Post subject: What is today's dominant political paradigm?
Posted: Tue Sep 28, 2010 2:37 pm
statistically insignificant
Joined: Mon Jan 21, 2008 10:19 pm Posts: 25134
I've been thinking a lot about this recently, and B's posts in the poverty thread highlighted for me why a reorientation is so urgently needed.
The defining conflict for the better part of the last four decades was the Left vs. Right, Blue Team vs. Red Team dynamic. Electoral hay was made by cloaking issues in the rhetoric each party's respective constituencies found most appetizing, and narratives were largely advanced along "either/or" (rather than "both/and") lines. Maybe I'm misreading larger demographic and electorate sentiments, but there seems to be legitimate dissatisfaction with what used to pass for political discourse.
From where I sit, the most relevant and enduring sociopolitical/socioeconomic struggle taking place today is between the interests of the individual and the interests of the institution. Everywhere entrenched institutional interests (be they public or private) are leveraging their political influence to undermine the diffused, heterogeneous interests of individuals. You have to look long and hard to find a person, politician, corporation, organization, or institution interested in advancing, either explicitly or implicitly, the interests of the individual rather than that of some established interest.
The stakes seem much larger today than the partisan bickering and wedging that dominated discourse in previous decades.
AN ODDLY entrancing YouTube video of a robot folding a pile of freshly laundered towels has been viewed over half a million times. Although it does this quotidian task better than any other robot, it is still much less adept than the average person. The difficulty of programming a towel-folding robot which can outdo humans may help to explain why the past couple of decades have been so unkind to middle-class workers in the rich world.
In the 1970s and 1980s employment in quintessentially middle-skilled, middle-income occupations—salespeople, bank clerks, secretaries, machine operators and factory supervisors—grew faster than that in lower-skilled jobs. But around the early 1990s, something changed. Labour markets across the rich countries shifted from a world where people’s job and wage prospects were directly related to their skill levels. Instead, with only a few exceptions, employment in middle-class jobs began to decline as a share of the total while the share of both low- and high-skilled jobs rose (see chart). The pattern was similar in countries with very different levels of unionisation, prevalence of collective bargaining and welfare systems. This “polarisation” of employment almost certainly had a common cause.
The development of information technology (IT) is the leading candidate. Computers do not directly compete with the abstract, analytical tasks that many high-skilled workers do, but aid their productivity by speeding up the more routine bits of their jobs. But they do directly affect the need for people like assembly-line workers or those doing certain clerical tasks, whose jobs can be reduced to a set of instructions which a machine can easily follow (and which can consequently be mechanised). At the other end of the employment spectrum, as the example of the towel-folding robot neatly demonstrates, low-skilled jobs may not require much education but they are very hard to mechanise.
Clear evidence in favour of this hypothesis comes from a study by David Autor of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and David Dorn of the Centre for Monetary and Financial Studies in Madrid, who used data from America’s Department of Labour on the tasks involved in different occupations. By classifying these tasks as routine or non-routine, the authors were able to grade occupations as more or less vulnerable to automation. This method identified the jobs of secretaries, bank tellers and payroll clerks as among those most dominated by routine tasks. (Bus drivers and firefighters are among those at the opposite end of the spectrum.) The economists found that employment polarisation in America between 1980 and 2005 was indeed most marked where jobs vulnerable to automation initially predominated.
Although similar patterns of job polarisation have also been documented for Britain and other European countries, there was until recently no clear cross-country evidence about the importance of IT in explaining them. Filling this gap is a new study by Guy Michaels, Ashwini Natraj and John Van Reenen of the London School of Economics (LSE), which uses industry-level data from 11 countries—nine European ones, plus Japan and America—for the years between 1980 and 2004. Across the board, the economists find that industries that adopted IT at faster rates (as measured by their IT spending, as well as their spending on research and development) also saw the fastest growth in demand for the most educated workers, and the sharpest declines in demand for people with intermediate levels of education.
The authors also find that once the role of technology is accounted for, openness to trade has no effect on the extent of polarisation. However, the adoption of IT might itself be a function of globalisation. In a paper written with Nicholas Bloom of Stanford University and Mirko Draca of the LSE, Mr Van Reenen looks at rates of IT adoption within Europe. They conclude that industries that faced more direct competition from Chinese imports after China entered the World Trade Organisation responded by innovating more in order to move up the value chain. Between 2000 and 2007, 15% of technology upgrading in Europe can be explained as a response to Chinese competition.
Polar exploration
This was good for European productivity but, given the effects of technology on employment, would also have contributed to the hollowing out of the labour market. Technology also enables some higher-end jobs to move to countries with large pools of highly educated workers. Mr Autor reckons that this is not yet a major factor explaining trends in American employment and wages. But it could become one over time, again altering the relationship between skills and job opportunities.
For now, though, the recession has exacerbated polarisation. In America blue- and white-collar occupations dominated by the middle-skilled shed jobs rapidly between 2007 and 2009. Employment in managerial and professional jobs and low-skilled ones in the service sector grew slightly or fell much less sharply. America’s Bureau of Labour Statistics predicts that employment in low-skilled service occupations will increase by 4.1m, or 14%, between 2008 and 2018. The only major job category with greater projected growth is professional occupations, which are predicted to add 5.2m jobs, or 17%, over the same period.
For much of the 20th century, people’s job prospects rose with each extra bit of education they got. Now the choices, like the labour market, have become more polarised. Policymakers still try to get more people to complete school. But that may not be enough. If a school education alone increasingly means declining job options, they now need to find a way to make sure young people go all the way through college, too.
Post subject: Re: What is today's dominant political paradigm?
Posted: Tue Sep 28, 2010 3:52 pm
Got Some
Joined: Fri Sep 02, 2005 8:52 pm Posts: 2647 Location: Where gila monsters meet you at the airport
thodoks wrote:
I've been thinking a lot about this recently, and B's posts in the poverty thread highlighted for me why a reorientation is so urgently needed.
The defining conflict for the better part of the last four decades was the Left vs. Right, Blue Team vs. Red Team dynamic. Electoral hay was made by cloaking issues in the rhetoric each party's respective constituencies found most appetizing, and narratives were largely advanced along "either/or" (rather than "both/and") lines. Maybe I'm misreading larger demographic and electorate sentiments, but there seems to be legitimate dissatisfaction with what used to pass for political discourse.
From where I sit, the most relevant and enduring sociopolitical/socioeconomic struggle taking place today is between the interests of the individual and the interests of the institution. Everywhere entrenched institutional interests (be they public or private) are leveraging their political influence to undermine the diffused, heterogeneous interests of individuals. You have to look long and hard to find a person, politician, corporation, organization, or institution interested in advancing, either explicitly or implicitly, the interests of the individual rather than that of some established interest.
The stakes seem much larger today than the partisan bickering and wedging that dominated discourse in previous decades.
This is an excellent point.
Will Saletan at Slate had an interesting column recently in re: to the Christine O'Donnell flap. His point was that there's a growing divide between those who think of freedom in America as something that refers to individual liberty and those who think it means institutional liberty (for the purposes of his column he's mostly talking about religious groups and other social organizations). He sees little or no difference between government exerting influence on individuals and non-governmental organizations 9churches, community groups, etc) exerting the same kind of influence. This certainly dovetails with your point, and it's hard to escape the thought that generally the same groups arguing for institutions like churches are also very much in favor of corporate/business institutions.
Economics focus Automatic reaction IT spending has hollowed out labour markets, to the detriment of middle-income workers Sep 9th 2010
I don't think it's due to inequality or there would be more unrest in the EU where the middle class is taking a bigger hit.
From my son's friends I see two pretty distinct type of personalities. Those that view pretty much all forms of government (principals, teachers, local governments) as just impediments to doing the right thing and getting things done, and sometimes the wrong thing. These kids are willing to let their friends make mistakes and suffer the consequences. They work in teams all the time in school and quite frankly they are sick of pulling the weight for slackers.
And then there are the slackers. They want to be spoon fed even more, all in the name of progress and liberalism. They have no idea what working hard is and really never want to know. They see the hard work that some others do, and just don't see enough of a payback on that hard work to ever attempt it. They are more than happy to pull others down to their level. Never thinking of working hard and giving someone a hand up.
This spills over into politics, as one party is really trying for the slacker vote and the other is vying for the more independant person's vote.
LW, you having an avatar just leaves me all kinds of confused. Totally lost my train of thought lol.
_________________ "Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires." -- John Steinbeck
Economics focus Automatic reaction IT spending has hollowed out labour markets, to the detriment of middle-income workers Sep 9th 2010
I don't think it's due to inequality or there would be more unrest in the EU where the middle class is taking a bigger hit.
From my son's friends I see two pretty distinct type of personalities. Those that view pretty much all forms of government (principals, teachers, local governments) as just impediments to doing the right thing and getting things done, and sometimes the wrong thing. These kids are willing to let their friends make mistakes and suffer the consequences. They work in teams all the time in school and quite frankly they are sick of pulling the weight for slackers.
And then there are the slackers. They want to be spoon fed even more, all in the name of progress and liberalism. They have no idea what working hard is and really never want to know. They see the hard work that some others do, and just don't see enough of a payback on that hard work to ever attempt it. They are more than happy to pull others down to their level. Never thinking of working hard and giving someone a hand up.
This spills over into politics, as one party is really trying for the slacker vote and the other is vying for the more independant person's vote.
Post subject: Re: What is today's dominant political paradigm?
Posted: Wed Sep 29, 2010 4:22 am
Reissued
Joined: Sun Oct 24, 2004 3:38 pm Posts: 20059 Gender: Male
thodoks wrote:
I've been thinking a lot about this recently, and B's posts in the poverty thread highlighted for me why a reorientation is so urgently needed.
The defining conflict for the better part of the last four decades was the Left vs. Right, Blue Team vs. Red Team dynamic. Electoral hay was made by cloaking issues in the rhetoric each party's respective constituencies found most appetizing, and narratives were largely advanced along "either/or" (rather than "both/and") lines. Maybe I'm misreading larger demographic and electorate sentiments, but there seems to be legitimate dissatisfaction with what used to pass for political discourse.
From where I sit, the most relevant and enduring sociopolitical/socioeconomic struggle taking place today is between the interests of the individual and the interests of the institution. Everywhere entrenched institutional interests (be they public or private) are leveraging their political influence to undermine the diffused, heterogeneous interests of individuals. You have to look long and hard to find a person, politician, corporation, organization, or institution interested in advancing, either explicitly or implicitly, the interests of the individual rather than that of some established interest.
The stakes seem much larger today than the partisan bickering and wedging that dominated discourse in previous decades.
I find a lot to agree with here, especially the importance of non-governmental institutions alongside government. However, I don't think you reach far enough with the institutional vs. individual argument because you are still focusing on politics and government. You only have to look as far as Google and Facebook to see organizations who don't need government to entrench themselves deep into the lives of indidviduals, gathering information, selling it, to pursue their bottom line (their institutional interest). ChoicePoint is a less well known entity that goes further than the above (The wiki article on them is pretty weak in describing what they actually do, but I'm sure a Google irony search can help find some god stuff). Along similar lines, the companies who determine your credit score have a sizable amount of power over your life (more than, say, the Patriot Act does/will), possibly for good or bad. A tangentially related concept to this discussion is the idea of social and corporate power, and how, at least in my view, it can be as or more significant than the government's power (this is a belief that I partially derived from Mill).
OK, I want to write more, especially on the last concept, but I've got to get up tomorrow morning. And a disclaimer: A lot of what I wrote here was influenced by class discussion earlier tonight and readings in my Writing in Political Science (focus on Surveillance Studies) course.
EDIT: I'm not sure I like my inclusion of corporate alongside social there. Corporate power can be considered a subset of social power, and as such is not as significant, especially for the broader point I'm trying to make.
_________________ stop light plays its part, so I would say you've got a part
Last edited by dkfan9 on Wed Sep 29, 2010 4:37 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Post subject: Re: What is today's dominant political paradigm?
Posted: Wed Sep 29, 2010 3:41 pm
Yeah Yeah Yeah
Joined: Mon Apr 25, 2005 5:15 pm Posts: 3875
the verb to trust wrote:
tyler wrote:
This spills over into politics, as one party is really trying for the slacker vote and the other is vying for the more independant person's vote.
Edited: I don't imagine anything this partisan and lacking in nuance could be an honest assessment of the two political parties
Slackers was a very poor choice of words. There are those who are content to have more individual freedom, face lifes challenges and issues on their own. And there are those who are happy to give up freedoms, that they themselves don't care about, in order to have institutions try to mandate solutions to lifes challenges and issues.
I thought the comparison with religious institutions was poor, as individuals are much freer to leave the churches mandate than government mandates.
Post subject: Re: What is today's dominant political paradigm?
Posted: Wed Sep 29, 2010 4:40 pm
Reissued
Joined: Sun Oct 24, 2004 3:38 pm Posts: 20059 Gender: Male
tyler wrote:
the verb to trust wrote:
tyler wrote:
This spills over into politics, as one party is really trying for the slacker vote and the other is vying for the more independant person's vote.
Edited: I don't imagine anything this partisan and lacking in nuance could be an honest assessment of the two political parties
Slackers was a very poor choice of words. There are those who are content to have more individual freedom, face lifes challenges and issues on their own. And there are those who are happy to give up freedoms, that they themselves don't care about, in order to have institutions try to mandate solutions to lifes challenges and issues.
I thought the comparison with religious institutions was poor, as individuals are much freer to leave the churches mandate than government mandates.
If your family would disown you if you left a religious institution, are you really free to leave it? That's a much scarier thought to me than having to move to another country to find new laws (not that my family would disown me, but hypothetically speaking). I mean, if that's considered freedom, you are free to murder someone, assuming you have the physical capabilities to. You may be punished, but you are free to perform the act if the benefits outweigh the costs.
_________________ stop light plays its part, so I would say you've got a part
Post subject: Re: What is today's dominant political paradigm?
Posted: Wed Sep 29, 2010 5:51 pm
Yeah Yeah Yeah
Joined: Mon Apr 25, 2005 5:15 pm Posts: 3875
dkfan9 wrote:
tyler wrote:
the verb to trust wrote:
tyler wrote:
This spills over into politics, as one party is really trying for the slacker vote and the other is vying for the more independant person's vote.
Edited: I don't imagine anything this partisan and lacking in nuance could be an honest assessment of the two political parties
Slackers was a very poor choice of words. There are those who are content to have more individual freedom, face lifes challenges and issues on their own. And there are those who are happy to give up freedoms, that they themselves don't care about, in order to have institutions try to mandate solutions to lifes challenges and issues.
I thought the comparison with religious institutions was poor, as individuals are much freer to leave the churches mandate than government mandates.
If your family would disown you if you left a religious institution, are you really free to leave it? That's a much scarier thought to me than having to move to another country to find new laws (not that my family would disown me, but hypothetically speaking). I mean, if that's considered freedom, you are free to murder someone, assuming you have the physical capabilities to. You may be punished, but you are free to perform the act if the benefits outweigh the costs.
Being disowned by family and forced imprisonment are two entirely different consequences for actions. Also saying one is free to murder, while true, does not take into account that murder forcibly removes someone elses freedom. Leaving a church does not.
I think in the end you either fundamentally believe that individuals can solve or at least meander through their problems, or that people as individuals are basically incapable and only institutions can get the majority of people by in life. I'm pretty optimistic about peoples ability. Whether they choose to use that ability to overcome or not, well that I really don't care about as I have no control over it.
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