The Future of Income, Work and Labour

Workers are struggling to find the means of survival and to plan for their future. Work is no longer the way to get on in life, or to achieve security. The relationship between banking, investment and property and large corporations, is now very cosy. This book attempts to explore some of the solutions being talked about and the issues surrounding work and labour today. People see ostentatious riches being rewarded and hugely conspicuous consumption being applauded in the media, and they know that many aspects of todays over consumption are harming everyone and yet public figures and the wealthy flout their wealth in ever more thoughtless ways. In the post trump post brexit world, the battleground has shifted to arguments about equality, open markets, globalisation, and protectionism and many blaming the rise of regressive policies on the dwindling feeling of agency of young and old, working class and middle class in the twin face of the onslought of technological exclusion from capital and power, the increasing oligarchies of property ownership and access to power and wealth creation.No longer can people expect social mobility. An increasing gap in Productivity is arising as workers are no longer able to aspire to secure jobs or employment. Todays zero hours contracts are common throughout the world. Workers have no security, and self employed people often are below the poverty line too. Increasingly those who dont make it are found sleeping rough in the streets- no longer a minority problem, everywhere thousands of people are sleeping in the streets, even in the wealthiest countries. The inequality is now so extreme and the gap so huge and unbridgeable that board members of top world banks and institutions are warning that this is one of the most major threats to the world economy, frightening even the head of the IMF who said that the worlds wealthy richest people could all fit on one double decker bus. Huge city banking bonuses seem to be able to be tax avoiding, enormous corporations dont pay anything like the tax the workers pay. People are feeling that their is a neo feudal race to the bottom and even the ballot box has eroded the basis of democracy by being hi jacked by these same vested interest companies and the worlds richest men-and it is indeed the worlds richest white men and foreign states who do not appear to have the users of their services at heart or even consider them. No longer are people going to be richer than their parents. No longer can young people even guarantee a safe climate- no longer do they trust public figures or governance or institutions. Welcome to the brave new world- this book examines its structures and makes suggestions for starting to understand and then solve this mess. See more