Capitalism Without Work

...The entrepreneurs have discovered the mother lode...

...The truth is simple: without material security, no political freedom...

...Anyone who relies solely on the market destroys democracy and along with it this form of economy...

...Here it becomes clear that we need a new definition of "wealth...

...The connection that exists in the West between capitalism and basic political, social, and economic rights is far more than a mere "social benefit" that can be dispensed with when things get tight...

...71 percent demand more rights for the handicapped...

...The demand for work is declining, the supply of labor rising (also as a result of globalization...

...Political freedom and Western democracy are at risk...

...Since utilization of numerous social resources (expensive universities, hospitals, transportation systems, the courts, research funds) is not restricted to the place where taxes are assessed, many corporations are in a position to minimize their tax burden while establishing their headquarters in the countries that maintain the best infrastructures...

...Eighty million Americans, or 45 percent of those above the age of eighteen, commit five hours or more, week after week, to helping others or working for charitable purposes...

...When the manufacture of a product is spread over several countries and continents, it becomes increasingly difficult to assign the profit to a specific locale...

...This article first appeared in Der Spiegel, no...

...Model 1: tax abatement...

...First of all, tension arises between virtual and real taxpayers—that is, those individuals who still have work and the smaller companies that are not in a position to move and thereby escape regular taxation...

...A teacher regales her listeners with the story of how she was told at the unemployment office to sign up for the course on "How to apply for a job" that she herself was offering not long ago...

...What we need is a citizen-state alliance for civil society, if need be in opposition to work and capital...

...entire professions, like that of secretary, may disappear altogether...

...Work for pay always formed the basis not only for private but also for political existence...

...Thus economic growth no longer reduces unemployment but actually requires a reduction in the number of jobs...

...How in the world do the Germans do it...

...According to Miegel, over the course of many generations the value of work has kept going up...

...But at the same time they are contributing, through their egotistic economic behavior and their profit-oriented policies, to the destruction of this European way of life...

...We have to lay the groundwork for democracy in a post-work society...

...What the market precisely does not do is provide its own justification...

...What all this means is that we have to invest in civil society...

...First, the impenetrability myth: everything is just too complicated, the economy is beyond our understanding...

...For investments in public work the watchword is: a little goes a long way...

...The prophets of the information society who predicted a surplus of highly paid jobs even for people with minimal skills were wrong...

...The old "lifetime profession" is threatened with extinction...

...Many companies are becoming taxpayers only in principle, not in fact...

...It has become the mark of our times...

...It was translated from the German by KRISHNA WINSTON...

...They go to the theater...

...If the basic diagnosis offered here is correct—capitalism is becoming jobless and is creating joblessness—we are dealing with a global challenge that will sooner or later confront all highly developed societies...

...Since then, gainful employment has been perceptibly shrinking everywhere, either directly through unemployment (as in Germany) or concealed behind exponentially growing "motley forms of employment" (as in the United States and Great Britain...

...The underlying arithmetic is easy to see: when labor costs fall, profits go up...

...You can run into anyone down at the unemployment office...

...71 percent support feminism and see it as important for both men and women...

...Power is not really delegated...

...The scenario I have sketched here can be summed up in a plea to take the invisible practice of social self-help and grassroots political organization and make it visible...

...New jobs will certainly be created...

...As for the decline in values and the growth of indifference among young people, a trend already bemoaned by Plato, these too are connected to a "blockage of institutional commitments...

...They pay taxes where it is cheapest and live where conditions are most appealing...

...We are headed for capitalism without work in all the postindustrial countries...

...To call the public coffers "empty" is more than an WINTER • 1997 • 53 Capitalism Without Work understatement...

...Here we have the new law of productivity 52 • DISSENT Capitalism Without Work that global capitalism in the information age has discovered: fewer and fewer well-trained and globally interchangeable people can generate more and more output and services...

...The heralded cure—making employment flexible— has merely covered over and prolonged the disease of unemployment, but has done nothing to cure it...

...Two chronically impoverished sources—public funds and the private funds of those who are still employed— are supposed to pay for everything the rich also continue to enjoy: schools and universities with sophisticated facilities, smoothly functioning transportation systems, environmental protection, safe roads, the wealth of opportunities afforded by urban living...

...Our system of social welfare needs reforming in many respects, but paradoxically the answer is not less but more money, properly invested and distributed...

...Capitalism is killing off work...

...Third: is such a thing possible under conditions of globalization...

...at the same time, strategies whereby companies can undermine the tax system become easier to implement...

...many are reluctant to get involved because they have already found that "nothing comes of it...

...According to a poll of European Community countries, these same young people who shun the tedium of collective organizations express strong support (over 80 percent) for environmental causes...

...Can such a millennial reform be instituted in a single country...

...telecommunications will eliminate about sixty thousand jobs in Germany alone...

...Fourth: won't "creative unemployment" (Ivan Illich's term) make people unhappy...

...Second, the service myth: the imminent upswing in the service economy will come to the rescue of the workbased society...

...Objection: at the level of household income, this model is predicated on wage-bearing work...

...Second: who is supposed to pay for this...

...The sobering fact is that even many of the jobs in data processing will be poorly paid and boring...

...nation states, on the other hand, have to stay put...

...The material and cultural foundations for "individualism coupled with solidarity" would be established...

...Among other things, this definition must include such indicators as social participation and political freedom...

...In the midseventies a turning point was reached...

...In reality, however, the situation is much more dicey...

...with women's centers, Greenpeace, Amnesty International, and so forth...

...it has the potential to strike all of us, and to put democracy as a way of life at risk...

...Revenue from the corporation tax, the tax on company profits, fell between 1989 and 1993 by 18.6 percent...

...In the newfound power of the multinational corporations we can observe the successful application of the laws of the free market to the political realm...

...The sites of investment, production, taxation, and residence can now be completely uncoupled from one another...

...The notion of the "selfish society" assumes that two things are mutually exclusive that in fact belong together: self-actualization and being there for 54 • DISSENT Capitalism Without Work others...

...Give it economic, organizational, and political weight...

...Labor Costs The illusion that occupies the key position in the current debate is the myth of labor costs...

...In the administration of many cities and communities, a small cultural revolution has broken out...

...Not "merely" the socialwelfare state, or the prevention of poverty, or the possibility of justice...

...Politicians and business leaders still think in the fictitious categories of full employment...

...Doesn't identity crumble when gainful employment is taken away...

...We have the choice of wailing about that or creating a new focus of activity and identity that will revitalize the democratic way of life: "public work...

...Public Work In the old industrial society, two "employers" occupied the dominant position: capital and the state...

...Ten percent of all households account for a good 49 percent of the wealth...

...56 • DISSENT...

...U.S...

...Model 3: citizens' support for all, financed through taxation...

...While the profit margins of the multinational corporations are growing, these same companies are stripping the high-priced countries of both jobs and tax revenue...

...Who Pays...

...First: won't public work come to grief the moment it encounters the selfishness that has overrun our society...

...Capitalism is creating joblessness and will more and more be jobless...

...73 percent see homelessness as a major issue and want to do something about it personally...

...Those who are already earning well will be given the opportunity to enrich their lives through public commitment...

...Only twenty years ago it was more than 80 percents in both countries...

...As for the alleged monopoly that gainful employment has on identity formation, empirical studies have already shown that a far-reaching change of attitude is underway: more and more people are looking for both meaningful work and opportunities for commitment outside of work...

...But if we compare the United States with Germany, it turns out that the American "jobs miracle" is a mixed phenomenon...

...Three myths prevent those engaged in the public debate from recognizing the true state of affairs...

...This form of capitalism represents the enlightened recognition that only when people have a decent place to live and a secure job can they function as citizens who embrace democracy and make it come alive...

...But this alliance should attract all those who hold democracy dear...

...So what does this concept imply...

...Yet we still bemoan "massive unemployment," assuming that a person's natural condition from adulthood to retirement is full-time work...

...nowadays, being unemployed has become a conversation topic...

...Although young people are staying away in droves from organized churches, parties, unions, and associations, private initiatives of all sorts are attracting participants in record numbers...

...Even savings banks and insurance companies offer loans and mortgages and underwrite policies on the assumption that people who are "employed" have a long-term guaranteed income...

...An example: in that promised land of employment, Great Britain, only a third of the ablebodied population is still employed in the classic sense—full-time, long-term, benefits guaranteed...

...Many believe, hope, and pray that the service economy will save us from the devouring monster of unemployment...

...Secretary of Labor Robert Reich writes that data processors sitting in back rooms at computer terminals hooked up to worldwide databanks are the foot soldiers of the information economy...

...For a society whose economy is flourishing while putting people out of work is not a "rich" society but only a rump society for the rich...

...First, active compassion: environmental activists in Germany are motivated by fear of destruction and deterioration, but even more by indignation at the thoughtless way in which most people behave...

...Many fear that this type of basic support will permanently stereotype and exclude from jobs and society those most at risk— women, the poor, the disabled...

...If public discourse is the art of involving strangers in a continuing discussion of what affects them most intimately, public work is the art of making deeds follow the words...

...Capital is globally mobile...

...If the "American model" results in a combination of full employment and growth in the number of the working poor, the "German (European) model" could have as its goal a combination of wage-earning work and state-financed participation in civil society...

...This holds true even for those so-called employment paradises, the United States and Great Britain, where growing numbers subsist in the twilight zone between work and no work, often making do with starvation wages...

...Those who profit from globalization must be made accountable for the general welfare...

...Then comes the point of the story: sorry, he's overqualified...

...In Germany, to be sure, the figure is still more than 60 percent...

...Public work" in this sense means an odd blend of politics, care for others, and everyday cooperation...

...40 percent of households for the next 49 percent...

...Disastrous tidings on the employment front are hailed as victories on Wall Street...

...Then, too, it is precisely the champions of economic growth, assiduously wooed by the politicians, who are undermining the authority of the state by taking advantage of its offerings while snatching away its revenues...

...Indicators for a precipitous decline in gainful employment have reached the alarm stage...

...These new virtuosi of virtual taxation are subverting the general welfare in a legal but illegitimate fashion, and along with it political life and the demoWINTER • 1997 • 55 Capitalism Without Work cratic state...

...The directors of multinational corporations ship administrative functions off to South India but send their own children to the great publicly financed universities of Europe...

...This study also shows that for 75 percent of the American population solidarity, helpfulness, and concern for the general welfare are as important as self-actualization, professional success, and expansion of personal freedom...

...Citizens had to earn their keep in one way or another in order to give content to their freedoms...

...This situation carries considerable potential for social conflict...

...Insecurity on the labor market has long since spread beyond the "lower classes...

...50 percent of households have only 2.4 percent of all private wealth...

...Young people are given rights, but citizen initiatives are more and more hemmed in by governmental restrictions...

...Unemployment no longer afflicts only those on the margin...

...At a dinner party in the suburbs, skewered lamb cooking on the grill, the conversational tone flippant, the answer to this question is no longer framed in terms of a hobby, a sign of the Zodiac, or a profession...

...Let's look first at the much maligned "selfish society...

...Before a new Marx comes along to wake up the West, we had better dig up some fresh ideas and models as the basis for a revised social contract...

...Democracy in Europe and the United States was originally a "democracy of work," in the sense that it rested on participation in gainful employment...

...May we ask where they or their children intend to live when the costs of maintaining the democratic state can no longer be met...

...20, 1996...

...Without a moment's hesitation they lay claim to the costly political, social, and civil rights whose public financing they are torpedoing...

...These data reveal, among other things, the new power relationships created by globalization...

...That the situation is any different in Europe can be believed only by those who confuse commitment with membership in organizations...

...These are the losers in the globalization game...

...its share in the total tax revenue was cut almost in half (from 6.4 to 3.7 percent), while at the same time profits rose by more than 10 percent...

...Let there be no illusion: a capitalism focused only on ownership and profits, which turns its back on the employed, on the social-welfare state, and on democracy, will undermine itself...

...Telebanking, for instance, will result in the closing of many branch banks...

...We have long since moved from redistributing work to redistributing unemployment— this, too, disguised in the new forms of temporary, unskilled, part-time work...

...Freedom begets, strengthens, and expands freedom...

...Neoliberal policies, which uncritically embrace the free market, have much in common with those proponents of efficiency in business who make themselves superfluous...

...A biologist with years of research experience brings tears of laughter to the eyes of his audience, mimicking the personnel director who just interviewed him, solecisms, inappropriate questions, and all...

...The internationalization of production gives companies two strategic advantages: global competition springs up between expensive and inexpensive labor, and the tax structures and monitoring systems of various countries can be played off against each other and subverted...

...Many companies, of which American Express is a recent example, set up entire administrative divisions in countries with low wages, in this case South India...

...There is only one conclusion to be drawn: we must break the taboo on speaking of this new social injustice...

...The relationship is one not of mutual exclusion but of complementarity...

...The calculations and counter-calculations have yet to be tested...

...They frolic in the still relatively crime- and violence-free capitals of Europe...

...The difference between the two countries can be found in the growth of poorly paid unskilled jobs...

...Here those who participate in voluntary organizations receive a sort of "public stipend" (as has already been partially implemented in Saxony...

...Rather, socially buffered capitalism was a response to the experience of fascism and the challenge of communism, a response developed at no small cost...

...Here those who contribute to the general welfare must be allowed to pay substantially lower taxes (as individuals can already deduct contributions and charitable organizations can claim tax-exempt status...

...Society flourishes, public wealth grows...

...The American sociologist Robert Wuthnow has shown that without voluntary efforts dedicated to others, all modern societies would collapse immediately...

...On the contrary, the disease is spreading: unemployment and the confusing new phenomenon of part-time work, employment without security, and the still quiescent pool of surplus labor...

...Their new magic formula goes this way: capitalism without work plus capitalism without taxes...

...Two things would thus become possible: first, the equation of public activity with remunerated employment would be broken...

...Why not establish prizes and awards for such forms of civil resistance...

...Active resistance to indifference has many goals and many faces: work with the elderly and the handicapped, with the homeless and with AIDS patients, with illiterates and the excluded...

...Third, active democracy: citizen participation and decentralization...

...More and more people are succumbing to the often vehemently asserted conviction that only a radical reduction in labor costs and wages will lead us out of the vale of unemployment...

...But first the opposite will occur: the traditionally secure core of jobs in the service sector will be swept away in a wave of automation that is just beginning to gather strength...

...It promises to bring not only greater efficiency but also a gain in democracy...

...That everything is connected with everything else (however loosely) and is therefore impenetrable can certainly be said of developments on the labor market in an era of forced WINTER • 1997 • 51 Capitalism Without Work globalization...

...that is, at a rate of 2.6 percent, according to figures supplied in April 1996 by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development...

...the appropriate amount is open to discussion...

...They work so much less and produce so much more...

...They enjoy expensively maintained open space...

...All these citizen initiatives just duplicate existing governmental bodies," a city councilman grumbles...

...Today, the only serious opponent of capitalism is . . . capitalism based exclusively on profit...

...In Germany we have over four trillion marks in private household accounts, very unequally distributed...

...The monetary value of these efforts amounts to about $150 billion per year...

...But a comparison of productivity also takes the mystery out of the American "solution...

...If society can upgrade and reward such commitment and put it on a level with gainful employment, it can create both individual identity and social cohesion...

...In the last twenty years, productivity in the United States has increased by only 25 percent, whereas in Germany it has risen a full 100 percent...

...This does not, however, invalidate statements about secular trends, as demonstrated by the comparative international longitudinal studies that Meinhard Miegel presented to the Bavarian and Saxon Commission on the Future at its last conference in Dresden...

...We have to delegate power and authority to it, and in every respect: technologically (information media), economically (basic investment), educationally (certification that will be valid on the labor market as well...

...an American colleague asked me recently...

...New jobs for highly trained workers that are both secure and well-paid are being created neither more nor less frequently than in a top-wage country like Germany...

...We must beat it into the heads of these pseudo-free democrats or free pseudo-democrats, who turn a deaf ear to historical experience, that the market fundamentalism they idolize is a form of democratic illiteracy...

...Second, public work would create new foci of political action and identity-formation within and opposed to a fragmented society...

...Let me propose three speculative models...

...It would thus be essential not to pay out citizens' support in cold cash, but to link it with opportunities for active participation suitable for an inclusive society...

...This is the myth of service jobs...

...This becomes possible only if we invest in civil society, thereby democratizing democracy, so to speak...

...In the future, what will probably win out is a blending of formal work and voluntary organization, the dismantling of legal and mobility barriers between the two sectors, the creation of opportunities for leaving or changing one's principal occupation (in an annual, monthly, or weekly rhythm...

...Model 2: tax-financed basic support payment...

...class distinctions no longer hold...

...And even the new jobs that do spring up can be located just about anywhere...

...The rapidly spreading neither-nor situation— neither unemployed nor with a secure income— hardly fits this stereotype...

...Who is supposed to pay for this...

...But as global capitalism divests itself of all responsibility for employment and for democracy, it is undermining its own legitimacy...

...But the country that first finds a practicable response, that meets the risks to democracy head-on, will be ahead of the game (economically as well...

...No one wants to admit that with it an entire value system, a society based on gainful employment, will disappear...

...But that is precisely the point: people acquire a taste for democracy by practicing it...

...It would never occur to them to move to the places where they are creating low-paying jobs and paying low corporate taxes...

...Yet the contradictions of "jobless capitalism" are becoming apparent...

...The members of the professional elite are doing their best to preserve an ironic attitude toward the absurdities and humiliations of the job search...

...And no democracy—which in turn leaves people at the mercy of old and new totalitarian regimes and ideologies...

...Of course, citizens should be the ones to award them...

...This form of economy can survive only in conjunction with material security, social rights, and democracy...

...So what is now at risk is not "merely" millions without work...

...Those who commit themselves to voluntary organizations are no longer "available for the labor market" and in this sense are no longer "unemployed...

...Here the "American way" shines like a beacon...

...They are active citizens who get involved on behalf of the general welfare and receive in return (time-limited) basic support payments...

...Once again, business leaders take advantage of the low tax rates of the poor countries while enjoying the high standard of living found in the rich countries...

...How do the values and goals of an earningsbased society relate to the grassroots organization of civil society...

...Third, the labor-cost myth: all we have to do is get labor costs down to rock bottom and the problem of unemployment will solve itself...

...In the future, both will be chronically absent in this function...

...Second, practical critique: many lawyers, tax consultants, physicians, businesspeople, and administrators want to use their professional skills in different settings for a change—exerting influence over public opinion and legislation, devising economic strategies for self-help groups, providing information on avoiding tax liability, advising people on handling debt, calling attention to health and safety risks, and so on...

...Four objections will serve to sharpen this apparently simple idea and show how it can be turned into a viable reality...

...Who is supposed to finance investment in "social capital" in an active society...