During a discussion on the radio this morning between Ian Fletcher, author of ‘Free Trade Doesn’t Work- What should replace it and why’, and Philippe Legrain, author of ‘Aftershock’, the latter stated that a tariff is a tax on the consumer. While strictly true, the remark typified the kind of thinking in boxes that has led us into the present mess. It overlooks the simple truth that consumers are largely employees under another heading. By setting capital footloose in the world we have cheapened the goods we consume, but at the cost of employment. As employment continues to decline, so must consumption of non-essentials, cheap or not. This is a race to the bottom. I have not read Fletcher’s book, though I have just ordered it, but I suspect that much of his argument reflects concerns that some of us have held for years.
At a time when the ‘experts’ in the CIPD were advising companies that they must ‘empower’ their employees, I argued that empowerment was dead in the water as a concept. “Deregulation and technological development have stripped away forever the protective walls behind which western employees were able to organise in order to wring concessions from employers and government alike on terms and conditions. Capital is now free to seek out the cheapest sources of labour anywhere in the world and to move to where poverty and authoritarian government combine to ensure a compliant labour force.” (‘Human Resource Development-a contingency function?’ by Tom Kilcourse. Journal of European Industrial Training. Vol 20. No. 9. 1996)
I predicted in the nineties that “Their employer, if they have one, will probably be a labour only contractor offering them a short-term of employment. It is possible that they will not have a contract of any kind. We could see the white collar equivalent of the old tally system used on the docks whereby workers reported for duty in the morning with no guarantee of work that day.” (‘Empowerment and other myths’ by Tom Kilcourse. The Leadership and Organization Development Journal. Vol 17. No 5. 1996). We are not there yet, but the increasing number of agency workers indicates that we are heading in that direction. Increasingly workers, including the highly skilled, are not employees of the firm they work in, but of outfits like ‘Manpower’.
Broken Britain? You aint seen nothin’ yet, and in America too. The politicians and their big business backers have sold the people out.
Boadicea's Chariot 
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