OK, I can tell her that. But does that observation point at an explanation for the higher European unemployment rate that is different from the "overpriced labor" one of mainstream economics? Or is a way of saying, yes, that's the explanation, but it doesn't matter because social democracy reduces the burden of necessary labor to a greater degree than American neoliberalism?
But here I am puzzled again -- don't European unemployment figures include mainly those who want work and can't find it? If so, does that tell us that European social democracy overprices labor (in the sense that if compensation were lower unemployment would also be lower), but they deal with it better? Or what?
I did discuss with her the use of unemployment, employment at will, and low social benefits (roughly the existence of the reserve army of the unemployed) as a labor discipline strategy.
I am still looking for answers to my original question. I was hoping that Michael Perlman might have an insight, but I can't put together the theory from the quotes he gave us. Michael, can you do it in bullet-point form?
jks
--- Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> wrote:
> andie nachgeborenen wrote:
>
> >Maybe I didn't make my audience clear enough. I'm
> not
> >going to bullshit my daughter,
>
> So tell her that the U.S. employment "miracle" means
> that in order to
> maintain a roughly equivalent standard of living,
> more Americans have
> to work, and work longer hours, than Europeans.
> Productivity per hour
> of work is actually higher in many European
> countries than it is in
> the U.S. Increasing the work effort shouldn't be a
> goal of an
> advanced society - it should be increasing the
> quality of life. But
> in the U.S., quality of life takes a back seat to
> the demands of The
> Economy.
>
> Doug
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