For a given GDP and income distribution, I think it is healthier to have it produced by all people together than by a subset with redistribution. Not because it is economically more efficient ( although it probably is), but because having a paid and useful job is valauble in itself.
Of course, this is probably the result of ages of indoctrination that only having a job makes you a worthy memmber of society, and only paid work is worthy of respect. But on the other hand, if there is useful and respectworthy worked outside of jobs, it is not unreasonable to pay for it.
Also, the way the work environment is now more and more designed, with competition between workers, makes friends at work an harder thing to establish.
And our societies are of course weaning people out of the techniques for social linking out of employment. Only when people are forced together, such as in schools or companies, they can form social bonds ; unlike in nearly all others society where one knew lot of people in the community... Individualism means not knowing one's neighbours.
The concept that socialisation has to be linked to a business relationships is a great victory for business relationships, not for socialisation...
Also, the insistence that everyone should have jobs, on what are essentially the employers' terms, give those great powers. For example, they can refuse to let people find other balances between work and the rest of time available. Which is one of the main reasons there are so many jobless... Auferre, trucidare, rapere, falsis nominibus imperium; atque, ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant.
Yup. Sig line? When locusts move on, they leave nothing behind
The book, Le travail, une valeur en voie de disparition, describes the evolution of philosophical and moral approaches to work over time. How it was disregarded by the greeks, etc...
The three important aspects of work being alienation because of its forced, repetitive aspects ; personal development through the necessity of acting on reality ; and involvement in the social world through the collective aspects of employment. Although well managed companies try to develop and make the latter two aspects of work seem important to induce qualified worker retention, it is hard to hide they only want labour, not people, and thus I feel the first aspect is still the most striking... Auferre, trucidare, rapere, falsis nominibus imperium; atque, ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant.
It also seems she has written an English language, journal article version, but it's not free access (maybe ManFromMidleTown would have access? why can social scientists learn about Arxiv?). Maybe you can obtain it from her... Auferre, trucidare, rapere, falsis nominibus imperium; atque, ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant.
Your main remaining point, to me, is: people will go for jobs if they get more than in social benefits. In America, benefits were slashed in the '90s so that people were forced to take jobs at wages they can't possibly approve of. I don't think people get a sense of value out of being forced to accept low wages. Or rather, the sense of their own worth they get is a low one. (No better than on redistributed income, you might reply -- but on benefit their time is their own).
And my main point above, of course, (measly and unfeeling as it may be), is that creating shitty jobs (unstable, short part-time, low-wage slavery) fixes a nation's labour figures just fine. When locusts move on, they leave nothing behind
It's all downside, when the market matures, for everyone but the accountants, lawyers, and "human resource" people. At that point they get to be creative about how they redirect, or 'reorganize', the company.
As for the low-end jobs, it is a disgrace for a nation to call that 'employment'. paul spencer
