Comments 7

社会民主的新生

Jun 9, 2015 Kemal Derviş

伊斯坦布尔—如今，全球经济正在经历根本性变革，全世界工人面临着巨大压力。特别是在发达国家，社会政策必须有所调整，以提供低收入群体所需要的支持，同时刺激增长、增加福利。

压力是无情的，也是无可逃避的。在美国，仅有高中文凭的男性的真实（经通胀调整的）报酬在1979年至2013年间下降了21%。在工资保护更好的欧洲大部，失业率高企，特别是在2008年欧元危机爆发后。德国和一些北欧国家仍然是例外，尽管德国劳动力市场也存在一个规模庞大的低工资、低职位细分。

这一趋势的背后是工作性质的改变。首先，服务业在全世界兴盛，发达经济体尤其如此。从1970年到2012年，服务业占经合组织国家GDP的比重从53%上升到71%。

To continue reading, please log in or enter your email address.

To read this article from our archive, please log in or register now. After entering your email, you'll have access to two free articles every month. For unlimited access to Project Syndicate, subscribe now.

Featured

The Sino-American Cold War’s Collateral Damage

Oct 19, 2018 Minxin Pei
The End of Scandinavian Non-Alignment

Oct 17, 2018 Carl Bildt
Will Italy Sink Europe?

Oct 17, 2018 Jim O'Neill
The Martyrdom of Jamal Khashoggi

Oct 15, 2018 Daoud Kuttab
The Brexit Endgame

Oct 16, 2018 Robert Skidelsky

new comment has been posted. new comments have been posted.

0 Comments on this paragraph, 7 in all 7 Comments on this article

Pepy Sakellariou Jun 16, 2015

Mr. Dervis, world need realism, clear heads and sharp eyes.
It's time that people like you start to put the finger on the real problem (like you always do). The facts are the following :
* Population has tripled since ’70
* Technology skyrockets
* Jobs are lost and unemployment is increasing almost everywhere
At the same time:
* Rich people get richer and they refuse to be part of a solution diminishing inequality gap (the same old problem of redistribution)
* Tax haves flourish
* International Organizations increase their power
* There are no coherent, global rules in the fields of taxation, working conditions, social benefits etc.
It is inevitable! A drastic reduction of working hours globally - along with social policies and a guaranteed minimum income- under the threat of sanctioning for those countries who will not comply with this policy, is the only way economy and societies will flourish.
It's a way out of the deadlock economy has reached.
A new reply to this comment has been posted.
Peter Burgess Jun 16, 2015

800 years ago the Magna Carta was signed, and the idea that the King was subject to law was established. It should be that the modern corporation and wealthy elite are similarly not 'above society' but part of society.

I very much like this article, but converting these ideas into coherent public policy and corporate practice is going to be a challenge, some might say an impossibility.

We are all part of a very complex global socio-enviro-economic system, yet we attempt to manage in this system simply by using some very limited metrics ... the money profit metrics for business, the stock value capital market money metric for wealth and the GDP money metric for economic health. We have no equivalent metrics for human capital and quality of life and no equivalent metrics for the impact economic activity has on the environment.

I have no idea what would be the best possible policy formulation for the optimization of the socio-enviro-economic system, but it would be a great help if there were metrics that embraced everything in this system in a coherent way. With such metrics everyone could use the data to optimize all the facts from all the perspectives that impact them.

Getting the right numbering system is not easy ... but it is way easier than getting a big policy formulation right. It is a version of Adam Smith for the 21st century, with everyone's behavior having an impact on the totality of the system. It builds on the Peter Drucker idea that you manage what you measure.

With a numbering system that embraces everything and not just money profit, there is a fighting chance that the money resources that exist and doing nothing of substance could be reallocated to doing the zillions of things that need doing but, using the prevailing money profit analysis, are not profitable enough to fund.

The game changer, Uber is built on technology that only became possible in the 21st century. A game changing new system of metrics needs to be based on thinking for the 21st century. While I appreciate the power of conventional double entry accounting, it, like the Magna Carta, also goes back to the 1200s ... and first written about in the 1400s ... and still at the core of numbering for modern society in this century.

Think what would be possible with a system of metrics that enabled the optimum allocation of resources and deployment of technology!

Peter Burgess TrueValueMetrics.org
A new reply to this comment has been posted.
Petey Bee Jun 11, 2015

+{a lot}
great article!
A new reply to this comment has been posted.
Tamer Kirac Jun 11, 2015

The affect of technological change on employment and income will be the next next generation's critical challenge. It will have cultural aspects, as well as economic ones. In this new cultural-economic environment, being underemployed and/or unemployed, receiving public assistance for food, shelter, child care, health and education will be considered as a legitimate right, as opposed to being lazy, not-as-smart and parasitic.

As the services economy becomes the driving force of income generation, especially among the G20, there will be the need to re-define productivity and production and contributors to such a production cycle and resulting earnings.

As defined in classic economics, the concept of marginal productivity and associated costs are becoming harder to grasp, given the magnitude of affects of technological innovations and corresponding rewards and associated production and consumption patterns in this new world.
A new reply to this comment has been posted.
Mila Kasalica Jun 10, 2015

Great reading. Thanks.
It is somehow believe that workers and state are totally unnecessary in contemporary economy. Only few academics that will provide for machines should live with those 0.1% owners of capital. Although 2008 proved that market fundamentalist are fully wrong, and they understood fully Pikkety-'s Capital still spinning that workers and state are the key development problems, remain strong.
A new reply to this comment has been posted.
lakshma reddy Jun 9, 2015

Keal dervis,

Your description of changing composition of global economy in terms of weightage attached various component of national GDP as well as global GDP is in tune with Adam smith's technology led globaĺisation process and global division of labour and employments.

This globalisation will encompass all walks people without any visible signs means through invisible market mechanism/ hand.

We see the effects of globalisation process in two opposite directions. One towards centralisation and other towards decentralisation.one towards economic and political globalisation other towards individual and local economic and political autonomy. Several words and phrases are coined to reflect this inherent natural civilisational process.

You have rightly said the birth of new social contract( in place of old Rousseou social contact) to advance the naturally growing science/technology led globalisation/civilisation process by modifying anachronic legal,political ideas underlying our constitutional/legal documents. Or else we may face similar catastrophic situations like in past world wars to settle defitional issues.

In the context
A new reply to this comment has been posted.
Stephen Stanley Jun 9, 2015

So, has the world's Right figured out that the best way to secure a voting base is to create more disenfranchised, poor people? Because that's what the Right's policies are doing and their influence seems to be growing.
A new reply to this comment has been posted.

http://prosyn.org/REWKVDq/zh;

社会民主的新生

To continue reading, please log in or enter your email address.

Featured

The Sino-American Cold War’s Collateral Damage

The End of Scandinavian Non-Alignment

Will Italy Sink Europe?

The Martyrdom of Jamal Khashoggi

The Brexit Endgame

New Comment

Email this piece to a friend

Contact us

What Has Google Ever Done for Us?

China’s Repressed Memory

The Economics of the Climate Crisis

The Sino-American Cold War’s Collateral Damage

The Disruptive Power of Ethnic Nationalism

When Agricultural Workers Go Hungry

Are Britons Really Softening on Immigration?

The High Cost of High Finance

Cookies and Privacy

Log in/Register