Austerity rarely means reduced total spending. Rather it usually shifts money from going to the working people and into large private business owners. Any talk about concern for the size of deficit and budget is usually bullshit. Look who’s getting more of that spending and who’s getting less. That’s what it’s almost always about.
The number of private sector organizations and staff who should be in a position to interface with the public and safeguard or provide for public service services is 0.
At no point should they be in a position to make bad choices to keep or get some bonus, and at no point should services be seen as a profit center or a well to plumb for cust-cutting measures.
I don’t have percentage number. I do however have an ideal percentage unemployment - really fucking low - as that gives workers some bargaining power to get higher wages and better working conditions. And for me the government should play a role of an employer to regulate the labour market, like it has done in the pre-neoliberal era. Removing workers from well paid jobs during 6.5% unemployment adds more people to the unemployed pool, competing for the same private sector jobs, lowering wages for everyone. This is what the layoff part of the austerity measure does. It lowers wages across the board. In other words it favours the interest of business owners, by having them pay lower wages and therefore collecting higher profits.
If on the other hand the private sector is short on workers and need these people, I think firms should up their wages to attract them.
Welfare has to be a part of the system too, as it is in China (China’s as well as ours could be considerably better). I was just talking about public/private jobs. Funny you mention China because Canada’s, as well as most western countries’ economies between the Great Depression and the neoliberal era used to be much more like China’s today. Mixed public-private systems with a lot more economic planning than after. Growth was stronger as well as wages. I’ll come back to you in the other thread with post-war inflation numbers. They weren’t high. Just no time to write something coherent.
Austerity rarely means reduced total spending. Rather it usually shifts money from going to the working people and into large private business owners. Any talk about concern for the size of deficit and budget is usually bullshit. Look who’s getting more of that spending and who’s getting less. That’s what it’s almost always about.
What’s your ideal government worker percent vs private sector?
The number of private sector organizations and staff who should be in a position to interface with the public and safeguard or provide for public service services is 0.
At no point should they be in a position to make bad choices to keep or get some bonus, and at no point should services be seen as a profit center or a well to plumb for cust-cutting measures.
I don’t have percentage number. I do however have an ideal percentage unemployment - really fucking low - as that gives workers some bargaining power to get higher wages and better working conditions. And for me the government should play a role of an employer to regulate the labour market, like it has done in the pre-neoliberal era. Removing workers from well paid jobs during 6.5% unemployment adds more people to the unemployed pool, competing for the same private sector jobs, lowering wages for everyone. This is what the layoff part of the austerity measure does. It lowers wages across the board. In other words it favours the interest of business owners, by having them pay lower wages and therefore collecting higher profits.
If on the other hand the private sector is short on workers and need these people, I think firms should up their wages to attract them.
So no welfare, but but more like Chinas system. I’d be curious about second order effects if there are any.
Welfare has to be a part of the system too, as it is in China (China’s as well as ours could be considerably better). I was just talking about public/private jobs. Funny you mention China because Canada’s, as well as most western countries’ economies between the Great Depression and the neoliberal era used to be much more like China’s today. Mixed public-private systems with a lot more economic planning than after. Growth was stronger as well as wages. I’ll come back to you in the other thread with post-war inflation numbers. They weren’t high. Just no time to write something coherent.