Ten months after the World Health Organisation declared the Coronavirus outbreak a global pandemic, heart disease remains humanity’s biggest killer, claiming an estimated 17.9 million victims annually. By comparison, the Coronavirus death toll has not yet reached 2 million.
I thought I’d been mitigating the risk of heart disease by choosing cereal for dessert until I noticed the ‘high in sugar’ label on a box of Nestle’s misleadingly named Fitness cereal when I was living in Chile. This burst my bubble of ignorance and led me to find a healthier substitute.
Other Australians might also benefit from this kind of blatant compulsory labelling, yet health policymakers continually find themselves at odds with food industry lobbyists. Blocking food policy reform appears to be an aspect of paid employment that society as a whole would be better off without.
In the extra hours I have spent on social media this year instead of teaching international students, I have noticed that some people still conflate jobs and growth with societal improvement. Even in 2020, the myth of a society divided along employment lines into ‘lifters and leaners’, as former Australian Treasurer Joe Hockey classified us, lives on, as if having a job automatically means you are making the world a better place.
It doesn’t. You don’t have to be Sherlock Holmes to see that the bottom line often comes before the interests of the public. Consider the findings of the recent Royal Commission into Misconduct in the Banking, Superannuation and Financial Services Industry, or the ten most harmful jobs listed by not-for-profit career advice organisation 80,000 Hours. These include tax minimization for the ultra-rich, factory farming, and marketing for compulsive behaviours like gambling.
If the main benefit of these jobs is that they grow the economy, we need to redesign the economy. Yet our federal government’s obsession with jobs and growth, abysmal track record on welfare reform, and failure to commit to keeping the JobSeeker payment at a livable amount suggest that they would rather see workers paid to do anything, however useless or destructive, than pay unemployed people enough to let them live above the poverty line.
I would rather have my tax dollars go directly towards supporting people who would otherwise be performing harmful jobs than have that money spent on fixing the damage that those jobs cause.
If our culture stopped stigmatizing and punishing unemployment, workers in destructive industries might find happiness and fulfilment perusing their dreams, knowing that they have a safety net to catch them if they fail. Maybe they would learn for the pure joy of it, whether that takes the form of studying another language, practicing an instrument, or listening to educational podcasts.
And if they don’t try to write a Broadway musical or learn Spanish, that’s okay too. They could spend their time being a better aunty, uncle, child, parent, friend, or neighbour.
Science and Philosophy blogger Scott Alexander of Slate Star Codex makes a case for Universal Basic Income on the grounds that as the level of skill needed to advance our society rises, a decreasing number of people will be useful to the system. Furthermore, he argues, we don’t owe a society that has left us behind- it’s the other way around.
Why are we so slow to recognize this?
If we didn’t call people relying on social welfare ‘dole-bludgers’ and if the Morrison government could commit to keeping welfare payments at a liveable amount, fewer Australians would be resistant to accepting handouts. Instead, we compete for the privilege of serving an economic machine that is overproducing.
We desperately need to change the way we think about unemployment. The border closures and lockdowns of the Coronavirus pandemic have undoubtedly made more people aware that anyone can lose their job, and that trying to find another one can be soul-crushing.
Hopefully it will become increasingly accepted that not everyone should have to find work in order to be able to put food in the fridge or for society to function at its best.
Kara Pogos teaches English language at an Australian university. She has previously worked in Chile and Uruguay.
Kara Pogos is a teacher of English as an Additional Language at an Australian university. She has previously taught English in Chile and Uruguay.
Comments
2 responses to “Our harmful obsession with growth”
It seems to me that each of a UBI and a Job Guarantee (JG) (for everyone who wants to work) has strengths and weaknesses. A UBI is simple to administer, because it goes to everyone. Therefore, it’s more expensive than a JG and so the amount paid out in practice is likely to be well below a living income. Tim Hollo argues for a UBI on the grounds that we need to move away from a system that treats human beings as resources to extract value from, and towards one that cultivates human value far beyond the existing labour force system. Therefore, a UBI demands a major change in values.
A JG, in which the jobs are created by all levels of government and NGOs and are funded by the federal government at the minimum income, is less expensive than UBI and can play a valuable role in buffering the macroeconomic cycles. However, it’s more complex administratively and could be open to excessive control by a federal government that wants to exclude jobs created by NGOs or specify which of their jobs deserve to be included.
If they are to be funded properly, then both a UBI and a JG require cultural change in terms of people’s understanding of economics. In particular, the notion that a government with sovereignty over its currency has to balance the budget like a household, must be thrown out.
I agree Kara that some sort of income for people not working is absolutely necessary. However the myth that our federal taxes actually pay for unemployment benefits or other expenditure items must stop. All sovereign governments can provide the funds for whatever they want to do, as long as there are unutilised resources to employ in the economy. I think we need a Federal Job Guarantee to provide work for ANYONE who wants to work. There is so much valuable community work that needs to be done and people could be paid a living wage to do it. My understanding at the moment is that most people want something to do that is meaningful and would like to get paid for doing it. In reality a Job Guarantee and a UBI could become one. If everyone in a society was paid a UBI including the wealthy that might cause an inflationary problem if it was spent directly into the economy. However a Job Gusrantee/ UBI to a smaller cohort of people would be beneficial .