What does it mean to 'fail' these days?

[green-man-2010.livejournal.com]

I remember that when Thatcher was in power she said
" anyone who finds himself over the age of 25 and travelling by bus must consider himself a failure."

Well, let's just say that she was not wild about public transport annd the country is still in a mess as a result. But what is it going to mean for the rest of us if everyone "succeeds"? Seriously, do you ever stop to think how London would cope if everyone - I mean EVERYONE decided to come to work in a car? or even buy a car? Think we could cope? Roads are bursting at the seams as it is.

Back in the 60s, Labour governments had a dream of boosting the number of kids who went to university. they did - shame that there were not enough jobs for people with graduate honours and so many people with degrees in their pockets ended up stacking supermarket shelves.

So, I ask myself, what should a government, or even a society be aiming for? I think it is true that although there was a moral case being made for abolishing slavery back in the days of Queen Victoria, it was really economics that knocked it on the head.

Adam Smith's 'invisible hand' more or less grabbed the slaveowners by the throat and said "look, mechanisation is cheaper than slavery. Get machines and drop the slaves or lose out" - so the slaveowners did.

For me, the fact that America can elect a black man into the Whitehouse is a sign that something I call 'progress' is actually happening. But for so many Americans, there is no job in the White House, no job anywhere. A more equal society, with more people actually working, and earning a wage that allows them than do more than just live hand to mouth would seem to be a sensible benchmark.

I don't know that we all need to own cars - it makes more sense to commute, providing that public transport is cheap and affordable. Maybe Thatcher should be considered a failure in so far as she never fixed this to happen - ecologically it makes more sense to have more urban busses, more 'park and ride' schemes in city centres and more tube networks in places like London, Liverpool and Manchester.

And, if a society needs to have its bins emptied and its streets cleaned, it should pay those willing to do these essential services. What we don't need in society are people who end up in prison for fraud and other reasons. People who end up in prisons, unable to make any valid contribution to society should be considered failures - and countries that are forced to lock more and more of it's citizens away each year should ask themselves why they (as societies) are failing to incentivise their workforce.

The other question is 'what can we do to make sure more young people succeed?'
To me, university and college are not the only answer. we need to make spaces and make use of the talents of people more suited to working in trades through apprenticeships. And yes, we need to see to it that the bins are emptied too.

A failed state, somewhere where this does not happen , is best exemplified by places like Somalia, and a failed state is not just a tragedy to itself, but to the rest of the world as well. most of the piracy that happens off the east coast of Africa and is spreading slowly into the Indian Ocean is due to the fact that Somalia cannot fix itself and neither can the international community come up with a plan to help the region.

Again, what do we do to put things right? can we, or is it something that people have to do for themselves. i would suggest that nobody really pulls themselves up by their own bootstraps entirely - they make use of the lifelines they see hanging within reach. So getting lines within reach of most people and allowing them to pull themselves up seems to be what we should be aiming to do- whether it's helping kids off of drugs or getting a stable democratic system going in an impoverished and bandit ridden country.

But, that's my own take. what is yours?

Comments

[gunslnger.livejournal.com]

The other question is 'what can we do to make sure more young people succeed?'

Nothing. All you can do is to try to make the system not push them towards failure. Unfortunately, the nature of government makes this happen.

[the-rukh.livejournal.com]

Uh no. Government makes populations more successful.

[404.livejournal.com]

How so?

[the-rukh.livejournal.com]

Coordination to do things bigger than individuals can do. Look at tribes vs towns, look at animals that are coordinated vs animals that are solo.

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

Any historical examples of this?

[malasadas.livejournal.com]

Rome.

[gunslnger.livejournal.com]

Circular logic. I'm sure your definition of "successful" includes something that requires government.

[the-rukh.livejournal.com]

Happiness and security? Yeah it does require government but that's not circular logic any more than holding water needs a container is.

[gunslnger.livejournal.com]

Also, even if you have one or two cases where government didn't get in the way or eventually ruin the group being governed, the multitude of examples where it does far outweighs that.

[the-rukh.livejournal.com]

No there's not.

[green-man-2010.livejournal.com]

I would like to see this ' multitude' of examples.

Ancient Rome versus Ancient Britons?

Who won and who had the best system of government?

The people who went up against the maori in 'Germs, Guns and Steel- I forget the Island they were on - were a bunch f guys with stone age weapons against another bunch similarly armed. they were on their own turf. And yet the Maori, acting under the unified leadership of a designated commander and his leiutenants, had an overwhelming victory.

I have never come across a government leading to national ruin - only very bad governments, weak governments and a government going up against a much stronger military of economic power doing that.

Every team , be it a baseball, soccer or ladies hockey team has a captain - someone who calls the shots and decides team strategy. Nobody has ever found it easier to play and win by letting everyone do their own thing.

[il-mio-gufo.livejournal.com]

exactly, after all there's much money to me made in the prison industry. Your tax $, and mine, and his, and hers, all goes to pay a healthy salary to my well-off cousin and his wife whom both work as correctional officers :)

[rasilio.livejournal.com]

The meaning behind Thatchers words is mostly accurate within a limited definition of the word success even if her chosen metric was horribly flawed as there are a great many for whom it makes far more economic sense to rely on public transport, especially in larger cities where parking fees can cost more than the car itself.

A better way of phrasing it today would be something like...

"If you're 25 and you still work in retail you must consider yourself a failure"

Even this is not terribly accurate however as there are some retail positions which are quite lucrative and solid career choices.

The real point which she was trying to get at however is that successful people don't stay in dead end position for long. They take charge of their own lives and make good things happen for themselves. Sure there is a need for burger flippers in our world but there is a reason why most of them are in high school or college.

The real problem with her statement however is it only allows for a financial security definition of success. There are other goals one could set for their lives and one could be very successful in pursuing those goals while never achieving any level of financial success. For example artists, one could pursue the life of an artist and never seek more than a low paying job with random working hours because it affords them the freedom to pursue their passion.

I would argue that this person is just as successful in life as the guy making $250K a year and far more successful than the one who makes $250K a year and hates his life.

The problem of course is that most people who stay in dead end situations for extended periods of time are not doing it because they are pursuing alternative life goals, they are just too lazy to really try and making anything of themselves.

[the-rukh.livejournal.com]

Everyone needs to go to college and become CEOs because everybody is a special snowflake.

[merig00.livejournal.com]

http://blog.ted.com/2009/03/05/mike_rowe_ted/

[the-rukh.livejournal.com]

I don't have time to watch it now (LJing in class woo hoo!) but I'll watch it later. I'm assuming it's exactly what I'm thinking.

[ygrii-blop.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the link. I really enjoyed the video. He presented some wonderful ideas.

[the-rukh.livejournal.com]

Eugh, I don't think I could do the testacle thing.

But he's right about how we've stigmatized labor. Exactly.

[merig00.livejournal.com]

Got to combine
Chernyshevsky's "What Is to Be Done?" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikolay_Chernyshevsky)
and
Herzen's "Who Is to Blame? (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Herzen)

[box-in-the-box.livejournal.com]

Adam Smith's 'invisible hand' more or less grabbed the slaveowners by the throat and said "look, mechanisation is cheaper than slavery. Get machines and drop the slaves or lose out" - so the slaveowners did.

The problem now being that, even speaking as someone who appreciates the benefits of such mechanization, it's proceeded to the point where it's made large swaths of the populace redundant in employers' eyes, because even if higher technology isn't outright REPLACING certain jobs, it's making it easier for employers to let go of more employees and have fewer remaining employees being tasked with the same amount of work as the previous larger staff was responsible for. I'm currently the sole news reporter for TWO local newspapers, even though there are technically supposed to be two separate reporters (one for each paper), and without computers or the Internet, that simply wouldn't be possible. Granted, unlike many employers, my employers are actually trying to find a replacement for the unfilled reporter position, but it's more of a "we should get around to doing this" thing, rather than a "we cannot produce another issue until we do this" thing, precisely because e-mail and the web and my cell phone and any number of advances of the past few decades alone allows me - and indeed, FORCES me - to literally do the job of two people.

And I'm one of the LUCKY ones.

[rasilio.livejournal.com]

No it hasn't...


http://fee.org/library/books/economics-in-one-lesson/#0.1_L8


Mechanization never lowers net employment in the long term, at worst it creates temporary unemployment as workers need to be retrained into new careers when their old ones are made redundant.

[box-in-the-box.livejournal.com]

You're assuming that the current level of unemployment is temporary, then?

[rasilio.livejournal.com]

Well obviously as nothing is permanent however a more accurate phrasing is that the current high levels of unemployment are in no means caused by mchanization, nor are they caused by offshoring or any other such bogeyman.

Current levels of unemployment are caused by an inflationary bubble caused by loose monetary policy at the Fed leading to large quantities of overvalued assets, however government interference is preventing the market from clearing the misallocation of resources leading to uncertainty which depresses both consumer and business spending.

[green-man-2010.livejournal.com]

I have to say, that having read it, this is a brilliant read.

thanks for including it here.

[nevermind6794.livejournal.com]

Those examples are poor. They assume that the manufacturer's new spending habits have the same effect on employment, that manufacturing and employment happen in a vacuum, and apply mainly to labor economies, among other things.