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IMF Fears 'Social Explosion' From World Jobs Crisis
America and Europe face the worst jobs crisis since the 1930s and risk "an explosion of social unrest" unless they tread carefully, the International Monetary Fund has warned.
"The labour market is in dire straits. The Great Recession has left behind a waste land of unemployment," said Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the IMF's chief, at an Oslo jobs summit with the International Labour Federation (ILO).
Unemployed workers protest on the steps of Federal Hall across from the New York Stock Exchange on August 12 in New York. (AFP/Getty Images/File/Chris Hondros) He said a double-dip recession remains unlikely but stressed that the world has not yet escaped a deeper social crisis. He called it a grave error to think the West was safe again after teetering so close to the abyss last year. "We are not safe," he said.
A joint IMF-ILO report said 30m jobs had been lost since the crisis, three quarters in richer economies. Global unemployment has reached 210m. "The Great Recession has left gaping wounds. High and long-lasting unemployment represents a risk to the stability of existing democracies," it said.
The study cited evidence that victims of recession in their early twenties suffer lifetime damage and lose faith in public institutions. A new twist is an apparent decline in the "employment intensity of growth" as rebounding output requires fewer extra workers. As such, it may be hard to re-absorb those laid off even if recovery gathers pace. The world must create 45m jobs a year for the next decade just to tread water.
Olivier Blanchard, the IMF's chief economist, said the percentage of workers laid off for long stints has been rising with each downturn for decades but the figures have surged this time.
"Long-term unemployment is alarmingly high: in the US, half the unemployed have been out of work for over six months, something we have not seen since the Great Depression," he said.
Spain has seen the biggest shock, with unemployment near 20pc. Britain's rate has risen from 5.3pc to 7.8pc over the last two years, a slightly better record than the OECD average. This contrasts with the 1970s and early 1980s when Britain was notoriously worse. UK jobless today totals 2.48m.
Mr Blanchard called for extra monetary stimulus as the first line of defence if "downside risks to growth materialise", but said authorities should not rule out another fiscal boost, despite debt worries. "If fiscal stimulus helps avoid structural unemployment, it may actually pay for itself," he said.
"Most advanced countries should not tighten fiscal policies before 2011: tightening sooner could undermine recovery," said the report, rebuking Britain's Coalition, Germany's austerity hawks, and US Republicans. Under French socialist Strauss-Kahn, the IMF has assumed a Keynesian flavour.
The report skirts the contentious issue of whether globalisation lets companies engage in "labour arbitrage", locating plant in low-wage economies such as China to ship products back to the West. Nor does it grapple with the trade distortions caused by China's currency policy, except to call on "surplus countries" to play their part in rebalancing.
The IMF said there may be a link between rising inequality within Western economies and deflating demand.
Historians say the last time that the wealth gap reached such skewed extremes was in 1928-1929. Some argue that wealth concentration may cause investment to outstrip demand, leading to over-capacity. This can trap the world in a slump.
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Show AllRE: The answer is not found in socialism...
What is your definition of socialism?
I had the same excitement about Mondragon when I learned about them from carrying the Orbea bicycle line at the shop I worked. (Working in a bicycle shop for over two decades, I was partial to anything not made in China.) And now I was able to proudly sell Orbea bicycles (framesets) manufactured by the Mondragon Cooperative in Spain. Or so I thought, as we at the shop found through our own research that most of the Orbea framesets were made in China by 2006/2007. Sorry to burst your bubble, but what they might have been is not what they are now. Keep searching Duane.
Anyone else appreciating the irony of the IMF decrying a social condition that they've worked hard for decades to create?
I especially loved this:
"A joint IMF-ILO report said 30m jobs had been lost since the crisis, three quarters in richer economies."
Really? No shit? Wasn't that the effing plan? Many of those jobs aren't "lost" (as if they're wandering around in the dark, calling for mommy). They've just taken an extended vacation.
If the IMF is all of a sudden so concerned with employment, perhaps they could do the world a big favor and just disband. That would be a great start.
allirish,
Sounds like you are on to something... Yes it must be created new to work.
I think our system is based on not creating now.
I think when it comes time for the "New health Insurance" law to kick in, the rates will go up but nobody will have a clue what to do because everyone was waiting for the date for it to start.
It is gonna be a mess...
One type of job which hasn't been lost in this worldwide economic depression is the shylocking profession. The international bankers are doing well and the Wall Street usury kingpins are "laughing all the way to the bank."
And the armaments industries are booming! No money for butter but plenty for guns!
Welcome to the New World Order of the military police state and a return to to the two-class system: the rich and the poor, or indentured class.
Time to get off the grid and start building sustainable, eco-friendly societies with new, community created currencies and employee-owned businesses and co-ops. The Mondragon, which originated in the Basque region of Spain is very successful.
The good news: the increasing awareness in the public's consciousness of a possible collapse of what has been taken for granted and many communities in the U.S. and abroad have initiated these procedures and are making great strides towards communal self sufficiency.
Well, Peaceman, whomever flagged your comment found the truth evidently all too inconvenient.
When I read this article I thought, there they go, measuring the symptoms (the unemployment numbers) but never willing to engage in CURE. Not a mention of the way financial elites have dreamt up the "weapons of financial mass destruction" that caused wealth to aggregate in fewer and fewer hands with far less trickling down.
And as Peaceman mentioned, no mention of the money cannibalized by war, nations trafficking in weaponry, or investing in the infrastructure that turns citizens into potential pseudo-terrorist threats.
The waste, ladies and gentlemen... the waste! But so long as the same agents of fiscal despair control both the conversation (through media) and the "elected" agents of would-be change (our congress critters)... the way to fix the broken system remains remote.
At this point in time, there have been a number of calamitous policy decisions that are now dovetailing to effectively bring the whole thing crashing down on the basis of its devastating (to billions of persons & other sentient life forms) momentum. It cannot BE propped up.
"It cannot BE propped up." –(SiouxRose)
Correct. It can only be destroyed. Separatist visions of discrete enclaves of evolved consciousness existing apart from the larger human universality offer salvation for the elect few; they are not truly communal in spirit. But most of all, they are not real alternatives but sectarian expressions that devolve into religiosity.
It must be 'spoken' of consciously as such in advance of the fact, not be allowed to unfold benignly, through indeterminacy, indifference, or ineffectualy. That is like praying when there is a fascist gun in your face. The fascist and his gun must be seen as not an option to be co-existed with.
"Who says that revolutionaries even want to destroy the society of coercion at all?"
–(Otto Muehl)
Creating alternative, eco-friendly communities, as good intentioned, benign or even functional as they may well be, are, ultimately reactionary if they do not aim to completely disable the larger oppression of capitalist relations. The fascism of the organic carrot and the green car only 'succeed' in 'looking the other way,' for fascists too, like organic carrots and green cars.
"Not only is another world possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing."
–(Arundhati Roy)
But not that 'quiet' a day.
"Two riders were approaching, and the wind began to howl!"
–(Bob Dylan, "All Along The Watchtower."
–(Kim)
This was a beautiful reply.
>>Separatist visions of discrete enclaves of evolved consciousness existing apart from the larger human universality offer salvation for the elect few; they are not truly communal in spirit. But most of all, they are not real alternatives but sectarian expressions that devolve into religiosity.<<
What the ? Can anyone translate that into simpleton-ese ?
"What the ? Can anyone translate that into simpleton-ese ?" –(don12560)
It is simple enough as it is if one follows the contextual course of previous postings.
Further simplification is unnecessary, for one fears, even that may be lost on you.
Maybe for you the truth here is not really the 'how' the idea was expressed, but the 'content' of the idea itself, which has offended you.
I can understand it. Why can't you?
>>It is simple enough as it is if one follows the contextual course of previous postings.<<
First off, no intention to offend. I look forward to my daily dose of CD and the articles seem to be an appetizer for the riveting comments section. Yes I was following along fine and enjoying the back and forth then kinda slammed on the brakes, backed up and re-read what you said a few times. Although I speak well and comprehend an above average share, I don't hold a PHD in heady talking.
Mostly I lurk, occasionally interact and had no trouble following along to that point. Understanding everything else including your famous quotes. I can imagine you hold your own well in most circles and in others people just stare and nod. Falling more into the "Common" side of CD, I could've skimmed right over and passed it off as "above me" speak, but I was just too darned intrigued. Thus my chuckle head remark.
You seem like a pillar of the comment sections as I have seen your name before. Just can't remember getting stymied like that before. And your subsequent post seemed to hold the same air. I know it's just me. Since I can't use my crayon font, just scratched this reply.
>>Further simplification is unnecessary, for one fears, even that may be lost on you.<< Ouch ! Bet that felt good !
>>'content' of the idea itself, which has offended you.<<
Not offended at all ! Everyone else seems impressed, as was I ! I'll just stick to the fifth grade comment section.
>>I can understand it. Why can't you?<<
See above "PHD" comment. Crawling back under my rock. Keep up the good work !
Siouxrose: It wouldn't be the first time one of my posts were flagged. I had enough of them censored several years ago when I used the words "general strike." CD must have received enough complaints...I don't know.
And yes, the money has been wasted by constant war. The day of reckoning will come.
S-R -Whoever flagged the comment above may be objecting to the term, "shylocking". If you remember, the moneylender in Shakespeare's "The Merchant of Venice" was called Shylock. He was the butt of the mockery in the play, and he was a Jew. That reference may have antisemitic undertones. Intentional? hard to say.
A lot of schools won't even teach "The Merchant of Venice" because it's a bit of a minefield that way.
oopsie.
Obviously your comment was 'flagged' for what it should not have been flagged for, by Zionists who would deem it anti-Semitic.
The usage of "shylocking" and "usury," coupled with 'international bankers," should no longer raise any hackles whatsoever. We have no problems with your usage of the terms or really even its inferences which seemed innocent enough to us.
What we do have a problem with is the following delusional, abjectly silly sentence– for which the posting actually should have been 'flagged' for:
"Time to get off the grid and start building sustainable, eco-friendly societies with new, community created currencies and employee-owned businesses and co-ops." –(Peaceman)
Creating parallel structures to the grid are a fatuous waste of time as long as the 'grid' continues to exist. The mere existence of a 'dual' or parallel structure as an alternative that does not specifically and programmatically serve as an oppositional anti-pode to the fascism implicit in capital is non sensical. Simply because it 'exists' is not truly oppositional.
The very nature of 'the grid' does not allow for these silly deliriums and flights of 'lollipop' optimism to be indulged for they are mutually exclusive contradictions in terms. These pseudo visionary 'solutions' are not truly 'collective,' but 'individual,' even privatized solutions which are nothing short of reactionary, if not right wing forms of separatism.
The point is not to co-exist in tandem or simultaneity with the grid but to destroy the grid. Your 'solution' is what used to be called 'petit bourgeoise' and in fact serves to prop up the fascist state by virtue of suppressing the role of struggle, rendering it throughly 'apolitical' in both form and content.
"The dictatorship is necessary because it is a case, not of partial changes, but of the very existence of the bourgeoisie. No agreement is possible on this ground. Only force can be the deciding factor"
–(Leon Trotsky)
"The good news: the increasing awareness in the public's consciousness of a possible collapse..."
–(Peaceman)
Perhaps. But in the United States, who is to say that given the absolute vacuity in ideological preparation, that the "possible collapse" you envision will not default to fascism?There are certainly no signs whatsoever that this will not be the case.
Your 'getting off the grid' does not challenge the existence of the fascist state but assents to its dictates, as long as you and yours can indulge in some spurious 'separation.'
"Try again. Fail again. Fail better." –(Samuel Beckett)
"If you want to build a ship, don't herd people together to collect wood and don't assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea."
–( Antoine de Saint-Exupery)
–(Kim.)
VASHKAR/KIM: I hear your words and feel their power.
The "default to fascism" that you mention haunts me during many waking hours. I often wonder, like the Jews who hesitated when they had the early intimation to leave Germany, if an exit path is the wisest solution? What is about one's romance for one's nation of origin that holds some here with the possibly vain hope that they can make a difference?
I believe that human nature is essentially good, but in the manner the young marine is conditioned to have the heart and conscience taken out of him so that he can kill AS reflex, many American citizens have been equally conditioned by hate radio.
I would not have thought fascism might be aided and abeted by so many right wing types who keep a supply of ammo close to their night tables, but since a good percentage of this ilk has been programmed by the main-lined voices of hate radio, that daily infusion of misdirected anger may have no difficulty locating convenient local "targets" when things go from bad (now) to worse (sooner than later).
For the unawakened, those who believe the economy is slowly getting back on track, that wars were chosen on the basis of genuine threat, that the leaders care for the fate of the nation... the shock and awe that may serve as their personal wake-up calls will be mind-bending. For those in this forum who have eyes wide open, the choice of what to do haunts us.
A few may be prepared to stand before the tanks as did Rachel Corrie. One has to be prepared for the ultimate act of altruism in such a choice. We can take the pragmatic route, that of trying to survive in small enclaves by learning to share with our neighbors, or we can run to another land... yet so many are following the American model of "anti-terrorism" programs really designed to punish (if not worse) "radical" citizens; and today radical basically means anyone who tries to stand up to the machine of global corporate capitalism without conscience as it mows over nations, ecosystems, and entire populations.
These are not happy choices.
By the way, I watched "Good Morning, Vietnam" a few nights ago and the image of U.S. soldiers walking off aircraft like armies of fire ants descending upon another's community brought what's happening in Afghanistan and Iraq home.
Just the sight of so many outsiders taking control of another region makes one weep. That armies like this, after destroying Hiroshima and Nagasaki, could endeavor to direct so much senseless destruction at yet MORE places of innocence... the tragic folly goes beyond what words can express.
Did you notice the words I posted two or three times from Yogananda in an address he delivered to the U.N? In it this Yogi/spiritual adept speaks of the inevitability of climate dissolution of increasingly stronger magnitude IF mankind does not learn to work towards peace. I believe the calamities now happening on a sped-up frequency speak to the Truth of his observation. This aspect is the key to unintended outcomes and consequences. A Transition of monumental proportions has begun.
Thank you for your wise and acute observations.
Rachel Corrie stood in front of a Caterpillar bulldozer. It was the dude in Tiananmen Square who stood in front of a tank, in fact, a line of tanks.
I wish the monumentally proportioned transition would get a move-on aleady. So many people are hurting - and dying.
First of all, the word shylock is a generic term for someone lending money for a high rate of interest. The term originated from the play, but is used, rather than the word "loan shark." All races and many ethnic groups have done such a thing. It's not anti-Semitic at all. It is/was used by people borrowing money from the National Crime Syndicate and Sicilian Mafia, long ago, or people free-lancing on their own, to make a quick buck. When I was in the Army, a young black soldier was a "money-lender" who charged other GI's 25% interest. The saying, long before I was born, went something like this--when a person needed money right away, somebody might say: "Go see the shy and he'll give you five for six." Which meant, he'll lend you five dollars and you pay back six dollars. 20% interest. I think that percentage qualifies as usury.
Btw, because of the worldwide economic crisis from the Ponzi schemes and various scams (derivatives, etc) by Wall Street, I was having lunch with a woman sometime ago discussing current events. When I mentioned "international bankers," she said, "do you mean the Jews?" I replied by saying, "I mean anybody involved in the financial swindling we've been reading about these past few years. I criticized George W. Bush for eight years--does that make me anti-Anglo-Saxon? The people involved are the ones I'm referring to." (We're still friends)
Sorry VashkarKim, I'm not part of your fan club nor impressed by your style, nor insulted by your interpretation of my comments.
I'll grant you one thing which I agree with. If the collapse does come...the ruling elite are worried and preparing for it, and in the bedlam which will probably materialize, the crackdown on the public will commence, and our own armed forces and local police will follow orders, turning on us--we the people, and further their fascist agenda as did Mussolini, Hitler, and Franco.
On the Trotsky quote--yes and no. Leon was a purist, and I think had a firm belief that the revolution for improving society should go on indefinitely, but as angry as I've been for so many years, I shun the use of force. I could be wrong.
I also disagree with your assertion that "creating parallel structures to the grid are a fatuous waste of time as long as the "grid" continues to exist."
Just suppose, VashkarKim, that this type of paradigm picks up momentum, and like the Mondragon and other employee-owned businesses, and with new forms of currency to be used as legal tender (in some New England communities, folks have actually started buying and selling and banking with these new forms of money, that even "commercial banks"--I think five of them--have accepted this new "community-controlled currency.)
The possibilities are there. As word spreads and neighboring communities observe the success (and they'll be failures as well), the ideas and the concept will spread and hopefully the movement will blossom. Let Wall Street go you know where. Utopian? Naw, practical and perhaps inevitable.
On the Samuel Beckett quote: "Try again, Fail again. Fail better." Absolutely!
Peace and Harmony to you and everyone on this planet. Once we all have it, no need for armed forces anymore.
That was superb V-K.
Applause.
The IMF sniffs revolution in the air.
But they do not say the w e word, "war economy".
No government is set up for a social explosion except with fences barbed wire and check points.
The people are set up for small group and individual actions for survival and friendship.
Without jobs there is more time to build community ties.... form gangs of creation.
But because change is not what the system is geared for, survival of the people will be judged as a "threat to democracy" by the growing desperate politicians and officials.
Am I too optimistic these days?
I can't help it, conspiracy novels were required reading and Phil Ochs was my roomate when I was at Ohio State.
Lots of changes since then.
love folk
"Am I too optimistic these days?" –(Jim Glover)
Perhaps a little bit.
Your optimism seems a function of your pessimism.
Pessimism is only effective when it is a function of itself. When it confronts what is intolerable in itself. Two steps forward, one step back.
When it realizes some things cannot be permitted or tolerated.
Their morals or 'ours.'
Capitalism works. It continues to work magnificently. Just don't expect it to work for the likes of you and me or the planet for that matter.
We kill all the animals, cut down all the trees and poison the water. Only then do we realize there is nothing to eat, no way to keep warm or cook the food we don't have, and nothing with which to quench our thirst. This metaphor applies to the whole shooting match. What happened to the buffalo is happening to the American working class. SURPRISE!
** THIS ARTICLE IS FROM THE TELEGRAPH, A RIGHT-WING RAG, AND
** CD CAN BAN ME FOR SAYING THAT.
The right-wing, corporate lie in the article:
"Britain's rate [of unemployment] has risen from 5.3pc to 7.8pc over the last two years, a slightly better record than the OECD average. This contrasts with the 1970s and early 1980s when Britain was notoriously worse. UK jobless today totals 2.48m."
British unemployment was NOT notoriously worse in the 1970s. Clearly this lie was written to fool people into believing that after Thatcher took office in 1979, she inherited a mess of unemployment but quickly improved the situation. It was the reverse!
From "A Century of Change: Trends in UK statistics since 1900" - a HOUSES OF PARLIAMENT RESEARCH DOCUMENT.
Google "A Century of Change: Trends in UK Statistics since 1900" and go to page 25.
Unemployment up to 1979, the year Thatcher became Prime Minister, was BELOW 5%. In the 1960s, it was around 2-2.5%; in the 1970s, it was around 3%-4%.
After Thatcher took office, unemployment soared to over 10%, peaking in 1986 at over 3 million. It fell significantly during the late 1980s, but then soared again to over 10% under the Conservatives in the 1990s.
Unemployment only reached the low levels of the 1970s again in the year 2000, but now the figures are likely heavily massaged.
In other words, unemployment during the 1980s and 1990s under the Conservative (pro big business) Party was significantly higher than in any other post-WWII period.
Richard, thanks for finding the facts.
P
IMF threatens the world: Either more and more business as usual, or societal systemic collapse.
what a sweet deal.
I especially liked this line: "The IMF said there may be a link between rising inequality within Western economies and deflating demand."
Really? Ya think? How hard is it to figure out that if the top 2% have all the money and wealth, then that 70% of the economy that purportedly depends upon consumer spending has nowhere to go but down. And it is going down. There is nothing the IMF can do to stop that, even if they literally started throwing money out of helicopters.
But I think the take-away lesson of the article is that the threat of "social explosion" is very scary to the IMF and other powers-that-be. And they should be scared. They are about to find out that when people lose everything, they lose it.
"The study cited evidence that victims of recession in their early twenties suffer lifetime damage and lose faith in public institutions."
About time. We're not supposed to trust 'public institutions' (or private ones) - we're supposed to be very cynical and hold them all suspect until proven innocent of wrong-doing. That doesn't mean we do away with them - just the opposite, since they serve society (the 'common good') - but we are supposed to expect them to try to milk the system, cheat, and try every other dirty trick in the book to raid public monies for personal profit.
Power corrupts - public monies (taxes) are a source of great power, and thus the inherent urge to control them beckons to those with a minimal conscience or sense of moral duty - especially sociopaths (like Cheney) who lust for recognition to make up for their personal inadequacies (which is impossible, of course).
Let's hope NO 20-something EVER trusts any kind of government institution - that's our problem today - too many people aren't watching the ball. That doesn't mean hating government - it means watching it like a hawk and screaming bloody murder every time there is the slightest impropriety.
"IMF Fears 'Social Explosion' From World Jobs Crisis"
As well they should! Let them quake in their fascist boots, I say.
And thanks, VashkarKim, for the Arundati Roy quote. Beautiful.
The article ends by saying that "some argue that wealth concentration may cause investment to outstrip demand leading to overcapacity". This is like saying that some people argue that the sun will come up tomorrow. If 1 person takes all the money, who can he sell to? Isn't this obvious? And yet, only SOME argue that it MAY cause investment etc. What lunacy is this? What is happening to our world that media indoctrination is such that few can see the obvious. In this case, the media and the culture do not want to accept that making as much money as you can, can in any way be bad.They believe there is no such thing as too rich. Well, that's wrong. If you own EVERYTHING you are too rich because you, and your family, are likely to get murdered. You have to share some, at least with your private army.
The IMF does not "fear social explosion", they welcome it. That is their very reason to exist.
The IMF has long been a bought, and paid for, muscle arm of the U.S. government and the banking elite.
The play goes like this. The IMF loans money to third world countries that have no chance in hell of paying the money back. Then they come in with "austerity" programs that include heavy new tax burdens on the working class. The revenue from the new taxes will, of course, go to payoff the banking elite while the population starves and riots. It's a sick game, but the elite seem to get their jollies by pulling this scam in country after country.
Please read "The Shock Doctrine", by Naomi Klein.
Sorry, but I thought a touch of reality might put this article in perspective for us.
Not only that. They also have to make their markets accesible and privatize things. Typically the owners of the world will get the natural resources for low prices and sell for a huge profit.
Exactly---privatization is a major goal of "Disaster Capitalism" to facilitate the transfer of wealth from the victim country to the Wall Street bankers and the rest of the planet-wide bankster cartel. Regime change is also on the menu for the victim country as The Empire arms both sides as usual. This chap Ambrose sounds a tad clueless to me.
The IMF is behind this, wants a social explosion so the US can declare martial law here (as arranged in great detail by Bush and furthered in law by Obama), and the international bankers and multinationals could accomplish what they are looking for - global corporate control.
“We are grateful to The Washington Post, The New York Times, Time Magazine and other great publications whose directors have attended our meetings and respected their promises of discretion for almost forty years. It would have been impossible for us to develop our plan for the world if we had been subject to the bright lights of publicity during those years. But, the work is now much more sophisticated and prepared to march towards a world government. The supranational sovereignty of an intellectual elite and world bankers is surely preferable to the national auto determination practiced in past centuries.“– David Rockefeller, in an address to a meeting of The Trilateral Commission, in June, 1991.
“We are on the verge of global transformation. All we need is the right major crisis and the nations will accept the new world order.” - David Rockefeller
Some even believe we are part of a secret cabal working against the best interests of the United States, characterizing my family and me as "internationalists" and of conspiring with others around the world to build a more integrated global political and economic structure - one world, if you will. If that's the charge, I stand guilty, and I am proud of it. -David Rockefeller
All the racial drama over the health care issue and over immigration is stoked. It's how the corporations try to destabilize things here and how the corporate interests in US have done it in other countries for years - making it seem the country is at war with itself. Frankly, given how many are out of work, how much they have stolen from everyone, how horrific the bills are, it's amazing how peaceful people are. They have all the progressive websites loaded with people to write articles or to comment, "fearing" how dangerous the right is. Beck and Limbaugh are a pain but they are corporate puppets. So is Palin.
very interesting comment. it carries an underlying tone that caught my attention. nothing necessarily new in what you say, but it has an eerie aura of truth to it.
Probably not....the gun owners are so confused they'll shoot at anyone who allegedly threatens their property. Their part of the problem.
Exactly what are 100 million gun owners going to do against M1A1 tanks and Apache gun ships? Especially after the government cuts off the food, water and electricity!
Nawwww they won't. They'll be busy painting their conspiracy-theory-smitten little faces, donning camou and crashing around the nearest forest, scaring the wildlife.
Mondragon is a wonder...not perfect by any means but the model works for working people, not corporate stooges. The real question is can it be translated into a culture rooted in radical individualism like the U.S. and can it contend with the cheap labor which is part of the globalized global strategy?
An explosion of social unrest? Sure... maybe in Europe, but I seriously doubt it in the USA. Maybe the teabaggers will hold some more rallies demanding a restoration of "honor", whatever that means, but I don't think there is any real chance of genuine "social unrest" in any meaningful sense. Just more demands for fascism...
"An explosion of social unrest? Sure... maybe in Europe, but I seriously doubt it in the USA. ...I don't think there is any real chance of genuine "social unrest" in any meaningful sense. Just more demands for fascism..." –(DC-CPH)
This is correct.
America can only default to fascism, for the simple reason is that is all it 'knows,' and truthfully, what it 'is.' Fascism in America is not something that is 'chosen,' but is an organic emanation of the state and its people, in line with an implacable historical trajectory. It happens as a matter of course, as an automatic function of both infrastructural and spiritual tendencies.
European 'social unrest,' while visibly more articulated than in America, will still be muted. There too, traditional forms of protest fail to challenge the capitalist state.
Following is the first paragraph of the preamble to the Industrial Workers of the World Constitution: "The working class and the employing class have nothing in common. There can be no peace so long as hunger and want are found among millions of working people and the few, who make up the employing class, have all the good things of life."
Here is an idea that I have: Build fully functional guillotines across the US under the pretext of making art, and put locks on them to avoid children getting hurt. Politicians will think twice before selling us out to the richest 400 families and war profiteers. If we can have cows all over the city, we can have guillotines. We just have to threaten our politicians with better than words. We need to add "art".
The IMF is supposedly feeling antsy eh?
Well considering how bad the IMF is for the world with all it's overt and backdoor social and fiscal blackmailing, are they saying that we need to have something else to withstand the shock of an upcoming world disaster?
I'm sure they'd love a new World Bank which governs all money.....whereby the bank could keep borrowing money and lending it to itself always at an escalating profit but make countries (and its peoples) pay the interest forever.
They need a big disaster again to announce they have a solution.
Only after the last tree has been cut down, Only after the last river has been poisoned, Only after the last fish has been caught, Only then will you find that money cannot be eaten! Cree Prophecy
Time for the guaranteed annual income for all. I think the myth that this will be a disincentive to work is just that, a myth. Make sure we all have enough to survive; keep a roof over our heads and eat and then we go out into the world and work, pay taxes, etc. I guess it just makes too much sense to eradicate poverty in one foul swoop.
I-instant M-isery F-ollows too is to blame for this. Always insisting, as conditions for a nation to receive a loan, that state industries be privatized and thus many jobs going lost. How can small nations compete with large ones when their small national industries are gobbled up by big enterprise? It is the IMF that needs to be put out to pasture!