Dagne
Elite member
https://theconversation.com/what-wi...S0BKKCVz_vtn-r_xkeJUQD3yD_CvqPuMRmsZ8Ir2-sqyI
This is really an interesting article!
I really don't want the world go back to normal business as usual after the coronavirus. It is so true, the current economic model is not fit, not healthy for us all to live by. We all know that many jobs are about nothing - pointless jobs, but somehow, they are the best paid ones, like jobs in financial sector...
This is what the author of the article says:
The responses to the COVID-19 pandemic are simply the amplification of the dynamic that drives other social and ecological crises: the prioritisation of one type of value over others. This dynamic has played a large part in driving global responses to COVID-19. So as responses to the virus evolve, how might our economic futures develop?
From an economic perspective, there are four possible futures: a descent into barbarism, a robust state capitalism, a radical state socialism, and a transformation into a big society built on mutual aid. Versions of all of these futures are perfectly possible, if not equally desirable.
[....]
So what we need is a different economic mindset. We tend to think of the economy as the way we buy and sell things, mainly consumer goods. But this is not what an economy is or needs to be. At its core, the economy is the way we take our resources and turn them into the things we need to live. Looked at this way, we can start to see more opportunities for living differently that allow us to produce less stuff without increasing misery.
Proposals include reducing the length of the working week, or, as some of my recent work has looked at, you could allow people to work more slowly and with less pressure. Neither of these is directly applicable to COVID-19, where the aim is reducing contact rather than output, but the core of the proposals is the same. You have to reduce people’s dependence on a wage to be able to live.
[...]
Many of the best paid jobs only exist to facilitate exchanges; to make money. They serve no wider purpose to society: they are what the anthropologist David Graeber calls “bullshit jobs”. Yet because they make lots of money we have lots of consultants, a huge advertising industry and a massive financial sector. Meanwhile, we have a crisis in health and social care, where people are often forced out of useful jobs they enjoy, because these jobs don’t pay them enough to live.
[...]
The current mindset is driven by two linked beliefs:
In the UK, attendees at a private engagement reportedly summarised the Prime Minister’s most senior aide’s approach to COVID-19 as “herd immunity, protect the economy, and if that means some pensioners die, too bad”. The government has denied this, but if real, it’s not surprising. At a government event early in the pandemic, a senior civil servant said to me: “Is it worth the economic disruption? If you look at the treasury valuation of a life, probably not.”
Four futures
This is really an interesting article!
I really don't want the world go back to normal business as usual after the coronavirus. It is so true, the current economic model is not fit, not healthy for us all to live by. We all know that many jobs are about nothing - pointless jobs, but somehow, they are the best paid ones, like jobs in financial sector...
This is what the author of the article says:
The responses to the COVID-19 pandemic are simply the amplification of the dynamic that drives other social and ecological crises: the prioritisation of one type of value over others. This dynamic has played a large part in driving global responses to COVID-19. So as responses to the virus evolve, how might our economic futures develop?
From an economic perspective, there are four possible futures: a descent into barbarism, a robust state capitalism, a radical state socialism, and a transformation into a big society built on mutual aid. Versions of all of these futures are perfectly possible, if not equally desirable.
[....]
So what we need is a different economic mindset. We tend to think of the economy as the way we buy and sell things, mainly consumer goods. But this is not what an economy is or needs to be. At its core, the economy is the way we take our resources and turn them into the things we need to live. Looked at this way, we can start to see more opportunities for living differently that allow us to produce less stuff without increasing misery.
Proposals include reducing the length of the working week, or, as some of my recent work has looked at, you could allow people to work more slowly and with less pressure. Neither of these is directly applicable to COVID-19, where the aim is reducing contact rather than output, but the core of the proposals is the same. You have to reduce people’s dependence on a wage to be able to live.
[...]
Many of the best paid jobs only exist to facilitate exchanges; to make money. They serve no wider purpose to society: they are what the anthropologist David Graeber calls “bullshit jobs”. Yet because they make lots of money we have lots of consultants, a huge advertising industry and a massive financial sector. Meanwhile, we have a crisis in health and social care, where people are often forced out of useful jobs they enjoy, because these jobs don’t pay them enough to live.
[...]
The current mindset is driven by two linked beliefs:
- The market is what delivers a good quality of life, so it must be protected
- The market will always return to normal after short periods of crisis
In the UK, attendees at a private engagement reportedly summarised the Prime Minister’s most senior aide’s approach to COVID-19 as “herd immunity, protect the economy, and if that means some pensioners die, too bad”. The government has denied this, but if real, it’s not surprising. At a government event early in the pandemic, a senior civil servant said to me: “Is it worth the economic disruption? If you look at the treasury valuation of a life, probably not.”
Four futures