New social contract / Faces / To Tampere
Tourists don't know where they've been, travelers don't know where they're going. Paul Theroux
The current social contract (in Western countries) was architected in late 1960s and early 1970s. It is based on the assumptions of long term work contracts, full employment, and short duration of unemployment periods.
Today, these assumptions are not valid anymore. The globalised, free-market economy does not offer long term employment for most people. Companies move their operations around the globe much faster than employees can move. Furthermore, companies do not want to employ any extra employees. Instead, they want to trim their workforces quarterly.
In the new situation, the current social contract does not work anymore. When work-contracts are shorter, numerous, and partly overlapping, the old distinction of employed-unemployed is not meaningful anymore.
We need to start over. We need to re-architect the social contract. Otherwise, we cannot live a good life in the current economical system.
The first thing is to think about the requirements. For a person (employee), work provides money (financial stability), social contacts and environment, and self-respect/worth and meaning in life. For society, work is necessary for long term survival, for feeding the needy etc. For companies, word is necessary for making profit/meeting whatever goals the shareholders set for the company.
The new social contract has to fulfil all these (and other) requirements. In order to do so, we have to accept the new economical environment. We must not try to recreate the past, for we (Finns) do not have the power to do so.
The new social contract accepts, and cherishes, the fleeting nature of work. We need a system, in which a person may have many employers, many work contracts at the same time. If one of them fails or disappears, the others will be enough to sustain the person. To make this simple, some kind of negative income-tax, or citizen salary, is necessary. If the person has temporarily low income, the negative income-tax will increase it. When the income increase, the tax increase, but not more than half of the extra income.
In short, we need to get rid of the dichotomy of employed-unemployed. Let's make a systems, in which nobody is unemployed. At times, everyone will have periods of lower level of employment, but that would not be an economical catastrophe.
In a way, let us all become entrepreneurs. And let us employ other entrepreneurs as companies do now and deal with the expenses simply as cost of goods and services.
Implementing such a contract requires national healthcare, which we have already. It also requires an automatic systems for dealing with taxation (at monthly level) — the tax will depend on the income during the month, the expenses incurred during the month etc. This we almost have.
The benefits would be huge. Everyone would have something to do. There will be more jobs, and many things now un-done (or self-done) will be part of the economy.
But the best thing would be moving power from companies back to citizens. With the new contract, everyone will be a star, and has a huge power of negotiation. Companies cannot anymore dictate their terms. Moving work from one country to another will not destroy livelihoods of employees.
I have the intuition, but I just cannot express it clearly yet. I will continue to think about this and then write more about this. But I know that the new social contract is necessary. I also know that Finns are pragmatic enough to invent it.
In the absence of Botox, our facial expressions get imprinted permanently on our faces.
In Finland, most women, over 40-years old, have a permanently worried and sad expression on their faces. They have deep wrinkles between their eyes from endless worrying over something, lips turned down for some sorrows or vain attempts to look serious.
Men, instead, are red in their swollen faces, with bad skin, mostly due to excessively deep worshipping of Bacchus . They also some triple-chins for not exercising between meals of meat and potatoes.
We are not a beautiful nationality, I would say.
I have a habit of avoiding frequent encounters with the mirror.
Pictures on this page now have titles. Just rest your pointer on picture and you will be a bit more informed. Later I will fix the titles of past pictures. January and February now have titles, but not very polished ones. Thanks to for pointing out the need to titles.
Alun perin julkaistu kuukausikoosteessa "Blogs March to June 2006".
New social contract
The current social contract (in Western countries) was architected in late 1960s and early 1970s. It is based on the assumptions of long term work contracts, full employment, and short duration of unemployment periods. Today, these assumptions are not valid anymore. The globalised, free-market economy does not offer long term employment for most people. Companies move their operations around the globe much faster than employees can move. Furthermore, companies do not want to employ any extra employees. Instead, they want to trim their workforces quarterly.
In the new situation, the current social contract does not work anymore. When work-contracts are shorter, numerous, and partly overlapping, the old distinction of employed-unemployed is not meaningful anymore.
We need to start over. We need to re-architect the social contract. Otherwise, we cannot live a good life in the current economical system.
The first thing is to think about the requirements. For a person (employee), work provides money (financial stability), social contacts and environment, and self-respect/worth and meaning in life. For society, work is necessary for long term survival, for feeding the needy etc. For companies, word is necessary for making profit/meeting whatever goals the shareholders set for the company.
The new social contract has to fulfil all these (and other) requirements. In order to do so, we have to accept the new economical environment. We must not try to recreate the past, for we (Finns) do not have the power to do so.
The new social contract accepts, and cherishes, the fleeting nature of work. We need a system, in which a person may have many employers, many work contracts at the same time. If one of them fails or disappears, the others will be enough to sustain the person. To make this simple, some kind of negative income-tax, or citizen salary, is necessary. If the person has temporarily low income, the negative income-tax will increase it. When the income increase, the tax increase, but not more than half of the extra income.
In short, we need to get rid of the dichotomy of employed-unemployed. Let's make a systems, in which nobody is unemployed. At times, everyone will have periods of lower level of employment, but that would not be an economical catastrophe.
In a way, let us all become entrepreneurs. And let us employ other entrepreneurs as companies do now and deal with the expenses simply as cost of goods and services.
Implementing such a contract requires national healthcare, which we have already. It also requires an automatic systems for dealing with taxation (at monthly level) — the tax will depend on the income during the month, the expenses incurred during the month etc. This we almost have.
The benefits would be huge. Everyone would have something to do. There will be more jobs, and many things now un-done (or self-done) will be part of the economy.
But the best thing would be moving power from companies back to citizens. With the new contract, everyone will be a star, and has a huge power of negotiation. Companies cannot anymore dictate their terms. Moving work from one country to another will not destroy livelihoods of employees.
I have the intuition, but I just cannot express it clearly yet. I will continue to think about this and then write more about this. But I know that the new social contract is necessary. I also know that Finns are pragmatic enough to invent it.
Faces
In the absence of Botox, our facial expressions get imprinted permanently on our faces.In Finland, most women, over 40-years old, have a permanently worried and sad expression on their faces. They have deep wrinkles between their eyes from endless worrying over something, lips turned down for some sorrows or vain attempts to look serious.
Men, instead, are red in their swollen faces, with bad skin, mostly due to excessively deep worshipping of Bacchus . They also some triple-chins for not exercising between meals of meat and potatoes.
We are not a beautiful nationality, I would say.
I have a habit of avoiding frequent encounters with the mirror.
To Tampere
I will travel to Tampere by train. The train does not have WLAN and my phone's GPRS is broken. My mother does not have internet. So, it may be a while before next updates. But maybe not.Pictures on this page now have titles. Just rest your pointer on picture and you will be a bit more informed. Later I will fix the titles of past pictures. January and February now have titles, but not very polished ones. Thanks to for pointing out the need to titles.
Alun perin julkaistu kuukausikoosteessa "Blogs March to June 2006".
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