from an article in yesterday's Le Monde, by Robert Castel:

Travailler plus, pour gagner quoi?

On assiste, au contraire, à une extraordinaire survalorisation du travail portée par une idéologie libérale agressive qui trouve sa traduction politique directe dans les orientations de l'actuelle majorité, président de la République en tête. La virulence de la critique des lois dites "lois Aubry" sur la réduction du temps de travail après le changement de majorité en 2002 a parfois frôlé l'hystérie. "La France ne doit pas être un parc de loisirs", déclarait durant l'été 2003 Jean-Pierre Raffarin, alors premier ministre. La France est devenue la lanterne rouge de l'Europe, elle s'enfonce dans le déclin parce que les Français ne travaillent pas assez : la campagne présidentielle a été dominée par cette apologie du travail, et l'habileté avec laquelle Nicolas Sarkozy l'a orchestrée a été pour beaucoup dans son succès.

Tout le monde a en mémoire les slogans incitant au travail et portant la promesse que travailler davantage est le moyen à la fois d'améliorer son pouvoir d'achat et aussi d'accomplir son devoir de citoyen et d'aider la France à retrouver la place qu'elle mérite dans le concert des nations. Cela, évidemment, pour tous ceux qui veulent bien travailler, qui en ont le courage. Cette célébration du travail est en effet assortie de la stigmatisation de tous ceux qui ne travaillent pas. C'est le soupçon qui pèse sur les chômeurs d'être des "chômeurs volontaires" pour lesquels on va multiplier les contrôles et les pressions pour qu'ils acceptent n'importe quel emploi. C'est aussi la condamnation des assistés, comme les bénéficiaires du RMI, accusés d'être des parasites vivant aux crochets de la France qui se lève tôt.

Ces positions, au demeurant populaires, pourraient paraître, si ce n'est aberrantes, à tout le moins paradoxale, puisque l'une des caractéristiques de la situation actuelle est précisément que le travail manque et que le plein-emploi n'est plus assuré depuis trente ans. Cependant, c'est dans ce contexte que l'incitation inconditionnelle au travail prend tout son sens.

Il faut en effet penser ensemble ces trois composantes de la situation présente : primo, il y a du non-emploi, c'est-à-dire une pénurie de places disponibles sur le marché du travail susceptibles d'assurer le plein-emploi ; deuxio, il y a une survalorisation du travail qui en fait un impératif catégorique, une exigence absolue de travailler pour être socialement respectable ; tertio, il y a cette stigmatisation du non-travail, assimilé à l'oisiveté coupable, à la figure traditionnelle du "mauvais pauvre" vivant aux dépens de ceux qui travaillent.

Ces trois dimensions fonctionnent d'une manière complémentaire pour impulser une politique pouvant conduire à la pleine activité sans que cela signifie le retour au plein-emploi. Tout le monde doit et pourrait travailler si on abaisse le seuil d'exigence qui commande l'accès au travail. Il faut donc travailler même si le tra-vail n'assure pas les conditions minimales d'une certaine indépendance économique. C'est ainsi que l'on devient un travailleur pauvre, figure qui est en train de s'installer dans notre paysage social. Ce n'est pas très gratifiant à aucun point de vue d'être un travailleur pauvre. Cependant c'est mieux que d'être un mauvais pauvre, un misérable parasite assisté.

Se dessine ainsi une stratégie qui, à la limite, pourrait résorber le chômage en le grignotant progressivement par la multiplication de manières dégradées de travailler. On pourrait de la sorte restaurer une société de pleine activité (mot d'ordre de l'OCDE), sans que l'on puisse parler de société de plein-emploi, si l'on entend par emploi un travail relativement assuré de sa durée (prééminence du CDI), fermement encadré par le droit du travail et couvert par la protection sociale. Le processus est en cours.

The conclusion is important:

Ces formes de sous-emploi sont généralement peu attractives et elles n'assurent pas les conditions de base nécessaires pour mener une vie décente. On conçoit donc que des pressions doivent s'exercer pour faire accepter ces formes de travail : il faut absolument que tu travailles pour échapper au mépris attaché au mauvais pauvre. C'est finalement sur un chantage d'ordre moral autant que sur un raisonnement économique que repose l'orchestration actuelle de l'inconditionnalité de la valeur travail par les autorités qui nous gouvernent.

Il faut continuer à défendre la valeur travail, parce que l'on n'a pas encore trouvé d'alternative consistante au travail pour assurer l'indépendance économique et la reconnaissance sociale dans une société moderne. Mais aussi rappeler qu'il y a travail et travail. Le travail est essentiel en tant que support de l'identité de la personne à travers les ressources économiques et les droits sociaux auxquels il donne accès. Au contraire, l'institution de formes dégradées d'emploi au nom de l'exigence de travailler à tout prix et à n'importe quel prix conduit aussi à la dégradation du statut de travailleur et, finalement, de la qualité de citoyen. Il ne suffit pas de "réhabiliter le travail", comme se propose de le faire le président de la République : il faudrait respecter la dignité des travailleurs.

In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes

I have, for my sins, worked for the majority of my working life in a large, rapidly "modernising", rapidly globalising business.  Management theory goes through a lot of fads and phases, but the following policies where explicitly developed and followed throughout this period.

1. Use technology to automate whatever processes could be automated - in order to improve consistency of quality and reduce labour costs

2.  Use computer systems to standardise and rationalise business process - to achieve economies of scale and negotiation leverage in procurement

3.  Outsource all non-core activities to specialist firms - who can generate savings through their own economies of scale and exclusive focus on those activities - e.g. catering, security, transport, maintenance, admin support services etc.

4.  Reduce "headcount" of core employees (and associated salary and pension costs) by outsourcing all seasonal, periodic peak, and project and exceptional work requirements so that the long term employment/pension commitments of the firm are minimised

5. Continual refine and reduce the definition of "core" so that in the end even production and key administrative tasks are globalised and outsourced to cheaper labour countries.

6.  Retain only IP (intellectual property) and brand equity as core competencies/activities and outsource the rest of at all possible.

7. Outsource risk wherever possible - by setting up subsidiaries or contracting to third parties

The effect of these changes has been to reduce the core workforce to perhaps 10% of the peak - despite ongoing increases in the volume of production/sales.  Initially the outsourcing affected only low skill, peripheral jobs, but increasingly managerial and professional jobs were automated or outsourced as well.

The benefits for the business were the almost total focus on high margin, knowledge intensive activities which leveraged the core competencies, brand assets, and unique selling points of our products.

The impact on society is that very few elite workers can now look forward to a career in extremely well paid  and high skill and relatively secure employments.  However even senior managers are being employed almost exclusively on short term rolling contracts and most have to effectively reapply for their own jobs on a regular basis - as part of twice annual reorganizations which marginally effect how jobs are scoped and defined.

Ultimately this leads to extreme insecurity for all, with everyone looking after their own personal, short term interests - often at the expense of the longer term interests of the business as a whole.  Loyalty to the business - i.e. long service personnel - come to be seen as dead wood who need to be moved on.

The smart guys (and increasingly gals) are ruthlessly self centered in everything they do, make sure that mistakes are perceived as someone else's fault, and move jobs/company rapidly to prevent their short term thinking and mistakes from catching up with them.

Those who play this game successfully get very rich indeed.  The vast majority find themselves having to make very long term personal commitments - marriage, children, mortgages etc. - whilst having only short term security.

Everyone is working an awful lot harder than they used to - and most enjoy the work a lot less - although it has to be said that many of the rigidities of the older hierarchical systems also stood in the way of younger, more gifted, and more entrepreneurial individuals fulfilling their potential.

This "anglo disease" model of business is in stark contrast to some of the more stable business models still found in Japan and continental Europe, but it still seems to be the dominant model world-wide - particularly in global corporations.

There are a lot more opportunities for able, well qualified younger people today, but they also have to work a lot harder, sacrifice a lot more of their social life, and many will ultimately end up in low paying "outsourced" jobs with poor pay and few prospects.

Some will be lucky and find some very well paid niches as self employed or small business entrepreneurs, but the general level of insecurity is much greater for all.  All of this works fine when there is near full employment and there are always other jobs to apply for.  But in the current climate many will simply fall off the employment conveyor belt with few prospects of re-employment - and a lot of debts incurred to fund the long term life decisions which had to be made on the way.

The "anglo disease" has seen a huge transfer of power and wealth to the super wealthy.  Peak oil has also seen a huge change in the balance of power and wealth in favour of Oil/ressource rich nations.  Both will result in the virtual demise of the formally secure middle classes, and the creation of a vast working class with almost no long term job security.

The social and political implications of this are huge - the individualization of society and the creation of "dormer towns" with virtually no community life. The outsourcing of childrearing and care of the aged, and a political instability which will put enormous pressure on Governments to deliver economic growth sufficient to deliver additional jobs in the face of all the headwinds to employment cited above.

There will be an increasing class division between relatively secure and well paid/pensioned public sector workers and increasingly insecure and impoverished private sector workers - all the time obscured by "statistics" which show average private sector incomes growing when in fact it is the wealthy and those few in secure elite employments who are achieving all the growth.

The "privatize the profits" and "socialize the losses" model of economic development is happening at the individual level as well - and resulting in increasing inequalities at every level of society.  Qualifications inflation will make the going tough even for the highly skilled and educated.

Don't get me wrong.  The ancien regime had many crass inequities as well.  However the social supports for those who fail seem to be getting less and less.  It's everybody for themselves now.  Social solidarity went out with the Unions and the socialists.  Remember them?

"It's a mystery to me - the game commences, For the usual fee - plus expenses, Confidential information - it's in my diary..."

I don't know the figures anymore, but windpower in Germany should be higher than 30,000 now (from memory).  That will explode again in the next years, particularly in the offshore field.  infrastructure needs to be built to support the growth, beginning with technical training.

I have no figures for the US, but i'm aware that nearly a dozen, perhaps more, community colleges have opened new training courses for the various jobs involved in servicing and operating windparks.  There are turbine assembly plants going into buildings vacant since the end of the steel industry.  New blade facilities are being built on the order of several a year.  One can conjecture that soon the numbers will add up to something significant for the US.

Just to throw something positive on the table.

Skennah Kowa

out of 20 occupations, fully 50% are hands-on, personal contact, yooman to yooman jobs.

things machines just can't do, and are still far from being able to do.

jobs that need, and teach compassion.

as a massage therapist, this makes a whole lot of sense.

perhaps one day robots will do everything a good human therapist can do, just as maybe computers will write their own software and plan and execute their own IT.

perhaps not!

"These days, there's nothing more ridiculous than the truth." Leonard Pitts Jr