The Economic Horror

Rating:
Summary: French intellectual flop
Review: This book is a 'post-modernist' contribution to the debate about unemployment. It starts from the facts that the present economic system prevents full employment, and that the working class as a whole is becoming surplus to requirements. There are now 18 million unemployed people in the EU alone. It is increasingly a world in which workers have no place at all, especially our young people. An OECD Jobs Study openly recommended raising unemployment to cut wages. The World Bank openly recommended cutting benefits to force workers into low-paid jobs, and said that "wage cuts and redundancies [are] essential."

Unfortunately, Ms Forrester argues that we must accept ever-growing unemployment. Instead of working out ways to end mass unemployment, she proposes, in characteristic post-modernist style, to end the 'culture' of employment. She writes that our terms of work and unemployment 'created such reality', so if we stop using the terms, we change the reality! She calls for "organising society starting precisely from the absence of work." According to her, unemployed people do not need work; they need instead to free themselves from the very idea of work.

She seems unaware of the paradox that she has produced a book - which is work - calling for everyone to recognise the end of work! Not surprisingly, she never mentions the words 'manufacturing' or industry': the idea that things are made and need making never seems to strike her.

But of course there is an alternative. We can change our ideology to change the world. Workers do have the right to work; we must organise to reclaim that right. We need to rebuild our industry, in order to rebuild our society. Work needs to be done: improving the environment and our transport services, building homes, schools and hospitals, developing education and culture. How can society survive without work? Jobs need doing, and people need to work. So let's put the two together!

Rating:
Summary: French intellectual flop
Review: This book is a `post-modernist' contribution to the debate about unemployment. It starts from the facts that the present economic system prevents full employment, and that the working class as a whole is becoming surplus to requirements. There are now 18 million unemployed people in the EU alone. It is increasingly a world in which workers have no place at all, especially our young people. An OECD Jobs Study openly recommended raising unemployment to cut wages. The World Bank openly recommended cutting benefits to force workers into low-paid jobs, and said that "wage cuts and redundancies [are] essential."

Unfortunately, Ms Forrester argues that we must accept ever-growing unemployment. Instead of working out ways to end mass unemployment, she proposes, in characteristic post-modernist style, to end the `culture' of employment. She writes that our terms of work and unemployment `created such reality', so if we stop using the terms, we change the reality! She calls for "organising society starting precisely from the absence of work." According to her, unemployed people do not need work; they need instead to free themselves from the very idea of work.

She seems unaware of the paradox that she has produced a book - which is work - calling for everyone to recognise the end of work! Not surprisingly, she never mentions the words `manufacturing' or industry': the idea that things are made and need making never seems to strike her.

But of course there is an alternative. We can change our ideology to change the world. Workers do have the right to work; we must organise to reclaim that right. We need to rebuild our industry, in order to rebuild our society. Work needs to be done: improving the environment and our transport services, building homes, schools and hospitals, developing education and culture. How can society survive without work? Jobs need doing, and people need to work. So let's put the two together!

Rating:
Summary: The end of work
Review: What happens to society as more and more technology makes work less and less necessary? Viviane Forrester, in her book "The Economic Horror" brilliantly and passionately discusses this question. Her basic thesis is that the benefits and profits from this change accrue to a tiny oligarchy, while the mass of people worldwide essentially become surplus, dispensable trash. She mercilessly cuts through the subterfuges and band aids which have no purpose other than to conceal the impending economic horror for as long as possible, while behind the curtain of lies the politicians collude with business to bring it about as quickly as possible. She shows how racism, xenophobia, class divisions, indeed the whole institutional structure play into the grand scheme of rendering the human person, even human life itself, superfluous. Does she hold out any hope? Yes and no. No hope of a resurrection of work and economic productivity as the measure of worth and dignity. But understanding and acknowledging this truth is in itself a powerful shield for preserving one's worth and dignity. And once the truth is fully understood, there is hope for "organizing society precisely from the absence of work" and trying "to make life decent and viable by other means, and doing it today." Perhaps in another book she will suggest how this could be done.

The translation generally succeeds in maintaining the serious and passionate tone; but occasionally it interjects inappropriate or flippant colloquialisms, and sometimes it is simply unintelligible. But these are minor flaws, and they do not really detract from the power of this work.

If there is one book that can open one's eyes to the world being constructed by the corporate, financial and political powers, this is the book. Read and see.

Rating:
Summary: The end of work
Review: What happens to society as more and more technology makes work less and less necessary? Viviane Forrester, in her book "The Economic Horror" brilliantly and passionately discusses this question. Her basic thesis is that the benefits and profits from this change accrue to a tiny oligarchy, while the mass of people worldwide essentially become surplus, dispensable trash. She mercilessly cuts through the subterfuges and band aids which have no purpose other than to conceal the impending economic horror for as long as possible, while behind the curtain of lies the politicians collude with business to bring it about as quickly as possible. She shows how racism, xenophobia, class divisions, indeed the whole institutional structure play into the grand scheme of rendering the human person, even human life itself, superfluous. Does she hold out any hope? Yes and no. No hope of a resurrection of work and economic productivity as the measure of worth and dignity. But understanding and acknowledging this truth is in itself a powerful shield for preserving one's worth and dignity. And once the truth is fully understood, there is hope for "organizing society precisely from the absence of work" and trying "to make life decent and viable by other means, and doing it today." Perhaps in another book she will suggest how this could be done.

The translation generally succeeds in maintaining the serious and passionate tone; but occasionally it interjects inappropriate or flippant colloquialisms, and sometimes it is simply unintelligible. But these are minor flaws, and they do not really detract from the power of this work.

If there is one book that can open one's eyes to the world being constructed by the corporate, financial and political powers, this is the book. Read and see.