President Bush hailed the report

July 2, 2004

Job growth disappoints
Job growth slowed dramatically in June, as employers added just 112,000 workers to payrolls last month, a number that came in well below forecasts by private economists.
…
Average hourly wages rose 2 cents, or 0.1 percent, to a seasonally-adjusted $15.65.
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In Washington, President Bush hailed the report.
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Bush said the job report shows that 1.5 million jobs have been created since August. “To me that shows the steady growth”

Chief Econnomist of Morgan Stanley, Steve Roach, asks What About Us?

Services-driven development models, such as the one now at work in India, cast globalization in a very different light. Most importantly, they broaden the competitive playing field, thereby bringing new pressures to bear both on job creation and on real wages in the developed world. This is where the debate gets prickly. Protectionists scream, “foul!” — arguing that trade barriers are the appropriate answer.

So, what about us? As education and skill levels are raised around the world, and as the world itself is brought closer together through IT-enabled connectivity, the wealthy developed world must rise to the occasion.

So far, I have not seen an answer to what kind of politics could be implemented, that can protect the workers in the developed countries from globalization. In Europe the negotiations between unions and enterprises are now for lower wages and longer working hours or less jobs. The wage rise in the US is less than inflation. Quite a change from 50 years of generally rising wages and shorter working hours.

What is the answer from the political left ? How will the next president answer to the problem ?

Posted by b on July 2, 2004 at 20:43 UTC | Permalink

Comments

Late here for me. But I am signed-up for future comments.

Posted by: Cloned Poster | Jul 2 2004 21:07 utc | 1

Three points that I think will be crucial:
1.) At least for a certain time span, we in the west/north will indeed have to work longer – working hours and lifetime – in order not to become devoured as our technological advantage more and more wears off. (With China alone churning out more than 300.000 engineers a year at the moment…)
2.) The rich nations must be willing to lose some of their wealth for the sake of sheer justice. (Wealth does not equal living-standards.) As long as we have an almost slave-like working force producing, say, cheap jogging shoes for us, there will be people with higher motivations than the jaded consumers of the west can muster, and ‘we’ will be in no position to argue agains their trying to eat our lunch. Growth as a central tenet must be questioned.
3.) The decisive question within Western societies will be whether the rich are willing to show solidarity with their own domestic poor. Widening social chasms, think US, may herald the end of the West as we know it. The political systems must be returned to the people and stop being abused in the interests of the manipulating few.
As naive as they sound, I think these are the main issues.

Posted by: teuton | Jul 3 2004 8:18 utc | 2

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