Portuguese and Italian workers is not an argument to block companies bringing in foreign workers to work on British sites. No, as I said, we depend on providing incentives and disincentives in this system. But instead of focusing on how to disincentivise workers taking action, it is time to focus on how to disincentivise companies taking advantage.
The globalisation I am calling for is a globalisation of working rights, of unions, of wage negotiations. In late 2007, two European Court rulings effectively allowed companies to undermine existing collective agreements in countries where they work. Both cases said that trade union action against overseas companies that had refused to apply pay and conditions of a host country had infringed the freedom of the company to operate freely under European Union law.
The protectionist way to deal with this would be to try and get the European Union to accept a change in the rules that stopped foreign firms being able to do this.
The new globalisation way to deal with this is to organise with unions in all European countries to negotiate coordinated agreements with companies.
Companies and capital are now global. Labour is becoming increasingly global. Now is the time to make our labour organisations global as well. And this means moving beyond the fraternal organisations that exist, the chummy little talking shops for union leaders. No, now is the time to build a truly international union, committed to protecting the rights of workers in each company, not in each country.
So yes, we need to build a union that can have workers striking across the continent, across the globe, if a company tries to take advantage of workers in one of the countries they operate in. Yes, we need to build a union that is willing, no, that demands to negotiate wages for workers throughout a company, not just those in a certain country.
Labour is becoming globalised. Unions need to do so too. Because now companies are seeking to play workers from one country off against workers in another, not from one factory against another. Because capital seeks to migrate to where it can take advantage of workers, regardless of the land they end up in.
And most importantly, because we need to be united against a new global capital that has more power than ever before to exploit us around the globe. We are stronger together, in a global union, regardless of the language we speak. And that, my friends, is acting in our own economic self-interest, that is playing the capitalists' game in a way they won't like.
Saturday, 31 January 2009
The Future of Globalisation? - Part 1
The unrest has started. Across Europe, the discontent is starting to spill over into action. In Greece, riots over the death of a teenager have been replaced by protests by farmers. In Latvia, protests are turning into riots. In Lithuania, the same. In France, a general strike disrupts the country. In Iceland, quiet little Iceland, protesters and riot police share the streets, and a government falls. And in staid, polite old Britain, wildcat strikes are occurring.
At the World Economic Forum, politicians and plutocrats haunt the stage of their old successes. They appear shell-shocked, stunned by how quickly the world they built, the system they created, has started to crumble around them. Like Miss Havisham, they are unable to move on from the scene of their humiliation and disaster.
It isn't meant to be like this, they tell themselves. For decades, people in Europe have taken to the streets to demand a move to their capitalist system, for ever greater 'reform' of their economies. Look at the states of eastern Europe - they have raced to remake themselves as zealots of capitalism, rushing to embrace membership of the EU to calcify the market's grip on their countries.
But now...
It's not hard to see why this is happening. Not surprisingly, people are worried. No, more than that, people are scared. They are afraid of the chaos being unleashed around them, chaos that is starting to expand and endanger their livelihoods, their families, their well-being.
But in addition to that, people are angry. They are angry that those widely seen as having caused this chaos are not only getting away with it, but have taken vast sums of money for their troubles. They are angry that banking executives seem to believe that taking money from the tax-payer for themselves is acceptable. They are angry that politicians are letting them get away with this. They are angry that those who caused this, in business and politics alike, seem to be those who will be least effected by it.
And it is this potent mixture, of fear and rage, that is driving people onto the streets. And our current crop of politicians, brought up in a culture of managerialism, of bureaucracy, of technocracy, don't know how to react to so much naked emotion on display.
But the people out protesting aren't protesting just because of the state of the economy right now. Yes, that has been the trigger, but it is only providing the catalyst for other, and longer held, dis-satisfactions to rise to the surface.
Look at France. The ostensible reason for the general strike was that the government was bailing out banks and fat cats, but not protecting jobs and helping workers. But France has been a simmering cauldron of unrest for a long time now. Sarkozy came to power promising a broad swathe of reforms to the economy, to French society. The generalised unrest this has provoked in a significant section of French society has been galvanised by the current economic crisis.
In the Baltic states, there is rioting on the streets. There are predictions of dire economic collapse - 4.5% in Lithuania, 7% in Estonia, and an incredible 10% in Latvia. The fear this causes has joined with the anger over the steady reform of their economies to fit in with the rest of the EU.
And now Britain. No, we're not rioting. We generally leave that to the hot-heads on the continent. But we have seen a sudden and unexpected flurry of wildcat strikes. At almost 20 locations, across England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, workers have walked out, held protests, demanded to be heard. These are unofficial strikes, illegal strikes, acts that could see these workers losing their jobs. But they went ahead anyway.
I've heard claims that there is no way these actions could spread, that these are just minor blips. The argument goes that people won't strike, because they would be too afraid of losing their jobs. But if workers are already scared about losing their jobs, if they already feel powerless, what is going to stop them?
And don't fall into the easy trap of believing the only people who would join these protests, the only people who could possibly object to foreign workers, are racists, closet or otherwise. No, in a situation like this, where it appears a company is bringing in cheaper labour from elsewhere, it is not racism for these British workers to act against it.
They are simply acting in their own economic self-interest - by attempting to stop companies undercutting the prevailing wage rates. It is the same economic self-interest that causes people to join unions. And yes, this kind of protectionism can be bad for the economy as a whole. But people will act in their economic self-interest, we are told. Just as bankers acted in their own economic self-interest, to the ultimate detriment of the economy as a whole.
A capitalist system requires people to act in their own economic self-interest. That self-interest has to be moderated by the rules and mores of a society, from government, from the people. We need to provide incentives to act in a way that is good for society as a whole, or disincentives to behaving in a way society doesn't want. At the moment, the disincentives towards taking action aren't working.
So what do we do? How do we deal with this? This is not a matter of dealing with this narrow sector of industry, that of construction contractors in the energy industry. We have seen the wave of unrest and protest that is sweeping the continent. All it needs in any country is one small spark. (And yes, despite the left-wing leanings of many of the protests, I think a country run in fear of revolt is a bad thing, because I'm a "democratic socialist" - the first word is important too. In addition, any protest that the BNP sends supporters to runs the risk of stopping being about protecting workers, and becomes about victimising different workers.)
Continued tomorrow...
At the World Economic Forum, politicians and plutocrats haunt the stage of their old successes. They appear shell-shocked, stunned by how quickly the world they built, the system they created, has started to crumble around them. Like Miss Havisham, they are unable to move on from the scene of their humiliation and disaster.
It isn't meant to be like this, they tell themselves. For decades, people in Europe have taken to the streets to demand a move to their capitalist system, for ever greater 'reform' of their economies. Look at the states of eastern Europe - they have raced to remake themselves as zealots of capitalism, rushing to embrace membership of the EU to calcify the market's grip on their countries.
But now...
It's not hard to see why this is happening. Not surprisingly, people are worried. No, more than that, people are scared. They are afraid of the chaos being unleashed around them, chaos that is starting to expand and endanger their livelihoods, their families, their well-being.
But in addition to that, people are angry. They are angry that those widely seen as having caused this chaos are not only getting away with it, but have taken vast sums of money for their troubles. They are angry that banking executives seem to believe that taking money from the tax-payer for themselves is acceptable. They are angry that politicians are letting them get away with this. They are angry that those who caused this, in business and politics alike, seem to be those who will be least effected by it.
And it is this potent mixture, of fear and rage, that is driving people onto the streets. And our current crop of politicians, brought up in a culture of managerialism, of bureaucracy, of technocracy, don't know how to react to so much naked emotion on display.
But the people out protesting aren't protesting just because of the state of the economy right now. Yes, that has been the trigger, but it is only providing the catalyst for other, and longer held, dis-satisfactions to rise to the surface.
Look at France. The ostensible reason for the general strike was that the government was bailing out banks and fat cats, but not protecting jobs and helping workers. But France has been a simmering cauldron of unrest for a long time now. Sarkozy came to power promising a broad swathe of reforms to the economy, to French society. The generalised unrest this has provoked in a significant section of French society has been galvanised by the current economic crisis.
In the Baltic states, there is rioting on the streets. There are predictions of dire economic collapse - 4.5% in Lithuania, 7% in Estonia, and an incredible 10% in Latvia. The fear this causes has joined with the anger over the steady reform of their economies to fit in with the rest of the EU.
And now Britain. No, we're not rioting. We generally leave that to the hot-heads on the continent. But we have seen a sudden and unexpected flurry of wildcat strikes. At almost 20 locations, across England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, workers have walked out, held protests, demanded to be heard. These are unofficial strikes, illegal strikes, acts that could see these workers losing their jobs. But they went ahead anyway.
I've heard claims that there is no way these actions could spread, that these are just minor blips. The argument goes that people won't strike, because they would be too afraid of losing their jobs. But if workers are already scared about losing their jobs, if they already feel powerless, what is going to stop them?
And don't fall into the easy trap of believing the only people who would join these protests, the only people who could possibly object to foreign workers, are racists, closet or otherwise. No, in a situation like this, where it appears a company is bringing in cheaper labour from elsewhere, it is not racism for these British workers to act against it.
They are simply acting in their own economic self-interest - by attempting to stop companies undercutting the prevailing wage rates. It is the same economic self-interest that causes people to join unions. And yes, this kind of protectionism can be bad for the economy as a whole. But people will act in their economic self-interest, we are told. Just as bankers acted in their own economic self-interest, to the ultimate detriment of the economy as a whole.
A capitalist system requires people to act in their own economic self-interest. That self-interest has to be moderated by the rules and mores of a society, from government, from the people. We need to provide incentives to act in a way that is good for society as a whole, or disincentives to behaving in a way society doesn't want. At the moment, the disincentives towards taking action aren't working.
So what do we do? How do we deal with this? This is not a matter of dealing with this narrow sector of industry, that of construction contractors in the energy industry. We have seen the wave of unrest and protest that is sweeping the continent. All it needs in any country is one small spark. (And yes, despite the left-wing leanings of many of the protests, I think a country run in fear of revolt is a bad thing, because I'm a "democratic socialist" - the first word is important too. In addition, any protest that the BNP sends supporters to runs the risk of stopping being about protecting workers, and becomes about victimising different workers.)
Continued tomorrow...
Sunday, 11 January 2009
Young people are worthless
They must be, it's the only explanation for how our society is treating them.
For years we have been telling kids that the way for them to get ahead is to get a good education. We have piled more and more pressure on them, tested them to within an inch of their sanity at school, then packed them off to university, to get into massive debt, all on the pretext that the land of milk and honey they will enter with a good degree will make it all worth it.
Well, surprise surprise, it doesn't work. When an economic downturn hits, the first victims, before any redundancies, are those out looking for new jobs. This year, it is devastatingly obvious that graduate jobs are thin on the ground, leaving an entire year group fighting for fewer jobs, with the added competition of thousands of newly laid-off graduates.
And that's the other problem our young people are facing - many businesses operate a last in, first out principle, throwing newly employed graduates back into the ranks of the unemployed. Of the 137,000 rise in unemployment in the three months to October, 40% were aged 18 to 24.
Jobs are already drying up, leaving many of the class of 2008 without work. And they are only going to get worse for the class of 2009.
But don't worry, Carl Gilleard, chief executive of the Association of Graduate Recruiters, has the answer:
The government has announced extra funding for apprenticeships, but how many businesses are willing to take this on? How many young people can be covered by this?
The response to the prospect of mass unemployment in new graduates has been patronising, and pointless. As reported in The Guardian, Richard Reeves, director of Demos,
But even this answer is less insulting than the current plan for paid internships. Under this plan, some graduates will be offered 3 months paid internships. Firms including Barclays and Microsoft will take advantage of the scheme. And I really do mean take advantage.
The new graduates will gain experience and work skills - but certainly not a decent wage. They will be paid at a rate which will ensure an income "only slightly higher" than undergraduates' income from grants and loans. Currently, the maximum annual student grant is £2,835 a year, while the maximum annual maintenance loan is worth £6,475. Are we really surprised that large firms are happy to get high quality, cheap labour? But is this all we want to offer our young people? Sweatshop wages after years of university education?
Sadly, it may well be. We can expect little government action over this. They have been aiming for 50% of all young people to go to university for many years now. (Incidentally, something I agree with.) But what they haven't been doing is ensuring there are enough of the kind of knowledge based businesses in the country who want to employ this steadily growing number of graduates. They have been crossing their fingers that the businesses will be there, and they pretty much were - right up until the first sign of a wobble in the economic situation.
A democratically elected government will pursue policies that get them votes. This is both the strength and the weakness of the system. Here, it is a weakness, because, basically, young people don't vote. Demographically, there are more over 60s than under 16s. Electorally, over 55s accounted for 40% of all votes in the last election. In contrast, 18-24 year olds made up 7%.
You may have noticed David Cameron's latest proposal of tax cuts for savers. Ignoring the arguments over whether this is to reward those who behave prudently, or a recipe for economic disaster in recession, we can see that it was targeted at the group that is most likely to have savings - those who have paid off their mortgage, and are settling down to a nice retirement: the grey vote. This is just the first sign of a growing focus by the political parties on those who actually vote - and who can blame them? It's what they are there for.
Over Christmas and New Year, I stayed at my parents' place. One day, my father asked me a simple question: "Is there a political party for young people these days?" Once upon a time, when I was young and optimistic, I'd have said there was, and that it was the Labour Party. Of course, about the same time he probably wouldn't have needed to ask.
But now he has a valid point. More and more, parties will cater to the grey vote, the baby-boomer voting bloc. They will call for tax-breaks on savings, pension increases for all, government bail-outs for private pension schemes. All of these things need to be paid for. And as socialists, we should all be concerned about this. The only place for money that flows to the old to come from is from the young. And this is likely to be a redistribution of wealth from those who have little to those who have more.
So young people have two paths to prosperity. One option is what already seems to be happening, at least in part. The information about graduate internships came out in a Telegraph interview with John Denham. As he said:
The other path is to organise, campaign, and vote. But too many have the view that political parties are all the same. They join single issue campaigns, targeted little protests that don't effect the big picture, that won't change society. Or they hold the view that they can't change anything on their own, so it just isn't worth trying. Given the numbers, they may even be right.
But as I have already written on my wish to hope again, perhaps I need a more upbeat conclusion. Perhaps this recession is the wake-up call a generation needs. Perhaps finding out the stories they were told by their elders, about keeping their heads down, working hard, getting a degree, getting onto the corporate ladder, perhaps finding out those stories just weren't true might shake some of them from their apathy. Maybe there will be discontent in our universities again. And maybe, just maybe, that will translate into a political force.
(Links: Telegraph interview with John Denham. Nick Cohen on the grey bloc. Graduate jobs crisis in The Times, The Guardian, The Guardian again. Graduate intern plan on BBC News.)
For years we have been telling kids that the way for them to get ahead is to get a good education. We have piled more and more pressure on them, tested them to within an inch of their sanity at school, then packed them off to university, to get into massive debt, all on the pretext that the land of milk and honey they will enter with a good degree will make it all worth it.
Well, surprise surprise, it doesn't work. When an economic downturn hits, the first victims, before any redundancies, are those out looking for new jobs. This year, it is devastatingly obvious that graduate jobs are thin on the ground, leaving an entire year group fighting for fewer jobs, with the added competition of thousands of newly laid-off graduates.
And that's the other problem our young people are facing - many businesses operate a last in, first out principle, throwing newly employed graduates back into the ranks of the unemployed. Of the 137,000 rise in unemployment in the three months to October, 40% were aged 18 to 24.
Jobs are already drying up, leaving many of the class of 2008 without work. And they are only going to get worse for the class of 2009.
But don't worry, Carl Gilleard, chief executive of the Association of Graduate Recruiters, has the answer:
"It's going to be a shock to the class of 2009. But it's far better to consider a temporary job than to sit at home and feel sorry for yourself. Why not do bar work? It involves skills you need for lots of jobs - working with people and perhaps negotiating tricky situations."His suggestion that young graduates, leaving university with debts of tens of thousands of pounds, look for bar work is insulting. But it does point to the other group who are being hit - young non-graduates. As graduate jobs dry up, inevitably graduates will start applying for jobs lower down the corporate ladder. They are going to start displacing young people without degrees, who have nowhere else to go.
The government has announced extra funding for apprenticeships, but how many businesses are willing to take this on? How many young people can be covered by this?
The response to the prospect of mass unemployment in new graduates has been patronising, and pointless. As reported in The Guardian, Richard Reeves, director of Demos,
says a government minister recently told him unemployed graduates will probably end up doing master's degrees. "'Let them do master's degrees' is the modern equivalent of 'let them eat cake'," says Reeves. "You just worsen the problem. Doing an MA should not be an economic policy, it should be a broader social policy."Encouraging already highly educated, but heavily indebted, young people to take on more debt for more education seems a bizarre idea. Students who are already doubting the ability of their degree to help them find work are unlikely to see the answer in another degree.
But even this answer is less insulting than the current plan for paid internships. Under this plan, some graduates will be offered 3 months paid internships. Firms including Barclays and Microsoft will take advantage of the scheme. And I really do mean take advantage.
The new graduates will gain experience and work skills - but certainly not a decent wage. They will be paid at a rate which will ensure an income "only slightly higher" than undergraduates' income from grants and loans. Currently, the maximum annual student grant is £2,835 a year, while the maximum annual maintenance loan is worth £6,475. Are we really surprised that large firms are happy to get high quality, cheap labour? But is this all we want to offer our young people? Sweatshop wages after years of university education?
Sadly, it may well be. We can expect little government action over this. They have been aiming for 50% of all young people to go to university for many years now. (Incidentally, something I agree with.) But what they haven't been doing is ensuring there are enough of the kind of knowledge based businesses in the country who want to employ this steadily growing number of graduates. They have been crossing their fingers that the businesses will be there, and they pretty much were - right up until the first sign of a wobble in the economic situation.
A democratically elected government will pursue policies that get them votes. This is both the strength and the weakness of the system. Here, it is a weakness, because, basically, young people don't vote. Demographically, there are more over 60s than under 16s. Electorally, over 55s accounted for 40% of all votes in the last election. In contrast, 18-24 year olds made up 7%.
You may have noticed David Cameron's latest proposal of tax cuts for savers. Ignoring the arguments over whether this is to reward those who behave prudently, or a recipe for economic disaster in recession, we can see that it was targeted at the group that is most likely to have savings - those who have paid off their mortgage, and are settling down to a nice retirement: the grey vote. This is just the first sign of a growing focus by the political parties on those who actually vote - and who can blame them? It's what they are there for.
Over Christmas and New Year, I stayed at my parents' place. One day, my father asked me a simple question: "Is there a political party for young people these days?" Once upon a time, when I was young and optimistic, I'd have said there was, and that it was the Labour Party. Of course, about the same time he probably wouldn't have needed to ask.
But now he has a valid point. More and more, parties will cater to the grey vote, the baby-boomer voting bloc. They will call for tax-breaks on savings, pension increases for all, government bail-outs for private pension schemes. All of these things need to be paid for. And as socialists, we should all be concerned about this. The only place for money that flows to the old to come from is from the young. And this is likely to be a redistribution of wealth from those who have little to those who have more.
So young people have two paths to prosperity. One option is what already seems to be happening, at least in part. The information about graduate internships came out in a Telegraph interview with John Denham. As he said:
"These are the children of the baby-boomers. They will be a very big group; around 300,000. What do we do with them?..We can't just leave people to fend for themselves."I suspect the first sentence tells you why he is interested in helping these graduates - the votes of their parents. It seems young people today can only hope to do well thanks to the indulgence of their parents' generation.
The other path is to organise, campaign, and vote. But too many have the view that political parties are all the same. They join single issue campaigns, targeted little protests that don't effect the big picture, that won't change society. Or they hold the view that they can't change anything on their own, so it just isn't worth trying. Given the numbers, they may even be right.
But as I have already written on my wish to hope again, perhaps I need a more upbeat conclusion. Perhaps this recession is the wake-up call a generation needs. Perhaps finding out the stories they were told by their elders, about keeping their heads down, working hard, getting a degree, getting onto the corporate ladder, perhaps finding out those stories just weren't true might shake some of them from their apathy. Maybe there will be discontent in our universities again. And maybe, just maybe, that will translate into a political force.
(Links: Telegraph interview with John Denham. Nick Cohen on the grey bloc. Graduate jobs crisis in The Times, The Guardian, The Guardian again. Graduate intern plan on BBC News.)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)