Hard work and longer working hours are praised by politicians and business, in
the successful EU economies. The 'shining example' is the USA, which indeed
has the longest workweek of any advanced economy. But hard work is morally
wrong - with certain exceptions, such as the fire service or health care.
By working hard, you strengthen your nation's competitiveness, its economic
power. This power is not only directed against (for instance) Mitsubishi or
Daimler-Chrysler or Deutsche Bank - they can take it - but against the poorest
countries of the world. In the present world order, nation states compete with
each other, as if they were business firms. Slogans like "Great Britain
Limited", "BV Nederland" and "Deutschland GmbH" are typical of this competition.
There is no tribunal or commission, which grants exemption from this global
competition. Powerful national economies, such as those of Britain, the
Netherlands, and Germany, also compete against the poorest village of the
poorest region of Eritrea. This is no 'sporting competition' - it is like a
heavyweight boxer beating patients in intensive care.
Every success story, of a hard-working British or German entrepreneur, means
that others die of disease or hunger. It will always be like that - as long as
the world economy is a market-place of aggressively competing nations.
Economic competition means, by definition, harming the weakest party in each
transaction. The loser can only compensate for this, by finding an even weaker
party to compete against. In the last decade, some of the rich western
countries, above all the United States, have become extremely competitive. All
of that competitive power ultimately falls on the shoulders of the weakest
inhabitants of this planet, and it kills them.
When political leaders such as Wim Kok, Tony Blair and Gerhard Schroeder call
for a strong and competitive economy, they are calling on you to crush the
economy of the poorest countries and regions. In the present world order, each
employee (certainly in the private sector) is a soldier, in the national
economic army. And for an army, "more hard work" means "kill more enemies".
The poor are not our enemies. If Kok and Blair and Schroeder were good people,
they would weaken their national economies, not strengthen them. These leaders
are not good people. But you are not powerless against their perverse
social-liberal and neoliberal ethic. You can do something. You can choose
morality above market...
1. Don't work hard. Try to reduce your productivity.
2. Don't work long hours. Reduce your working week to the minimum necessary. A
new media software developer, for instance, earns enough to live comfortably
on 10 hours work per week.
3. If you work in 'industry' (i.e. production of transportable goods), ask you
employer to relocate the activities to a poor country. Even with half the
present production, EU countries will still be rich.
4. If the employer refuses, make high wage demands. That is the quickest way
to undermine competitiveness, and force relocation of employment. High wage
demands are the best form of development aid.
5. Inform potential foreign investors of your high wage demands. Ask them not
to invest in your country, but in a poor country.
Best of all would be, to abolish the present world order, in which rich and
powerful economies compete with poor and weak economies. But that would mean
the end of 200 years of market liberalism - and that is unlikely to happen in
the short term.
--
Paul Treanor
http://web.inter.nl.net/users/Paul.Treanor/neoliberalism.html
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