Employment and other economic
phenomena reflect our way of life, mood and the system of values of the society.
Ultimately, each one of us form the society and, hence, we are also creating
these economic phenomena.
Regarding the relation with our way
of life, for example, the workplace is in many cases very far from the living
residence, as we enjoy now quick and comfortable transportation. Long hours and
energies spent in trains, cars, time schedules and traffic jams, at the end,
stress workers and also their families. Just imagine what happens when a
commuter misses the train or the bus one day in the morning. This phenomenon
has finally increased working hours enormously, since our mind is focused on
work for quite a longer time and long away from home.
Mass media are the main channel
through which mood comes to the stage. There is probably no family without TV,
Internet or reading newspapers. What they are presenting is immediately and
often strongly affecting everybody. They are quick and they easily create
panic, likes or dislikes, to many events although there is no need to react to
them, because in many cases we do not understand regional circumstancesand the
context of these events. So what it very often happens is that without deep
understanding we are taking part in the discussion, judging the behavior from
one region to other and bringing imbalances in all aspects of life. Take, for
instance, the bad image of very hot-weather countries in Southern Europe, as
lazy nations, who do not want to work, which is held by people in Northern
European countries who just see comments in TV and newspapers. But, in reality,
they have never tried to work in such weather conditions. And, on other hand,
countries with lower productivity which is fully determined by weather should
understand, that they are not disused by and that they should not mirror those
richest industrial countries as they are able to produce products with higher
productivity. Some countries are better
than others in doing different things, so we should not push all nations to
pursue the same objectives, because what is easy for a given country is a
challenge and contra-natura for others.
We are all consumers; we like to buy
and to be surrounded by expensive and fashionable things. Our job should allow
as to fulfill ours consumption taste. There are many people working long hours
in a job they do not like just to get the best goods in markets. We do not think
very often about moral rules or usefulness of our work. We are very often sacrificing
our life in work just to have more and more things. But in reality we do not
have time to enjoy what we can buy and we are very quickly tired of anything we
buy. Maybe we should think more about finding a job where we can enjoy. We will
probably discover that high profit will be not so important as our feelings and moral behavior.
Subsequently, it will increase also overall quality of life.
Many people rely on government and
believe in its declared power, to secure their work. It is useful to understand
that people are learning and thatwhile some are wiser, some others are losing common
sense. The world is changing constantly, what was working five years ago does
not work anymore. For this reason any “active” government politics based only
on past knowledge cannot be long-time effective. It is important to learn and
monitor all the time changes in society and to try to understand them. It seems
than mathematical and big statistical projects do not allow us to think, just
to run procedures. Only concrete persons can be efficient, those who have open
minds and attitudes towards new developments. Unfortunately very often, they
are not accepted by any government and by the public; they are considered as
crazy, pessimistic or too optimistic, because their only instrument is their
mind, which sees and understands. But, again in a very structural society, it is
very difficult to identify such ”clever” people; we are
more or less used to bureaucrats, because we can easily evaluate their work. For
this reason, it is maybe better to keep some works outside of governmentaction
and listen to already existing non-government institutions, or universities,
which are offering their analyses and studies.
In these days we are also very often
forgetting that we are working in our households, that we are growing up our
children or helping our older parents, disabled people and many other social or
works for home. It is a lot of work we are doing and nobody pay us for it, so
we do not work, because we do not have employer. Is it true? Value of this work
is very difficult to assess, but probably we should think and find some social
compromise, which and how to support such a kind of work. In these situations,
it is really very difficult to measure efficiency. For this reason, we need to consider
goodwill and possibilities of those whose money should be used (they could be
taxpayers), or we can create social insurance. With the use of social insurance
we are not able to cover everything, becauseit would be suitable to base the use
of social insurance fund on previous contributions of later users, and such
contributions are limited in quantity.
(c) Andrea Sánchez Bernáthová
