Culture of economic fear

[lemur]

Economic recession. Fear of losing jobs and income. Fear of being uninsured. Fear of inconsistent work history. Etc.

 

All of these are fears that push people to do jobs they don't necessarily like or believe in. Social science has noted that such pressures are necessary to ensure a steady supply of labor. Another result is "labor alienation" where workers don't care about or even understand their work and lead meaningless lives as a result.

 

A related question is whether doing things against one's will or better judgment simply makes employees grumpy and causes general unpleasantness in the workplace. What happens when people make the choice to do things against their will? Does it create cognitive-emotional conflict on a psychological level? Does it cause work to be unpleasant in other ways? Is there any way to have an effective economy where people are under less pressure to work against their will? Or would more voluntarism/freedom just result in more shirking and consumption of other people's labor without contributing to economic prosperity, because it's not required to do so?

[CaptainPanic]

It's ironic that about 20 years ago, I learned in school that in the (evil) communist countries, everybody had a job, because the (evil) state forced you to work.

 

Now, 20 years later, Western countries are considering to force people to work to get their welfare incomes or unemployment benefits.

[JohnB]

Economic recession. Fear of losing jobs and income. Fear of being uninsured. Fear of inconsistent work history. Etc.

 

All of these are fears that push people to do jobs they don't necessarily like or believe in. Social science has noted that such pressures are necessary to ensure a steady supply of labor.

 

I'd like to see a cite for this.

 

And those of us who live in nations with UHC have no fear of being uninsured. We have the freedom to choose our jobs without worrying about the Health Plan.

[lemur]

I'd like to see a cite for this.

 

And those of us who live in nations with UHC have no fear of being uninsured. We have the freedom to choose our jobs without worrying about the Health Plan.

Aren't people only eligible for unemployment benefits as long as they fulfill requirements such as not voluntarily terminating employment and persistently applying for a new job while they are unemployed? Doesn't that cause people to take jobs they don't really like or want and then feel unhappy in their work because they're basically just doing the job because they are required to be employed?

[Marat]

I'm sure that the lack of a universal healthcare system in the U.S. helps depress wages by threatening workers with unmet medical bills if they can't get health insurance from their employers. The inadequate social safety net in the U.S. serves the same function: The greater the misery of unemployment or inadequate personal financial reserves, the more willing people become to take low-paying jobs or do work which is unrewarding.

 

Obviously designing society to be a massive machine of threats and punishments to get people to work indicates an utter failure to have achieved Hegel's requirement for a just society, which he conceived as a place where the personal aspirations and ambitions of people would be realized in the available social forms.

[CaptainPanic]

I'd like to see a cite for this.

 

And those of us who live in nations with UHC have no fear of being uninsured. We have the freedom to choose our jobs without worrying about the Health Plan.

Well... I think that it is fair to assume that the large majority of employed people won't dream of just quitting their job. And that's because they fear the consequences, which are all financial (not the massive amount of free time they suddenly have).

 

So, the economic culture of fear, which the OP describes, stems from a fear of having no money... The core assumption therefore is that there is a (nearly) universal fear of "not having any money", because this limits us in everything. I don't think you need a cite for that, actually.

 

The discussion here is (imho) about how much freedom we will give an individual to find a new job if they are unemployed and being paid by the state?

For that we must take into account the fact that:

- A capitalist country always has a certain unemployment rate...

- Certain people just don't qualify for many jobs.

 

I hope I translated the OP's questions properly... (please doublecheck it before replying just to my post - I don't want to accidentally hijack the thread).

[lemur]

I'm sure that the lack of a universal healthcare system in the U.S. helps depress wages by threatening workers with unmet medical bills if they can't get health insurance from their employers. The inadequate social safety net in the U.S. serves the same function: The greater the misery of unemployment or inadequate personal financial reserves, the more willing people become to take low-paying jobs or do work which is unrewarding.

 

Obviously designing society to be a massive machine of threats and punishments to get people to work indicates an utter failure to have achieved Hegel's requirement for a just society, which he conceived as a place where the personal aspirations and ambitions of people would be realized in the available social forms.

Well put. I thought about Marx's ideas of species-being (people enjoying expressing themselves in labor) and labor-alienation (people being diverted from the joys of labor to focus on other concerns like money) but I didn't know Hegel addressed this too. The odd thing is that many people seem to actually enjoy the self-worth they feel for having endured unpleasant work. I don't know if this is because they consider it worth it to produce whatever it is they're producing or if it's purely endurance for the sake of endurance. I have noticed that often when people call themselves "hard-working" and call others "lazy," what they're actually referring to is obedience. They could be doing nothing productive all day but because their manager told to do nothing and they obeyed, they feel like they worked hard and all the pride that comes with that.

 

 

Well... I think that it is fair to assume that the large majority of employed people won't dream of just quitting their job. And that's because they fear the consequences, which are all financial (not the massive amount of free time they suddenly have).

 

So, the economic culture of fear, which the OP describes, stems from a fear of having no money... The core assumption therefore is that there is a (nearly) universal fear of "not having any money", because this limits us in everything. I don't think you need a cite for that, actually.

People don't just fear having no money, they fear relatively low levels of income and disposable income. I think this differs according to personal thresholds of consumption-expectations. One person may fear the social stigma of having to take a bus to work or school while another may take the bus because they fear having to steal for money and going to jail.

 

The discussion here is (imho) about how much freedom we will give an individual to find a new job if they are unemployed and being paid by the state?

For that we must take into account the fact that:

- A capitalist country always has a certain unemployment rate...

- Certain people just don't qualify for many jobs.

Imo, the issue is also how much freedom is given to working people by their employers. Long work weeks, unfavorable scheduling, and short vacations contribute to unhappiness with one's work, and leads to people being grumpy at work. I don't know if this could be solved by the government giving people more freedom in seeking a new job if most if not all jobs maintain similar scheduling expectations.

 

I hope I translated the OP's questions properly... (please doublecheck it before replying just to my post - I don't want to accidentally hijack the thread).

It's a broad topic so it is all related, I think. I was specifically interested about whether the general culture of economic fear translates into workplace unhappiness in a more immediate sense and how. My general impression is that if someone feels the need to do things against their will, especially if they have real reasons not to want to do certain work, this would cause certain psychological issues. For example, if someone doesn't like to lie but they feel they have to lie to clients about certain things or they might lose their job, they may do this but it will cause some internal conflicts that lead to bitterness, etc.

 

 

 

[Saryctos]

I would think a large amount of this economic fear comes from how dependent people are on someone else having a job for them. I would attribute this mostly to the education system. The plan is to get an education, get a job, start a family, and eventually retire. I think people primarily seek college degrees as a method of employment, not an educational opportunity. The structure of the education system is one of learning how to work, not how to make a living. IIRC immigrants have a tendency to be more entrepreneurial than the native population. Relying more on their own devices and less on the established employment channels. While being self employed can be more stressful and complicated, the know-how required to do so will make it much easier to find new income channels if/when the current one dries up. Americans have relied on the principles of working for one's self for quite a long time. It is the land of opportunity which drew immigrants to come here and work, for themselves or for others.

 

For this, I would recommend a thorough review of the education system and its intended mission. The people lack the knowledge to work for themselves, beyond this, most don't even know of their deficiency. By educating people on how to work for themselves at least in some capacity, this can relieve at least a small amount of stress caused by not knowing what to do if they find themselves without steady work.

[Marat]

Can a society call itself humane if it is designed always to have a certain percentage of the labor force unemployed but at the same time it is structured to punish people so heavily for being unemployed?

 

Hegel was quite interested in the problem of poverty, work, and welfare, recognizing that the state's mission to provide a spritual home which people could willingly acknowledge as their own would be undermined if it failed to address poverty and unemployment. See his 'Philosophy of Right,' sections 230 to 256.