Politics, politics, politics

[scaramanga]

You seem to have a problem with definitions. "Worker ownership= beneficial for the few." Since when have workers been in a minority. They are surely a majority in most developed countries. Again I question your anti unionism...were you traumatised by a union official as child or something?

Everyone alive in the UK in the 70s and 80s was traumatised by unions. They nearly ruined the country until our hero in a blue dress saved us all.

 

[wiziwig]

You seem to have a problem with definitions. "Worker ownership= beneficial for the few." Since when have workers been in a minority. They are surely a majority in most developed countries. Again I question your anti unionism...were you traumatised by a union official as child or something?

I'll try again ...Correct me if I'm wrong but what you're saying is , you'd rather the utilities remain in private hands, rather than return to public ownership without trade union dominance ?

 

[SpurMeUp]

When/will this Brisket nonsense sort it self out? Or will it run and run?

The UK government is seriously distracted from running the country and will be for years. Is anyone in any doubt that there will be significant costs to the UK in exiting the EU? And to my mind, we'll get little in return. If this is the case, leave campaign promises were false promises, and we need to exit the exit before we tinkle more time away on this gonad*s and the UK suffers.

 

[thfcsteff]

I think a huge proportion of people are inherently lazy. I've employed enough in my time to see that. In fact, those that work purely because they like work as an abstract concept are few and far between.

How many lottery winners (life changing sums) continue their current jobs?


There is already protection against being fudged by an employer - it's known as fudging off and getting another job. It works perfectly well for the vast majority that are not unionised, I see no reason (other than attitude) why it can't work for them.

What defines 'lazy'? Is 'lazy' someone who simply wants an 8 hour day, then to toddle off with their mates for a pint, go home, put their feet up, etc? I am far far far from that, but my point is it takes all sorts.

As for the second bold-faced bit...that is not protection against being fudged by en employer. Sorry.

 

[thfcsteff]

I will answer in bold within the quote matey...

Adam Smith knew as well as anyone that all markets are subject to market forces.

When there is a surplus of labour, then the buyer (employer) will have more power. When there is a deficit of labour the seller (employee) will have more power. Right now, there is a surplus of labour at the uneducated, unskilled end (some blame immigration, I blame our "one size fits all" education system) and a huge deficit at the trained and/or highly educated and capable end.

So factory labourers probably have little in the way of power (not sure how much an untrained/unskilled labourer should have), but at the other end of the scale, the opposite is true.


Nothing to do with shifting our economy over the last five decades from production and goods to services? Nothing to do with people wanting more 'things' as cheap as they can get them? I agree that the education system has left behind two generations. Disgraceful.



Those changes can't come about in a vacuum. There has to be a general consensus to change laws, otherwise the government trying to change those laws doesn't last long enough to implement them.

Society as a whole has discovered that there is a "most productive" equilibrium when balancing treatment of staff vs time/money invested. These laws have simply matched those changes in opinion.

A decent, living wage with job security will produce a higher quality product in the long-term. You can still make sure jobs are done properly and still hold staff accountable for their actions. What you should never do is make workers feel they can be dispensed with at any moment for someone younger and cheaper. IMO.

And if you're going to use mills as an example of poor treatment of workers, then I suggest you dig a little deeper into history. Whilst conditions were terrible by today's standards, those who worked in mills were the envy of most other workers as the alternative was usually back-breaking farm work (or no work). Conditions changed as they do over time, but even the worst mills were often a better place to work in than the alternative.

Come on. Nobody of our age has a clue as to whether you're right. We weren't there!


You're right that unions overplayed their hands, the problem is that so many of them are still living in the past and are still overplaying them now. There is little public sympathy for unions that inconvenience them, and so they will find it increasingly difficult to use their disgusting ransom tactics to hold employers over a barrel.

In society, fire is sadly fought with fire. I would agree that there should've been better self-policing back in the day.

Again, market forces rule. Those with rare skills are not finding those problems.

The 'market forces' of a society so confused it has not quite figured out that it fudged itself by giving in to a service economy over a manufacturing one.

I'm not sure where this idea that workers have a certain level of worth regardless of education and/or ability comes from. As with any market, rare and desirable assets will have value, commodities that are easily found/replaced do not. Society is changing, and people need to change with it. There is a problem with our education system, it doesn't properly prepare people for life outside of school and it really needs to.

I absolutely agree 100% with your comment on the education system.


Good teachers can spot those not suited to academia - those people should be learning trades that they can use when leaving school, not being prepped for college where they'll take any old course because that's what the government thinks they should do. Many are even shepherded into university to waste another 3 years on subjects that will do them no good in the longer term.

I think education is everyone's right BUT I see what you're saying and find it hard to disagree that there are many who simply fudge another few years off in uni to avoid the job market. A better balance here would be great. But we have to have trades and jobs for people to move into!



But school issues aside, there are plenty of opportunities to expand one's knowledge - I have a couple of employees working for me who changed their careers later in life and they're being well rewarded for it.

I also don't disagree that being a malleable professional is almost vital these days, another skill-set which could be taught in schools.


It is if you're really good at what you do or are particularly hard working.

Those employees that have left us over the past decade or so were mainly ones that we were not so fussed about losing. We've done everything in our power to keep and progress the good ones because they hold extra value to us. I don't think my company is unique, or even rare in that regard.

Hard to argue with your own personal situation/business TBH

 

[DubaiSpur]

Adam Smith knew as well as anyone that all markets are subject to market forces.

When there is a surplus of labour, then the buyer (employer) will have more power. When there is a deficit of labour the seller (employee) will have more power. Right now, there is a surplus of labour at the uneducated, unskilled end (some blame immigration, I blame our "one size fits all" education system) and a huge deficit at the trained and/or highly educated and capable end.

So factory labourers probably have little in the way of power (not sure how much an untrained/unskilled labourer should have), but at the other end of the scale, the opposite is true.

Yes, but it has almost never been the case that the 'skilled and in demand' end of the scale has constituted the majority of any workforce, anywhere. Huge deficits of labour affording employees more power are vanishingly rare things, usually only accomplished by mass population changes on the scale of the Black Death (which effectively began the decline and death of serfdom as an economic institution) or the two World Wars (which decimated industrial competitors to the victorious allied powers and simultaneously created labor shortages in the defeated powers striving to recover and some of the victorious powers (chiefly the United States, which saw one of the greatest economic expansions of all time during and after the Second World War).

Most of the time (across the entirety of human history), the vast majority of the population do not fit the type of in-demand employees that are granted relatively greater mobility and opportunities - market forces are rarely, if *ever* in their favour.
Smith noted as much, when he compared the relative power of workers and employers throughout history, and bluntly reasoned that..."it is not, however, difficult to foresee which of the two parties must, upon all ordinary occasions, have the advantage in the dispute, and force the other into a compliance with their conditions. The masters, being fewer in number, can combine much more easily..."

..and, as mentioned, that situation (where employees outnumber employers) is a near-permanent state of affairs. So the scale is already weighted against your average employee to start with.

Those changes can't come about in a vacuum. There has to be a general consensus to change laws, otherwise the government trying to change those laws doesn't last long enough to implement them.

Society as a whole has discovered that there is a "most productive" equilibrium when balancing treatment of staff vs time/money invested. These laws have simply matched those changes in opinion.

And if you're going to use mills as an example of poor treatment of workers, then I suggest you dig a little deeper into history. Whilst conditions were terrible by today's standards, those who worked in mills were the envy of most other workers as the alternative was usually back-breaking farm work (or no work). Conditions changed as they do over time, but even the worst mills were often a better place to work in than the alternative.

Changes cannot come about in a vacuum, agreed - but what drives the consensus that precedes sweeping political or legal changes is very rarely a gentlemanly affair that involves the more powerful freely affording concessions to the less well-off. More often than not, it is fear of unrest and radical action caused by ignoring the (far) more numerous disadvantaged that drives the politically powerful to grant concessions ahead of time, and a general withdrawal of those concessions when the fear of unrest is low. As with the UK - at the turn of the 20th century, the HoL was largely in favour of allowing employers to form trade associations and collude to control wages and collectively root out potentially disruptive workers, while the Taff Vale case briefly made any collective industrial action on the part of the workers punishable by law (due to the economic damages incurred by the employer), while exempting organized action by associations of employers from the same danger.

That changed in the space of a decade when unionized workers founded the Labour Party. Already shocked by the London Dock Strike in 1889, which saw ordinary workers form a union in a manner largely foreign to their class in previous decades, the formation of the Labour Party (or the Labour Representative Committee) by the rapidly growing unions was what broke the back of the Liberal Party's previous alliance with industrial and moneyed interests - the switch towards accomodating unions and passing a raft of labour-friendly laws (many of which form the basis for labour protection rights today) following their victory in 1906 was driven by the Liberals' fear of the new Labour Party utilising increasing discontent (which culminated in the fervent 1910-1914 upheavals) to end the relevance of their party when compared to the Conservatives (which ended up happening anyway).

Today, that sort of fear of unrest and political upheaval is still lower than it was back then (even though Brexit and the collapse of the neoliberal consensus have shaken the elites up quite a bit and given them cause to doubt the placidity of the working class). This, combined with the death of the unions over the last three-odd decades, has allowed those in power to steadily withdraw the powers employees once enjoyed relative to their employers, most of which were won by the unions. When added to the fact that the employees are at a near-permanent disadvantage relative to their employers anyway (given the reasons Smith outlined), there is little evidence to suggest a 'most productive' equilibrium being reached - rather, there is a backsliding favoring the employers over the employees, to my mind, which will ultimately backfire in unpredictable ways.

 

[DubaiSpur]

You're right that unions overplayed their hands, the problem is that so many of them are still living in the past and are still overplaying them now. There is little public sympathy for unions that inconvenience them, and so they will find it increasingly difficult to use their disgusting ransom tactics to hold employers over a barrel.

Again, market forces rule. Those with rare skills are not finding those problems.

I'm not sure where this idea that workers have a certain level of worth regardless of education and/or ability comes from. As with any market, rare and desirable assets will have value, commodities that are easily found/replaced do not. Society is changing, and people need to change with it. There is a problem with our education system, it doesn't properly prepare people for life outside of school and it really needs to. Good teachers can spot those not suited to academia - those people should be learning trades that they can use when leaving school, not being prepped for college where they'll take any old course because that's what the government thinks they should do. Many are even shepherded into university to waste another 3 years on subjects that will do them no good in the longer term.

But school issues aside, there are plenty of opportunities to expand one's knowledge - I have a couple of employees working for me who changed their careers later in life and they're being well rewarded for it.

1) To my mind, the unions have been punished for their hubris in the 1970's - unlike in the 1970's (when 'Beer and sandwiches at Number 10' was the ever-present sneer), the unions today are nearly powerless compared to their previous incarnations. Their tactics are the same, time-tested tactics they have used for a century and a half to help their members and the working class against the inordinate power of their employers- but if the public *still* dislikes them using these tactics even when they are as powerless as they now are, then that can't be helped, because giving up on the right to strike would be invalidating their purpose as unions meant to serve the Average Joe, not the employer who would love for that Average Joe to be atomized and unable to negotiate with his employer in anything more than the most superficial bargaining position.

2) 'Rare' skills are rare for a reason. They cease to become rare if everyone is capable of acquiring them, and then you are left in the same situation as you were before you sent everyone away to acquire these skills. Again, that is not a reason for those without those skills (the vast majority in nearly every high-skill/low-skill society in human history) to meekly submit to having their power and rights relative to their employers stripped away because an infinitesmally few people in the golden tower get to negotiate on more even terms, so it's clearly 'working fine for everyone else too' without the need for unions.

3) The idea that workers have a certain level of worth regardless of education or ability comes from the humanist belief that people have an intrinsic worth as human beings, allied with the assurances that generation after generation of governments have given to people (the world over) that there is a fairly-won place for them in society if they work to the best of their abilities, whatever their role and economic status. If you don't like the idea that low-skilled people want to be treated fairly and won't keep schtum when they feel ill-treated (and won't just conveniently leave their positions), then you have a lot of work to do to undo centuries of humanistic thought in education, government, law and wider society - you'll also need to bluntly tell people that they only matter if they have a skill the market deems necessary. You could create this fantastic free market paradise this way, of course - but don't expect it to last very long, because the first person who argues for more fairness outside of the GHod of 'market forces' poses an existential challenge to that order.

4) Universities were *never* meant to be job skill centers. They were meant to teach young people to think, criticize, evaluate, argue and question - to test the fundamentals of their world in an environment outside the rigid confines of the school system. Their purpose was to educate and to (most importantly) *research* the world while doing so.

Job skilling was meant to be the province of the companies who hired people to do those jobs. Somewhere along the line, the companies themselves made it their goal to dispose of that unnecessary expense in favor of telling the universities to turn into job-training centres, because they couldn't be *rsed an would rather rid themselves of that expense. Now, our graduates are the most educated any generation has ever been - the most intelligent, the most inquisitive, the most widely read. And yet, they are also part of the generation that is bluntly being told not to expect to live lives as good as those of their parents, by the very cohorts who (in some cases) didn't even need degrees of any sort to get into the jobs that they presently employ.

It isn't a problem with the West's education system - it is definitely a problem with the West's corporate world privatizing profits and socializing costs. (I exclude Germany from this statement, because in many ways they're a symbol for the West to follow in terms of labour relations, job training, apprenticeship programs and corporate responsibility).

It is if you're really good at what you do or are particularly hard working.

Those employees that have left us over the past decade or so were mainly ones that we were not so fussed about losing. We've done everything in our power to keep and progress the good ones because they hold extra value to us. I don't think my company is unique, or even rare in that regard.

Very few people are really good at doing things the market deems 'valuable' enough to place on an equal bargaining position relative to their employers.

Many people are good at doing things the market doesn't deem valuable enough to be worth anything substantial.

Many, many people are very hardworking, often working odd hours and multiple jobs just to make ends meet.

The market is not fair, in any way, sense or form, given these realities. What its caprice deems profitable, it will prioritize (And people lucky enough and talented enough to be good at doing something within that field will profit from it). Otherwise, people are SOL.

This is why unions were formed. Not for the benefit of the 2/100 people who were lucky enough to be good at something the market deemed worthy enough to remunerate well and treat fairly. But for the other 98/100 people who were (in the main) ordinary, reasonable hardworking folks who just wanted a fair slice of the pie and dignity in their labour and in their lives.

Your suggestions are all based on the idea that the privileged few enjoy negotiating power secure enough to command their wages and working conditions, so it's all fine. That model only works for that privileged few - literally no one else has been served by such a laissez faire system without the social and governmental safeguards afforded by unions and humanistic governments. Safeguards which came with a lot of blood, sweat and tears, wrested from the hands of often unwilling employers.

Safeguards which, when not provided in some cases, led to bloodshed and misery when the dam burst.

 

[AuroRaman]

@DubaiSpur great posts. What struck me more than anything though, was when you talked about 'dignity'. That's all most people want.

 

[scaramanga]

What defines 'lazy'? Is 'lazy' someone who simply wants an 8 hour day, then to toddle off with their mates for a pint, go home, put their feet up, etc? I am far far far from that, but my point is it takes all sorts.

I know it's subjective, but for me it's doing less than the best a person can do. I'd say around a third of the people I've ever worked with/worked for/managed in this country have a decent work ethic.

It's markedly different to the US and Germany where I'd say that the vast majority that I came into contact with were hard working.

As for the second bold-faced bit...that is not protection against being fudged by en employer. Sorry.

Of course it is. An employer that treats people in a manner less than people are willing to accept will have no employees.

It's entirely possible to work hard enough to make oneself indispensable.

 

[Gilzeantoscore]

Everyone alive in the UK in the 70s and 80s was traumatised by unions. They nearly ruined the country until our hero in a blue dress saved us all.

Scara, you are doing such a good job as a Trot sleeper!

 

[Gilzeantoscore]

I'll try again ...Correct me if I'm wrong but what you're saying is , you'd rather the utilities remain in private hands, rather than return to public ownership without trade union dominance ?

You are attempting to establish an artificial debate. I have never subscribed to union domination of anything. I just see that unions have a legitimate role in our industrial relations. You are attempting to set up straw men.

 

[Gilzeantoscore]

I know it's subjective, but for me it's doing less than the best a person can do. I'd say around a third of the people I've ever worked with/worked for/managed in this country have a decent work ethic.

It's markedly different to the US and Germany where I'd say that the vast majority that I came into contact with were hard working.


Of course it is. An employer that treats people in a manner less than people are willing to accept will have no employees.

It's entirely possible to work hard enough to make oneself indispensable.

No. no, no! When there is an economic down turn and high levels of unemployment, employers will get away with exploitative behaviour. The only protection available to ordinary workers is collective action through a union that has strike action available as a tactic. Otherwise they have no bargaining power.

 

[scaramanga]

Nothing to do with shifting our economy over the last five decades from production and goods to services? Nothing to do with people wanting more 'things' as cheap as they can get them? I agree that the education system has left behind two generations. Disgraceful.

The economy has always been changing - there's nothing to suggest it will ever stop doing so. There's never been any real stretch of time where not updating one's skills or knowledge wasn't required and it's only revisionist thinking from trades unions that has said otherwise.

As I mentioned later in the post, the education system hasn't kept up with changes and Blair's attempts to create a nation of university graduates, regardless of aptitude or relevance hasn't helped matters. Both major parties since the abolition of grammar schools have been a part of this and both have failed us.

A decent, living wage with job security will produce a higher quality product in the long-term. You can still make sure jobs are done properly and still hold staff accountable for their actions. What you should never do is make workers feel they can be dispensed with at any moment for someone younger and cheaper. IMO.

I don't care about younger workers, I do care about cheaper ones. Would you intentionally employ a builder who was more expensive despite getting exactly the same service from another one? All of my competitors are using the cheapest good staff they can find - what do you think my customers' response to inflated prices will be? We're already losing huge amounts of business overseas due to the price increases forced on us by the "living wage".

In terms of a higher quality product, how skilled does someone have to be to pick something up from one place and put it down somewhere else? How much do I (or more importantly, my customers) gain to offset the increase in cost of paying someone more?

Come on. Nobody of our age has a clue as to whether you're right. We weren't there!

Of course - that's why we have historians. The caricature of terrible and dangerous mill conditions are always used as a comparison to the modern day. When compared to the dangers and conditions of the alternatives of the time, they come out fairly favourably.

In society, fire is sadly fought with fire. I would agree that there should've been better self-policing back in the day.

I don't think fire was fought with fire, I think it was fought with the only option available as we were being held to ransom as a country.

The 'market forces' of a society so confused it has not quite figured out that it fudged itself by giving in to a service economy over a manufacturing one.

Is there a good reason to believe that a manufacturing economy is better than a service one?

AFAIK, being higher up the service/manufacturing "food chain" tend to lead a country into more prosperity. I can't imagine why we would want to position ourselves between the raw material countries and the service countries unless we had a specific reason to be able to charge significantly more than Eastern Europe and China, etc.


Glad we agree on the rest!

 

[scaramanga]

No. no, no! When there is an economic down turn and high levels of unemployment, employers will get away with exploitative behaviour. The only protection available to ordinary workers is collective action through a union that has strike action available as a tactic. Otherwise they have no bargaining power.

And when there is an economic upturn and unemployment is pretty much zero (or negative for good staff) then the only protection available to ordinary employers is a lack of unions that have strike action as an available tactic.

 

[r-u-s-x]

It appears to me that all your conclusions are based upon the fact you think a free market is the best solution, this is an opinion. I look around and compare our society with others all the ones that appeal are those with greater equality. It is possible to have a better performing economy than the one we have now and also a fairer one and there are plenty of examples out there.

Or is the UK exceptional and we should not use any current alternatives as a guide but what happened between 30 and 50 years ago?

 

[wiziwig]

You are attempting to establish an artificial debate. I have never subscribed to union domination of anything. I just see that unions have a legitimate role in our industrial relations. You are attempting to set up straw men.

Artificial debate, straw men?


Gutter Boy wrote in post #7406

I support the idea of nationalising the railways and utilities actually. As long as there are the right structures to incentivise performance and dynamism.


My reply in post #7409

I've long held the view, that nationalised railways and utilities, would be the way forward on the condition, that worker's strike action were limited to protest whilst away from their work duties.

However I just can't see a Trade Unionist or Labour politician ever agreeing to this so IMO, best leave it where it is.


You then came along and wrote in post #7420

Yep, let's prevent unionists form exercising their right to withdraw their labour. What bargaining power would they have then? What would be to point of organised labour?


My response in post #7438

So you'd rather the Utilities remained in private ownership, than having them re-nationalised without the closed shop?

_______________________

It was nothing but a simple question to your opening post #7420.

 

[scaramanga]

Yes, but it has almost never been the case that the 'skilled and in demand' end of the scale has constituted the majority of any workforce, anywhere. Huge deficits of labour affording employees more power are vanishingly rare things, usually only accomplished by mass population changes on the scale of the Black Death (which effectively began the decline and death of serfdom as an economic institution) or the two World Wars (which decimated industrial competitors to the victorious allied powers and simultaneously created labor shortages in the defeated powers striving to recover and some of the victorious powers (chiefly the United States, which saw one of the greatest economic expansions of all time during and after the Second World War).

Most of the time (across the entirety of human history), the vast majority of the population do not fit the type of in-demand employees that are granted relatively greater mobility and opportunities - market forces are rarely, if *ever* in their favour.
Smith noted as much, when he compared the relative power of workers and employers throughout history, and bluntly reasoned that..."it is not, however, difficult to foresee which of the two parties must, upon all ordinary occasions, have the advantage in the dispute, and force the other into a compliance with their conditions. The masters, being fewer in number, can combine much more easily..."

..and, as mentioned, that situation (where employees outnumber employers) is a near-permanent state of affairs. So the scale is already weighted against your average employee to start with.

I don't think employers combine in that regard much at all. If they do, then I think the same laws against anti-competitiveness should apply. They shouldn't be able to skew the market they sell in and neither should they be able to skew the market they purchase from.

It is, of course, entirely possible to have value without having what is normally considered a rare skill. Certainly in this country, a strong work ethic combined with an eagerness for the employer to succeed in its aims is enough to stand out from the crowd and to become valuable.

Changes cannot come about in a vacuum, agreed - but what drives the consensus that precedes sweeping political or legal changes is very rarely a gentlemanly affair that involves the more powerful freely affording concessions to the less well-off. More often than not, it is fear of unrest and radical action caused by ignoring the (far) more numerous disadvantaged that drives the politically powerful to grant concessions ahead of time, and a general withdrawal of those concessions when the fear of unrest is low. As with the UK - at the turn of the 20th century, the HoL was largely in favour of allowing employers to form trade associations and collude to control wages and collectively root out potentially disruptive workers, while the Taff Vale case briefly made any collective industrial action on the part of the workers punishable by law (due to the economic damages incurred by the employer), while exempting organized action by associations of employers from the same danger.

That changed in the space of a decade when unionized workers founded the Labour Party. Already shocked by the London Dock Strike in 1889, which saw ordinary workers form a union in a manner largely foreign to their class in previous decades, the formation of the Labour Party (or the Labour Representative Committee) by the rapidly growing unions was what broke the back of the Liberal Party's previous alliance with industrial and moneyed interests - the switch towards accomodating unions and passing a raft of labour-friendly laws (many of which form the basis for labour protection rights today) following their victory in 1906 was driven by the Liberals' fear of the new Labour Party utilising increasing discontent (which culminated in the fervent 1910-1914 upheavals) to end the relevance of their party when compared to the Conservatives (which ended up happening anyway).

Those may be trigger points, but as with all other laws, the public has to have got to that point in their thinking first. You simply can't pass laws that the majority of the public don't want - that's a fairly important part of democracy!

A good recent example is that of gay marriage, a law that only 10-15 years before it's introduction (I'm counting the civil partnership act as the start) would have been highly controversial, even for a left-leaning government. But we have all seen how, during our lifetimes, the attitudes of the general public have altered in a way that allows such laws to pass with barely a murmur at election time.

Today, that sort of fear of unrest and political upheaval is still lower than it was back then (even though Brexit and the collapse of the neoliberal consensus have shaken the elites up quite a bit and given them cause to doubt the placidity of the working class). This, combined with the death of the unions over the last three-odd decades, has allowed those in power to steadily withdraw the powers employees once enjoyed relative to their employers, most of which were won by the unions. When added to the fact that the employees are at a near-permanent disadvantage relative to their employers anyway (given the reasons Smith outlined), there is little evidence to suggest a 'most productive' equilibrium being reached - rather, there is a backsliding favoring the employers over the employees, to my mind, which will ultimately backfire in unpredictable ways.

I don't see much of an erosion of rights for workers. Employing people is far more costly now than it has ever been, making people redundant and sacking them (after an initial period) is as difficult as it has ever been. Ever tried sacking a useless employee that also happens to be disabled? That's not a procedure I would wish on anybody.

I think that what has changed more than employees' rights is their expectations. Generation Special Snowflake and their "deferred success" at school, 50% attending university (having the obvious effect of lowering the value of a degree rather than increasing the value of an employee), an over-inflated safety net that causes people to believe they are owed something from life, abolition of learning trades pre-16..... All of this has led to a workforce of people that believe they deserve before they've earned. That's the real danger, and I genuinely don't see how we can fix it any time soon.

 

[scaramanga]

It appears to me that all your conclusions are based upon the fact you think a free market is the best solution, this is an opinion. I look around and compare our society with others all the ones that appeal are those with greater equality. It is possible to have a better performing economy than the one we have now and also a fairer one and there are plenty of examples out there.

Or is the UK exceptional and we should not use any current alternatives as a guide but what happened between 30 and 50 years ago?

What is fairer? I already pay a massively unfair amount of tax, is it fair to pay more? If we increase the costs of employment where does that money come from? Is it fair that I earn less to pay the workshy more? Or do we just pass on the cost, increase inflation and bring everyone back to where they were?

 

[r-u-s-x]

What is fairer? I already pay a massively unfair amount of tax, is it fair to pay more? If we increase the costs of employment where does that money come from? Is it fair that I earn less to pay the workshy more? Or do we just pass on the cost, increase inflation and bring everyone back to where they were?

You start with the point that Tax is unfair - this is your opinion, I have a different one and can back this up but you would dismiss my opinion (as you can yours). But either way this is an opinion, you close your eyes to alternatives out there who are successful not following your dogma. I freely admit that as a whole the GDP of the country may increase using your methods but so what if only the very few benefit.

There are example out there where those in charge have your view and those in charge have mine. It may not translate directly to what can be achieved in the UK bit it does show that an alternative can be achieved and does not lead to a workshy labour force or hyper inflation. Where does the money for the increase in costs of employment come from in Germany, why can they compete on the international stage, why do they have a higher level of production per person etc.

 

[scaramanga]

You start with the point that Tax is unfair - this is your opinion, I have a different one and can back this up but you would dismiss my opinion (as you can yours). But either way this is an opinion, you close your eyes to alternatives out there who are successful not following your dogma. I freely admit that as a whole the GDP of the country may increase using your methods but so what if only the very few benefit.

There are example out there where those in charge have your view and those in charge have mine. It may not translate directly to what can be achieved in the UK bit it does show that an alternative can be achieved and does not lead to a workshy labour force or hyper inflation. Where does the money for the increase in costs of employment come from in Germany, why can they compete on the international stage, why do they have a higher level of production per person etc.

I think that the UK is not unique but is certainly out of the norm in terms of a lack of work ethic. I've worked in the US and Germany (albeit far less than I have in the UK) and we have a factory in the Czech Republic (or Czechia or whatever it's supposed to be called now). My experience is that few in those countries believe they are owed something in the way people in the UK do. Germany is an excellent example of businesses that have employees who actually care about the success of the business and who are massively more productive than their UK counterparts. It also has such low homeownership that expendable income stays high, along with unions that help to keep wage inflation down. I can't see either of those things happening in the UK any time soon.

I don't see any country operating the way I suggest they should. The US is closer than most, and those who do work tend to be better off than their UK equivalents in my experience. They have even more severe problems with their education system than we do (for entirely different reasons), and so have large numbers of fairly unemployable people too.