Creed, Colour, Ethnicity or Beliefs- BS Jobs, Universal Basic Income and Dignity for all
How economics is used tosubjugate each, and every, ethnic and social group not reinforcing the powers-that-be
Does anyone remember Doctor Who when he was back on Earth with UNIT, the UNified Intelligence Taskforce, and was called in to buildings crammed with people? Not sure if it was the Paradise Towers episodes — https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2xomeb . It turned out an alien had taken over the Earth. Was now using people crammed into our tower blocks as heat exchanges. Heating in the winter, cooling in the summer. Make-work for the shuffling humans — the rat race personified. Fed and watered, happily shuffling. Happily consuming some form of media and talking about it with Zoom shared parties. Maybe a bit of TikTok dancing? The alien may well sponsor when need us mere humans to jiggle and giggle when the weather requires.
‘The choice for mankind lies between freedom and happiness and for the great bulk of mankind, happiness is better.’ Orwell
Back when the episode first screened, plenty of old decrepit tower blocks to use as the experiments in social engineering ‘corridors in the sky’ started to fall apart, quite literally, as corruption found partners in crime with shoddy design and poor executed cost efficiencies. John Poulson and T. Dan Smith — https://www.robert-williams.co.uk/images/PDF/poulsonaffair.pdf among others saw to it the few grew rich on the squalor of the many.
Now we have a situation where many of those buildings have been removed or refurbished. Sadly, Grenfell Towers reflective of façade being more pleasant than the internal realities leading to the deaths of people who thought they had made a move to a country addressing inequality and inequity.
The issues for the people remain.
They, the people with least voice, are regularly to be used. Exploited when there is a lack of influence to be heard above the calls of austerity or even the plaintive cry of balanced budgets. Forget the Philadelphia Declaration saying ‘Labour it Not a Commodity’ get real as we witness the juxtaposing of finance and people: What is easiest to preserve? Conserve? Build and use to our advantage? What is easiest to change? Where is collective voice of workers in the mainstream of platform working, zero hours contracts and plaintive call to be entrepreneurial and become self-employment in the gig economy?
During the responses to the coronavirus, how did you feel about being guided, instructed, told, to shelter in place?
- Did you feel social and / or authoritarian pressure to do as told?
- What form was the social pressure?
- Where did it emerge from?
- Do as your neighbours did?
- Do what loudmouth Mr Angry from flat 4A barked and posted on social media about you risking the whole NHS and being party to the killing of grandmothers across the nation?
You consumed media, worked diligently from home, making space in the corner of the dining table or finally converting the closet into an office space as you had promised to do. Setting yourself not to disturb anyone when filling out the self-assessment tax each year (and being able to have a few quiet moments to sip a chardonnay or beer and watch Jonathan Pie without your partner calling you a reactionary bastard).
What were your thoughts?
- I am on furlough, paid my taxes so why not kick back just a bit? Just a tad?
- I am guaranteed my job so go with the flow?
- What is the point of doing these exams?
- I am on the first rung of the ladder, need to allow the boss to install the keystrokes software on the work computer and I will show them I can be extra, extra, productive?
- My work is not meaningful?
- Am I in a bullshit job? As David Graeber laid out in his Phenomenon of Bullshit Jobs — https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/34466958-bullshit-jobs
- Do I work for a purposeful company making a difference in this World?
- My work is not transferable to home base, how do I apply for Universal Credit before the rent / mortgage is due?
But not everyone fits into these categories. Good on you if you do not and felt you knew how to be socially responsible and would follow guidance because it was best for you, family, friends, the wider community.
When the guidance was clear.
Fore, guidance has not been clear.
Yes, we are all learning; but when science has seemingly been done like auditions for the next presenter of Cosmos or to see if this or that doctoral student can rival Brian Cox, then we are buggered.
Masks don’t work.
Masks are to protect others, not keep yourself safe, why should I bother?
Wear masks but don’t buy masks — you are possibly stopping an essential worker getting their PPEs.
Wear a tea towel as a mask — it is as effective as a used N95 or whatever (it is not — cut through the crap -https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jul/03/what-kind-of-face-mask-gives-the-best-protection-against-covid-19 — http://med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2020/06/stanford-scientists-contribute-to-who-mask-guidelines.html — https://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/everyone-should-wear-masks-in-covid-19-crisis-say-cambridge-researchers .
Use the tea towel and forget to wash the dishes properly — condemn to food poisoning the newly liberated group of friends physically distanced eating the Bacillus Cereus and Listeria salad with Staphylococcus accompaniment
Confused messages as we sat at home, continuing to consume media and now fully up to speed on Zoom as our bosses whooshed in to check we were ok by using their new-found skills learnt through endless online courses on how to show empathy and destroy antipathy. Usually pathetically as sentiment rarely backed their words. Note the boss has now displayed in his by-line his new coaching and mentoring certificate gained from the British University of Loving Language and Sympathy Honouring Ingratiating Techniques (BULLSHIT.co.uk)
The Government joined in to encourage we all praised the essential workers, regularly those most put upon by the rest of us. Certainly not valued in terms of salary when comparing their remuneration and conditions of service alongside, say, a Member of Parliament or a special advisor. Notable cases have emerged in the UK of politicians and political animals rising above the guidance (or was it a law?) to stay at home (and save the NHS) as they drove the length of England or flew to their homes in the Isle of Skye possibly risking the very livelihoods of essential workers and definitely sending a poor leadership message.
But are we able to exercise any power to change these things?
Are we being subjugated, very subtlety, to become happy with our phenomenon of bullshit jobs for those with technocratic aspirations? With the Plebeians happy on Universal Basic Income and a streamed diet of soaps, sports and sanitised news?
As we enter the second phase of the coronavirus pandemic we are now starting to look again at the cost benefit of lockdowns social distancing, physically not being in an office. Physically not going and sitting drinking our macchiato and talking about meetings for meetings to decide on the agendas for meetings about meetings. Not going down the pub to share thoughts about the government, advocating for more stringent punishment for going out during the lockdown and generally having a good moan about all things we cannot control or influence? Us Brits and the weather.
Realising we are not as essential as the lady stocking the shelves at the local supermarket let alone the health workers in hospitals and care workers looking after your mother?
Realising the Black Lives Matter campaign is reflective of how many people are now voraciously questioning how they are doing, exactly what they are doing and why they are doing it? Will their particular social, ethnic, racial band be next to be adversely affected as those in power remain in power and remarkably unaccountable for change — positive or negative.
Alongside this goes the reality checks for young people no matter where they are born, no matter the kind of education they have received. If they have been lucky enough to gain an education they are now struggling to gain work experience and those under 25 years of age are far more likely to be involved in the sectors worst hit by coronavirus reactions with, for example hospitality, being the worse effected sectors. Empty rhetoric rings loud here as well — https://www.ft.com/content/38afd505-c816-43cf-9fb8-a839cc7da949 — as Johnson pledges, pledges (my wife does this when picking up the furniture polish can and advertises a particular brand), every young person will get an apprenticeship. Get real, even before we start to talk about all the forms of discrimination, doubly disadvantaged, this is nonsense and reflective of the ill thought through words without addressing the underlying issues young people face in finding their purpose and meaning in their lives through their livelihoods. Chancellor Sunak’s Summer Economic Update brings this on home — https://www.economist.com/britain/2020/07/08/rishi-sunaks-summer-statement-fails-to-impress
Those most in need are rarely those most able to generate income for themselves and the wider community and country. Let us not forget, we remain locked in to the nation state and talk of gross domestic product bringing us to questions of income distribution, access to services — the GINI Coefficient, ably introduced here — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gini_coefficient. What is good for the country is regularly not good for the vast majority of people as we witness extreme poverty rising and inequality of opportunity causing greater inequity in society — https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/uk-political-economic-analysis-economist-employment-united-paul-crook/. This manifests itself in social ills coming to light with the Black Lives Matter. Last week’s coronavirus outbreak in Leicester shows modern slavery is alive and exploiting; (mainly in this instance) Indian subcontinent workers in what amount to sweatshops.
Does Universal Basic Income look a brighter possibility now? Some point here to further consider — https://www.developmentpathways.co.uk/blog/black-lives-matter-in-social-protection-and-international-development/
Neat political ideas for NEETS? Not in Education Employment or Training. The phenomenon of bullshit job to fill the day ok or the call to entrepreneurship for expedience? https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/purposeful-business-entrepreneurial-intent-more-us-paul-j-crook/
Or are you ready to renew and invigorate your meaning in life and be part of a purposeful organisation? We need the proactivity of building and developing, not pothole patching to maintain the status quo that has led us to fall into this whirlpool of more of the same from political leaders reflecting last week’s opinion poll rather than offering the drivers for your next year’s livelihood.
As politicians and special advisors flout rules, regulations (or are they laws), then, surely, we must question just what do we do to add value to my life post the coronavirus lockdown? How to allow my children’s lives to have meaning and purpose? Why should I sit on a train or in a traffic jam rather than use the time to assist my children in terms of all aspects of their education? Be this formal education or broader life skills we are seeing in short supply. Certainly, in short supply among many leaders and managers.
Life skills are of greater import in a World where subjugation is not complete.
We are not ready to be the heat exchangers for Dr Who’s aliens.
Were they really aliens? Or were the characters portents of the people we now have in positions of power?
It was on a morning like this one;
But different because it was yesterday, the morning I was referring to was there.
And now it, we, are here.
Where will be tomorrow? You have this afternoon to change your tomorrow morning
Happy thinking
Fantastic doing — for you, your family, your friends and community (however you define and have trust in reciprocity)
