The destruction of the Middle Classes commences

artha

Kohoutek wrote: »

Yeah, but the OP was arguing that middle class jobs will be offshored en mass, resulting in mass unemployment and no opportunities/no jobs for graduates.

The gains of made of investing a few hundred quid of savings onto the Indian stock market isn't going to offset the loss of losing your job or being underemployed for your entire life....

I wasn't saying that this one example is the solution but merely demonstrating that we need to have a change of mindset.

Kohoutek

artha wrote: »

I wasn't saying that this one example is the solution but merely demonstrating that we need to have a change of mindset.

It's a change of policy that's needed, not a change of mindset. Saying the solution is to tell people to 'look for more opportunities' isn't going to work when economic events create structural unemployment (like steelworkers, factor workers, coal miners losing their jobs because of deindustrialisation or skilled workers from mass offshoring to India). If the state doesn't provide the resources to help the people affected to retrain and find another job (which may include creating more govt jobs), then there will just be more unemployment. Thatcher went down the neoliberal route you're suggesting – i.e. the belief it is the individual's sole responsibility to find another job and look after themselves. We all know it didn't work – that's why she eventually moved a lot of unemployed people onto benefits.

The only change of mindset needed is from people who think that losing your job/livelihood/future because of economic events beyond your control is remotely comparable to unsustainable and impossible pension promises being withdrawn...

marklv

neverdespairgirl wrote: »

I doubt it. I use a computer a lot, for drafting etc, but I doubt there are too many barristers in Lithuania or India who can replace me.

You are one of the lucky ones but I'm an IT manager and for me it's a constant battle to prove myself, lest my job get outsourced.

Kohoutek

marklv wrote: »

You are one of the lucky ones but I'm an IT manager and for me it's a constant battle to prove myself, lest my job get outsourced.

There are four things the government could do:

1. Protectionism (e.g. farmers/Common Agricultural Policy)
2. Welfare (replace unemployed workers' lost incomes with benefits)
3. Government subsidy of retraining/job creation for people made unemployed (although not always realistic for people who have spent 10+ in one career)
4. The neoliberal view - do nothing (let the social structure of the UK become like Mexico or Russia)

I think the UK is doing a mix of 2 + 4 at the moment. New Labour did a lot of 3 (creating more public sector jobs), but that's about to be reversed.

artha

Kohoutek wrote: »

It's a change of policy that's needed, not a change of mindset. Saying the solution is to tell people to 'look for more opportunities' isn't going to work when economic events create structural unemployment (like steelworkers, factor workers, coal miners losing their jobs because of deindustrialisation or skilled workers from mass offshoring to India). If the state doesn't provide the resources to help the people affected to retrain and find another job (which may include creating more govt jobs), then there will just be more unemployment. Thatcher went down the neoliberal route you're suggesting – i.e. the belief it is the individual's sole responsibility to find another job and look after themselves. We all know it didn't work – that's why she eventually moved a lot of unemployed people onto benefits.

I agree that a change of policy as well as a change in mindset is needed but I think they are to some extent one and the same thing. As I said on another thread the creation of more "middle class" workers along with unrealistic expectations through the "Graduate Factories" formerly known as Universities is what has to change.

The only change of mindset needed is from people who think that losing your job/livelihood/future because of economic events beyond your control is remotely comparable to unsustainable and impossible pension promises being withdrawn...

Once again this is one and the same thing. It is economic events that have led to a demise of traditional values and expectations in terms of employment and pension expectations. I don't like it. It makes me feel bitter but it is now a fact of life regardless of which political party is in power. Who are the middle class anyway? Even using the term suggests that we are still locked into a view of the world that is as outdated as thinking that the UK is a major manufacturing nation in the old sense

neverdespairgirl

globalds wrote: »

But there are plenty of qualified people who could do the same job for less.

If there are, why aren't they doing it?

julieq

So why shouldn't globalisation be used as a way of cutting costs?

I'm sorry, but no-one in this country or any other has a right to a comfortable income. I'm currently in Shanghai, and I'm looking out of a hotel window onto a landscape of extraordinary growth and opportunity, which the Chinese are grasping with both hands by working unbelievably hard for returns which by UK standards are paltry. They are PROPERLY well educated, and it's viewed as a personal responsibility to become educated, not a basic right. If they lose their job, they lose everything. Which I suspect concentrates the mind a bit.

They will be the winners over the next 50 years, not whinging and in my experience terminally unproductive English middle managers who think the world owes them a living. Unless you can add genuine value to the company you work for, you're in competition with better motivated and harder working people at the end of a very accessible broadband pipe. Live with that fact and get your finger out rather than complaining that someone should do something to stop it happening.

You can hold back the tide for a while with political measures - the French are very adept at attempting that - but frankly when capital can move around the world at the click of a mouse, protectionism in the job market or anywhere else is going to fail.

It's amusing in many ways that those who are prepared to stick up protectionist barriers to the global trade are the first to rail against "rip off Britain" where they feel prices are elevated to a globally ridiculous level. It's two sides of the same coin. If you're prepared to close your internal labour market to external influence and fix prices at a point where that can be sustained then it might just be possible for a while, but it's frankly not a sustainable position long term.

Chinese wage inflation is rising incidentally, and expecations for standards of living are also going up. That will reduce the incentive to outsource over time. In the meantime there have historically been good places in the world to live, and historically there have been bad places. The West is still a good place, whether or not that continues is essentially down to the people who live there accepting the need for change rather than hoping they continue indefinitely in their flabby ways.

BLT_2

Perhaps even more fascinating at this point is the fact that at the very point they are outsourcing everything they also talk about raising the pension age to 70. This is starting to get ridiculous, we will no longer need just car parks, we will need Zimmerframe storage areas at work and search parties for those elderly who have forgotten where they work and are wandering aimlessly around the car park asking people if anyone has seen their cat :-)

Generali

julieq wrote: »

So why shouldn't globalisation be used as a way of cutting costs?

I'm sorry, but no-one in this country or any other has a right to a comfortable income. I'm currently in Shanghai, and I'm looking out of a hotel window onto a landscape of extraordinary growth and opportunity, which the Chinese are grasping with both hands by working unbelievably hard for returns which by UK standards are paltry. They are PROPERLY well educated, and it's viewed as a personal responsibility to become educated, not a basic right. If they lose their job, they lose everything. Which I suspect concentrates the mind a bit.

They will be the winners over the next 50 years, not whinging and in my experience terminally unproductive English middle managers who think the world owes them a living. Unless you can add genuine value to the company you work for, you're in competition with better motivated and harder working people at the end of a very accessible broadband pipe. Live with that fact and get your finger out rather than complaining that someone should do something to stop it happening.

You can hold back the tide for a while with political measures - the French are very adept at attempting that - but frankly when capital can move around the world at the click of a mouse, protectionism in the job market or anywhere else is going to fail.

It's amusing in many ways that those who are prepared to stick up protectionist barriers to the global trade are the first to rail against "rip off Britain" where they feel prices are elevated to a globally ridiculous level. It's two sides of the same coin. If you're prepared to close your internal labour market to external influence and fix prices at a point where that can be sustained then it might just be possible for a while, but it's frankly not a sustainable position long term.

Chinese wage inflation is rising incidentally, and expecations for standards of living are also going up. That will reduce the incentive to outsource over time. In the meantime there have historically been good places in the world to live, and historically there have been bad places. The West is still a good place, whether or not that continues is essentially down to the people who live there accepting the need for change rather than hoping they continue indefinitely in their flabby ways.

Great post. I would thank it twice if I could.

Jonbvn

julieq wrote: »

So why shouldn't globalisation be used as a way of cutting costs?

I'm sorry, but no-one in this country or any other has a right to a comfortable income. I'm currently in Shanghai, and I'm looking out of a hotel window onto a landscape of extraordinary growth and opportunity, which the Chinese are grasping with both hands by working unbelievably hard for returns which by UK standards are paltry. They are PROPERLY well educated, and it's viewed as a personal responsibility to become educated, not a basic right. If they lose their job, they lose everything. Which I suspect concentrates the mind a bit.

I've got quite a bit of money riding on Vietnam's explosive growth. Given their confucian ethics wrt education and hard-work, I can't see them failing in the long term.