The Crisis of Work and its Future

THE CRISIS OF WORK AND ITS FUTURE

By Juergen Klute

[This February 27, 2005 address at a Dusseldorf WASG conference is translated from the German on the World Wide Web,  http://www.juergen-klute.de/jkl-vortraege.html. Juergen Klute is an industrial pastor in the Ruhr area of Germany. WASG stands for Work and Social Justice Alternative.]


I’d like to contribute reflections on the theme of work.

ON THE SIGNIFICANCE OF WORK

“The earth provides for those who live from the earth” according to an African proverb. This is a very indigenous and concrete description of the central significance of work. Work means security of existence for the great majority of people. In addition, work obviously provides meaning and social contacts.

In the German economic system, paid work is the central distribution instrument through which citizens share in the gross domestic product and support the social security system.

This distribution instrument only functions with full employment. We have not had full employment for a quarter of a century. As a result of mass unemployment, this distribution instrument has largely lost its functionality.

Therefore work, unemployment and its consequences are central themes for many people. This is true for the employees at Opel, Karstadt, Deutsche Bank and all other businesses that seek to cut jobs despite all the tax- and cost-reductions and despite good profit conditions. This is also true for the high school graduates who are now searching for apprenticeships since only a small minority has a trainee agreement today.

CRISIS OF WORK OR CRISIS OF DISTRIBUTION

The debate around the crisis of the work society is not new. This debate was carried on very passionately at the beginning of the 1980s, a quarter of a century ago. At that time, there were very passionately at the beginning of the 1980s, a quarter of a century ago. At that time, there were very interesting arguments that are still burning today. I will quote from three arguments (1):

· “In 1931/32 the gross domestic product in Germany declined around 25% within 8 months. Today the gross domestic product hardly changes. National income is constant or rising slightly. The number of unemployed increases. This means the production that produces the national income is obviously in order, efficient and stable. There are no signs that the productive part of the German economy cannot maintain the current gross domestic product at a high level and keep economic fluctuations at 1-2%.

· The distribution system, the system in which we the people share in the jointly produced national income, is troubling today, not the productive parts of our economy. The real problems lie here.

· The distribution system that we created so all persons could share in the national income is partly annulled in its functioning by the most recent economic and technological developments. What we are witnessing is a crisis of the distribution system, not a crisis of the economy. This crisis arose in that modern technology manages with less and less labor and fewer and fewer persons share in the national income through the production process organized in division of labor.

· As a result, all the measures that aim at improving the production structure pass by the problem of unemployment because their goal is improving a structure that is basically healthy. Its marginal improvement cannot remove the real causes of unemployment.”

This quotation comes from Kurt Biedenkopf in 1983.

The second question comes from the pen of Wassily Leontief in 1982:

· “Adam and Eve enjoyed a carefree life in abundance without labor before expulsion from paradise. After their expulsion, they and their descendants just managed to get by and were condemned to labor from dawn to dusk. The history of technical progress of the last 200 years is essentially the history of humanity slowly but surely creating a paradise again. What would happen if we actually found it? No one would be employed for pay any more if all goods and services could be gained without labor. However being unemployed means being without income. Consequently everyone would suffer hunger in paradise until an income policy adjusted to the changed production conditions gains acceptance.

· Sooner or later – and probably sooner – the increasingly technicized society will have to face another problem: the question of a reasonable income distribution…

· To counter the long-term danger of a growing technically conditioned unemployment, state policy should pursue the goal of assuring a more just distribution of labor and income without hindering technical progress directly or indirectly.

· Adjusting the present conditions to the needs and effects of laborsaving technology will not be easy. Some time may be needed until people drift away from the Protestant work ethic with its ideal of hard and diligent work.”

My last quotation from that debate comes from the pen of Andre Gorz in 1982:
· “Producing more with less labor, distributing the fruits of technical progress better, creating a new balance between required work and freely disposable time and giving everyone the possibility for a more relaxed life and more varied jobs are the new goals worth fighting for socially and politically.”

From Andre Gorz on the left side to Kurt Biedenkopf on the conservative side, the participants of that debate at the beginning of the 1980s were very aware of the significance and far-reaching consequences of technological development – especially the rapid development of electronic data processing – for the world of work and the whole society.

They were conscious that technological progress on one side represents a qualitative change of the world of work. Labor relations and labor organizations will be permanently changed.

However they also knew that technological progress involves quantitative changes of the world of work. The need for workers will decline quickly in the long-term – with the simultaneous increase in the production of goods and services – and unemployment will increase dramatically as we experienced in the 1980s and 1990s and experience to this day, February 27, 2005.

From a contemporary view, Kurt Biedenkopf’s assessment was right (even if he did not follow this insight as a politician): We have a distribution crisis, not an economic crisis. We have a conflict over the gains of productivity.

“Producing more with less labor, distributing the fruits of technical progress better, creating a new balance between required work and freely disposal time, giving everyone the possibility for a more relaxed life and more varied jobs are the new goals worth fighting for socially and politically.”

Andre Gorz hit the nail on the head with this vision. Technological development does not inevitably means a drama or catastrophe. The great chance of advancing humanity’s ancient dream of a good life and good work lies in technological development.

This dream will not be fulfilled automatically. We must struggle for it. We are currently in the middle of a conflict over who benefits from the productivity gains of technological progress and how we can realize humanity’s ancient dream.

THE NEOLIBERAL EXPROPRIATION STRATEGY

The defenders of neoliberalism still dominate the stage of this distribution conflict. The established parties and the majority of the media still parrot their prescriptions, e.g.:

If only the costs for businesses are lowered, wages and taxes, if there is sufficient deregulation, then business profits will rise again.

When business profits increase, the investments also increase.

And when investments increase, growth also obviously increases.

And when the growth climbs, then employment also climbs – and unemployment falls…

And when employment rises, the tax revenues and the revenues of social treasuries will ultimately rise again.

This melody was heard day after day for almost a quarter of a century. Unemployment has risen again and again in this time despite all the cost reductions, all the deregulations and all the higher profits.

Defenders of neoliberalism in the economy, politics and the media explain this fact by saying the deregulation is still insufficient and costs have not been sufficiently lowered.

If a physician had prescribed the same therapy with such catastrophic side effects to a patient over a long time, he would surely have been hauled before a court on account of physical injuries and deficient medical expert competence.

But whoever thinks this way assumes that neoliberal policy has a serious interest in reducing unemployment.

Whoever thinks this way should read the “Constitution of Freedom” (2) by Friedrich August von Hayek, one of the most influential advocates of neoliberal economic policy.

There one reads that a society needs a great tension between poor and rich. For F. A. von Hayek, the tension between poor and rich is the motor of social progress. Victims are owed to progress.

Overcoming unemployment is not the goal of neoliberal policy; that is only bait for the general public. Division of the society is the explicit objective of neoliberal policy, producing a polar tension between poor and rich as the motor of progress. Neoliberalism as an asocial policy is an asocial appropriation strategy of technical progress and rationalization profits.

Agenda 2010 and the Hartz reforms are expressions of this policy.

Hartz IV represents this destruction policy in a special way. Hartz IV is far more than an outrageous cut in benefits. Hartz IV is a system breach consisting of a threefold backward step to the time of Manchester capitalism and the pre-modern.

Some of you may recall the name Fritz Perez Naphtali. Fritz Naphtali wrote and edited the book “Economic Democracy” (3) in 1928.

In this book Naphtali discussed the unemployment benefits reintroduced in 1927. The public and legal acknowledgment of an economic right to existence – complicating political rights – of dependent employees was Naphtali’s central desire. (4) For Naphtali, the newly introduced unemployment benefit was an acknowledgment of the economic right to existence of dependent employees. (5) The main goals in introducing unemployment benefits were on one side socially assuring the unemployed and on the other side materially assuring dependent employees so they could protect themselves against extortion attempts by employers in times of high unemployment. (6)

Naphtali’s second reason for unemployment benefits was economic and political. Unemployment benefits should be a kind of economic buffer so domestic demand does not completely crash in times of high unemployment. (7)

These arguments were written and published in 1928. Hartz IV falls far behind both reasons and both insights.

Then there are the 1-Euro jobs. This instrument is not new but has long been used under the term “forced labor.” Until 2003 forced labor was a marginal instrument. Now it is in the center of the labor market policy of the Red-Green German government (with approval of the Black-Yellow opposition). This is explosive because 1-Euro jobs are not described in Hartz IV as working conditions in the sense of labor law. As everybody knows, 1 Euro per hour is not a wage but an expense allowance…”If you receive money from the general public, then you can do something for the general public.” That is the logic of feudalism. The 1-Euro jobs are nothing but the reintroduction of feudal working conditions. This is the third backward step for civilization accomplished by Hartz IV. Hartz IV is a kind of experimental laboratory for wage policy. This has nothing to do with acknowledgment of an economic right to existence for employees in the sense of Franz Naphtali.

These backward steps for civilization are a scandal. That the SPD, the former political wing of the working class, is actively pushing the abolition of important 80-year old advances in civilization and social policy is an even greater scandal.

All this does not contribute to overcoming unemployment.

The last thing that occurs to this politics is to say to the economy: We, politics, have done everything – lowered taxes, deregulated and promoted your profits. Now the ball is in your court, economy. Only the economy can create jobs. Clement & Co. diligently ignore that we live in a capitalist economic order. The goal of a capitalist economy is to realize the highest possible profits, not to employ as many persons as possible. A business that employs more people than it needs for the operation would increase costs and lower profits. That would be a blatant violation of the EU (European Union) constitution that declares free competition as the supreme economic principle and makes stable prices a constitutional goal. (8) Thus businesses only hire people when they need them, not because taxes were lowered and profits rose. In other words, Clement’s helpless argument that jobs will arise in the economy is nothing but evading political responsibility. He makes the goat into the gardener when he pushes responsibility for the labor market and employment on the economy.

THE ALTERNATIVES OF WASG

The German constitution speaks of the social obligation of property – as a counter-pole to the property guarantee. However a structural bond of businesses in social responsibility within a capitalist economic system can only occur through proper taxation of businesses. The state has a responsibility here since the competitive economy cannot produce social justice by itself.

The creation of jobs is a social or political task. Beside the economy, there is the state and the public interest sector (charitable institutions etc.). Public services and public interest oriented services are prominent in these two sectors. There are still a large number of jobs here (The EU White Book on economic services will largely bring these services from the general interest to the private economy – entirely in the sense of GATS. The competitive pressure established in the EU constitution and the cost pressure will cost jobs in these areas and worsen working conditions.)

A much larger supply of services is necessary and possible here, services that could create quite a few jobs.

There is also a need for considerable investments in the public infrastructure. Jobs arise when these investment needs are met.

The public services and the infrastructure measures are stationary or resource-based. They evade globalization – at least to a certain degree.

However these jobs can only arise if the state is financially solvent.

Thus we have arrived again at the starting point, the conflict over rationalization gains.

However with WASG a broad social-reformist alliance takes the political stage that has a real chance of steering the conflict around distributing rationalization gains in another direction.

The WASG program makes detailed proposals on the basis of Keynes’ economic theory.

Our main task in the next weeks will be to make our alternatives to neoliberal policy understandable to citizens. This is not always simple after a quarter century of neoliberal brainwashing. However citizens are interested in WASG and listen attentively. Our chance lies here.

“Producing more with less labor, distributing the fruits of technical progress better, creating a new balance between required work and freely disposable time, giving everyone the possibility of a more relaxed life and more varied jobs are the new goals worth fighting for socially and politically.”

And – I would add to this vision of Andre Gorz – these are goals deserving our struggle!!!

In this sense, I hope for a targeted and constructive discussion about our campaign program and a good election campaign over the next weeks.