Your Government Owes You a Job

[LeftishBrit]

2. Yes, this was one of the main principles of the postwar consensus in the UK..

which was destroyed by Maggie Thatcher et al.

It's not true that there is no work to do due to technology. We can all see, every day, areas where work needs to be done and is not being done.

Also, there is the ironic situation where some people are working long hours that are harming their health and family life, while others are unemployed. It would be better for everyone to be working somewhat shorter hours.

Moreover, the problem is not just unemployment as such, but insecure employment. An ever-increasing number of people are in non-tenured jobs where they have no security and can be dismissed at any time; the extreme in the UK is the abuse of so-called 'zero-hours contracts'. Unfortunately, the post-Thatcherites have the implicit and often explicit attitude that job insecurity improves performance; that people will not be productive unless they are living in fear of unemployment. Obviously, people deserve to be sacked if they really don't do their jobs; but it's gone way beyond that to produce a culture of fear, which is not only bad for the individual, but often inhibits creativity, flexibility and plain common-sense.