“Science may never come up with a better office communication system than the coffee break.”
Attributed to Earl Wilson
The need to cultivate new connections in the human society will help us cope even with the rising problem of global unemployment. The heads of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and the International Labor Organization (ILO) recently stated that “The overall number of unemployed is still at 200 million worldwide, close to the peak recorded at the depth of the Great Recession.” [64] Even in the G20 countries, the warning continued, “The analysis ... expresses concern that employment may ... grow ... until the end of 2012, resulting in a 40 million job shortfall in G20 countries next year [2012] and a much larger shortfall by 2015.”
According to the Huffington Post, “Spain's unemployment rate rose sharply to a new Eurozone high of 21.3 percent in the first quarter of the year [2011], with a record 4.9 million people out of work,” [65] and the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that the current unemployment rate in the U.S. is 8.6, with 13.3 million people out of work [66].
However, most alarming and most socially volatile is the unemployment rate of youths in the Eurozone, particularly in Spain and Greece, but also in the United States. A December 22, 2011 news item by Felix Salmon for Reuters reports, “Spain and Greece have almost unthinkably high youth unemployment approaching 50%, but also that Ireland ... has seen its youth unemployment rate go through the roof since the crisis, from below 10% to over 30%.” [67]
Regarding the U.S., the story continues, “The thing to note here is not just the absolute level—youth unemployment is now 18.1%, and for blacks it’s 31%—but also the sharp rise [from just over 10 in 2007 to just over 18 in 2010].”
Without explicitly saying it, the report offers a grim comparison whose meaning is crystal clear: “The U.S. is in exactly the same ballpark as the levels we saw in the Middle East which caused the Arab Spring. We’re lower than Egypt and Tunisia, but we’re higher than Morocco and Syria.”
Young, educated people feel that they spent their best years and the best of their resources (or their parents’ resources) to be qualified for a world that no longer exists. That assessment is not just a gut feeling. In his book, The Brave New World of Work, Professor Ulrich Beck, one of Europe’s leading sociologists, explains that “The work society is coming to an end as more and more people are ousted by smart technologies. To our counterparts at the end of the 21st century, today’s struggles over jobs will seem like a fight over deckchairs on the Titanic. The ‘job for life’ has disappeared ... and all paid work is subject to the threat of replacement.” [68]
Whether we want it or not, the crisis will lead to a reduction of redundant industries and to the recognition that most of the world’s population is simply not needed in the job market. Yet, if people are not working now and will not work in the future, what should they do? How will they live? And if they are provided for by the government or some other agency, wouldn’t being idle all day destroy them mentally and emotionally? This could be an explosive situation for any society, a constant cause of unrest, disorder, and crime.
The solution to human idleness will be to send people back to school. However, this will not be high school all over again, nor college, nor even adult education of any kind we know. It will be a “Globalization School for Citizens of the Interconnected World.” Studies at that school will not cost money. On the contrary, the school will grant its participants scholarships, just as university students receive grants and scholarships. The state will finance the grants with the money it will save as it cuts the civil service work force, since unemployment benefits cost the state less than keeping people employed in hidden unemployment.
Also, the growing awareness of our interconnectedness will create an atmosphere in which it will be easier for the “haves” to share some of what they have with the “have-nots.” Some adjustment in taxation is also likely, even if it’s simply in the form of collecting real taxes, rather than the rich evading them through sophisticated accounting. Again, all these changes must happen willingly, once a large majority in society recognizes our interconnectedness and interdependence and wishes to live accordingly.
Sharing does not have to come in the form of money: it may well present itself in the forms of offering inexpensive houses for rent, narrowing profit margins on staple products to help the less affluent, and numerous other means by which one can show one’s support of society.
The reason why the payment for participation in the GlobalizationSchool will be considered a grant and not unemployment benefits is that unemployment benefits can carry a negative social tag, while grants do not. It is very important that students at the new school feel confident and even proud of being there. This will make them much more receptive to the material being taught.
At the GlobalizationSchool, people will learn how to handle themselves in a world that has become interconnected, where they are dependent on others for their sustenance. They will learn about the course of evolution as discussed earlier in this book, the necessity to adjust human society to that course, the benefits from adjusting, and the harms from delaying the adjustment. People will learn the value of communication, new ways to communicate, and will acquire down-to-earth skills such as home economics, interpersonal communication, and other necessary knowledge to function in an interconnected world: social solidarity, consideration of others, and keeping the environment.
Because people will have much more free time, they will be able to use it to learn new skills. These skills will be taught at the school but will also be useful outside of it, giving people more options when searching for a job—as opportunities to socialize with new people, or by opening new avenues to contribute to society. Any skill with real merit, be it farming or computer programming, will be useful in the future as it is today. Because people’s livelihood will not depend on their ability to sell their products, they will focus on developing only what is really needed and helpful. They will manufacture products that are built to last, rather than products with planned obsolescence, intended to force people to spend more than they should or would like.
People will now have time for socializing. They will still attend school or work, but there will be a lot more free time than there is today, and people will use it to socialize, as we discussed earlier in this chapter. Socializing will not be a goal in and of itself, but a means for enrichment, a learning aid, a chance to gain insights into new realms of knowledge, new depths of thought, or simply to enhance personal confidence by having more friends (real friends, not Facebook friends).
Looking ahead, a few years from now life will be very different. Today people are so stressed they hardly have time to breathe. We are living in a constant rat race on an ever-spinning, ever accelerating wheel. But when the industry contracts and we do not need to work as many hours, we will have more time to cultivate our interests and our social ties. It is then that we will experience real growth and the growth of happiness.
In his The New York Times column, “The Earth is Full,” [69] Thomas Friedman, author of The World is Flat: A brief history of the twenty-first century, discusses Paul Gilding’s book, The Great Disruption: Why the Climate Crisis Will Bring On the End of Shopping and the Birth of a New World. Friedman quotes Gilding as saying, “If you cut down more trees than you grow, you run out of trees.” As the impact of the imminent Great Disruption hits us, Gilding writes, “Our response will be proportionally dramatic, mobilizing as we do in war. We will change at a scale and speed we can barely imagine today, completely transforming our economy, including our energy and transportation industries, in just a few short decades.”
Friedman explains that according to Gilding, we will realize that the consumer-driven growth model is broken and we must move to a more happiness-driven growth model, based on people working less and owning less. “How many people,” Gilding asks, “lie on their death bed and say, ‘I wish I had worked harder or built more shareholder value,’ and how many say, ‘I wish I had gone to more ballgames, read more books to my kids, taken more walks?’ To do that, you need a growth model based on giving people more time to enjoy life, but with less stuff.”