A concrete idea to combat the unemployment, political economy

“The economic crisis has taken its toll on the young, ILO estimates that the global youth unemployment rate rose to 12.6% in 2010.” Helen Clark, Head of the United Nations Development Programme, March 21, 2011.

Index

1.     Overview

2.     Inexactitude of the statistics

3.     The sub employment is not revealed

4.     The intense use of technology and its effects on the employment

5.     Machine substituted the work of man

6.     What to do

7.     Demographic control

8.     The double working-day and the half working-day

9.     Global campaign of reforestation

10. Conclusion

1.      Overview

The unemployment is the worse illness of the society. The effects on their victims are of devastation. The employment is essential for the happiness. Unfortunately, the unemployment affects millions of people in the entire world. But there is other similar phenomenon: the sub employment (underemployment); this affects people that exert an economical activity but do not enjoy of a secure income neither the social benefits of the formally employed.

If you add the figures of the unemployed to the figures of the sub employed, the total amount is something really amazing, especially in the underdeveloped nations. The problem is that the figures of sub employment generally stay hidden. The official’s statistics usually do not reveal the sub employment figures.

The unemployment and the sub employment are the main cause of the poverty. So that the first measure to combat the poverty must be the creation of jobs.

But the creation of jobs requires several conditions. The jobs cannot be generated by magic. The creation of jobs responds to concrete needs of the society. An entrepreneur creates a job when he is sure of the utility of that job.

For the creation of a job it is necessary to make an investment; this means the use of financial resources and the employ of material goods, among them, resources of energy ---like petroleum--- that are every day scarcer and expensive.

One hundred years ago, the situation was different: there was abundance of material resources, especially of natural resources. For that moment, still man had not devastated the Earth wealth. The petroleum exploration was hardly beginning and the forests, rivers, lakes and oceans had not been razed.

Now, in the first years of the 21^st century, the reality changed completely. Today, the limitations of natural resources are something real. The reserves of conventional petroleum have diminished in a sensible amount; hundreds of animals and plants species have disappeared; the forests, the marine resources and the reserves of water are also in critical situation in many regions of the world while man realized 2,053 nuclear detonations only between 1945 and 1988. The food is seriously threatened by the drought, the water scarcity and now by the biofuels. For example, by the year 2007, 25% of the United States corn production was for ethanol. On March 31 2011, the Food and Agricultural Organization, FAO, described as “potentially catastrophic climate impacts on food production over the long-term,” in a letter to the Convention on Climatic Change.

But while the natural resources experiment a reduction, the population grow in a constant form. It is a contradictory phenomenon that threats the humankind survival at mid term. The world is overpopulated. This means that the resources are not enough to satisfy the demand of the world population, among them, the demand of employment. You can verify it in a simple form: observe the traffic jam, the limitations in the water availability, the price of gasoline, the number of unemployed and sub employed in your community, the files in the banks, supermarkets, in the drugstores, in the bakeries, the scarcity of food and basic services. This is especially visible in the underdeveloped nations.

2.      Inexactitude of the statistics

I have serious doubts about the exactitude of the statistics of labour; I will explain why. For example, if you study the statistics of unemployment of Mexico, you will find that the level of unemployment was ---approximately--- an average of 3% ---this represent full employment--- between the years 2003 and 2008, like you can see in the table 2.  I do not believe that those figures are true because of a simple reason: during the same period, the immigration of Mexican citizens toward the United States was huge, occupying the first place among the foreign-born population, as may appreciated in the table 1.

Table 1. United States, Foreign-Born Population by Race for Countries with 750,000 or more Foreign Born: 2007. Numbers in thousands

Source: U.S. Census Bureau, 2007, American Community Survey.

Available in Internet in: http://www.census.gov/prod/2010pubs/acs-11-pdf

For the period 2003-2008, the official statistics reveals that in the United States the unemployment was superior to 5%, this mean, superior to the Mexico’s unemployment rate; see table 2. This fact confirms that the doubt about the exactitude of the statistics is absolutely reasonable. The basic question is:  if Mexico has a level of full employment then why do the Mexicans citizens abandon their country to look employment in the United States?   A society that enjoy a high rate of employment, do not experiment a high percentage of immigration of its workers. Then, the logic conclusion is that the official unemployment figures of Mexico are not true. The figures of immigration reveal the economic disparities of the societies and especially their amount of unemployment and sub employment. 

Table 2. Unemployment, selected countries of America

Source: International Labor Organization. Laborsta, Internet.

Available in Internet in http://Laborsta.ilo.org/stp/guest

3.      The sub employment is not revealed

The big problem is the methodology used to define the unemployment. The traditional concept consider unemployed at the people of an age superior to the 18 years that search an employ and do not get it. But the statistics do not consider as unemployed the people that exert activities in the informal economy, the self-employed, neither the people that work for formal economic activities but do not enjoy of a fixed salary neither the social benefits of the formal employed, like the workers that work per hours, or in temporary form. All them are the sub employed, that do not appear in the official statistics. The International Labour Organization has its own concept about unemployment and underemployment, adopted by the 30^th International Conference of Labour Statisticians in Geneve, 1982.

Moreover of the situation of Mexico and the United States, it must be underlined the reality of other countries of Latin America, like Venezuela and Colombia where the sub employment occupy a first plane, but this is not reflected in the official statistics. This situation happens not only in America but in the rest of the world. Therefore, it is right to say that the sub employment is most grave than the unemployment, because the sub employment is a hidden fact ---officially not recognized--- of disastrous effects for the world population.

4.      The intense use of technology and its effects on the employment

The technological development has brought two contradictory phenomenons: a) the displacement of the traditional workers and b) the creation of new technological jobs. The problem is that the former has been more than the second and this has contributed to the maintenance and increase of the unemployment. In some nations the phenomenon has been more intense and in other less. For example, in the last decades, the industrialized societies have kept acceptable levels of unemployment; in change, the underdeveloped nations have been more affected by the use of new technology, displacing a most number of workers.

The industrial societies have prepared the workers for the new challenges derived of the technological development. In the underdeveloped nations this process has been slow and in minor scale. This explains the relative reduced levels of unemployment and sub employment in the industrialized nations and the major amount of both in the underdeveloped countries.

 5. The machine has substituted the work of man

The objective of the entrepreneurs is the economic benefit, for that reason the search optimize their activities through the technology and usually do not consider the social impact of the technological changes. The objective of the governments is different. The governments look the social benefit; therefore, they must establish the rules to guarantee the employment.

It should have a balance between the aspirations of benefits of the entrepreneurs and the social need of to generate employments.

The machines must be used with rationality and justice; man must not be an enemy of the machines neither vice verse, the machines must not be enemies of man.

The machines must be employed to give happiness to the human beings and not to provoke sadness, exclusion and unemployment.

The principal task of the scientists should be to get the balance between the machine and man, and to guarantee the maintenance and creation of employments.

A technology that substitutes the work of man is not a good neither a fair creation. The main objective of man should not be to accumulate more and more money. All the owners of the machines and the most advances technologies will die and shall not keep with them neither the money, neither the machines. They should think in the human effects of their actions, the effects on the families and on the workers, and not only in the egoist desire of to obtain more and more money. At the final, that money will not be useful for them.

6. What to do

The solution to the problem of the unemployment and the sub employment is not easy. Nevertheless, it is possible to achieve important advances. The world might reach partial success in this matter. The problem is of such magnitude that requires the action of the international agencies, the national governments of the countries, the entrepreneurs and the workers worldwide. But the main responsibility corresponds to the international agencies like United Nations and the World Bank. They should be the sponsors of a global campaign for the promotion of the employment and the preservation of the environment. I think that those should be the principal goals of those institutions, because the unemployment and the destruction of the environment are the two most graves material problems of the world. In turn, those problems have a cause: the overpopulation.

The high rate of population growth in the underdeveloped nations is responsible of the world overpopulation.

7. The demographic control

If the population growth rhythm continues like until now, to resolve the basic needs of the world society will be everyday more difficult. The first measure should be to begin a global campaign of demographic control in the underdeveloped nations. The situation is different in the industrialized nations because they experiment a contrary phenomenon known as demographic transition. This is the augment of the life expectancy of the senior people and the reduction of the birthrate.

I think that the international agencies, United Nations and the World Bank and the national governments of the underdeveloped nations should develop a Global campaign of demographic control. This is the unique form of to guarantee the next generations survival.

8. The double working-day and the half working-day

Twenty three years ago, in 1988, I wrote and published, in Spanish, an economic model to fight against the unemployment. The title of the thesis was “A concrete idea to combat the unemployment, the double working-day and the half working-day.” Available in Amazon:

 http://www.amazon.com/Concreta-Combatir-Desocupaci%C3%B3n-Jornada-Spanish/dp/9803002813/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1301159461&sr=1-1

The model was dedicated to the countries that suffer high levels of unemployment as consequence of the weakness of their markets, this mean, the weakness of the internal demand, by lack of income of a good part of the population, the unemployed.

It is an economic model that search to enhance the production of goods and services and to increase the level of employment, through the full use of the time of work, the productive infrastructure and the machinery. It is a new form of organization of the production and the work. The model is applicable especially in those countries where there is a productive capacity not enough used.

The core of the proposal is the legal creation of two different working-days of seven hours each one in a same day. In the most countries, the legal working-day is of eight (8) hours, but with the new proposal it would be established legally a second working-day of seven (7) hours. The workers that work in the first working-day cannot work in the second working-day. This fact guarantees the creation of new jobs that will be occupied by new workers.

The first working-day would begin at 7 am until 2 pm and the second working day would begin at 2 pm until 9 pm.

I shall explain the benefits with a single example: If 7 workers produce 7 pair of shoes in 7 hours, 7 new workers will produce 7 additional pair of shoes in the next seven hours of the second working-day. This mean that in the same day will be duplicated the jobs and the production.

Moreover of the industry, the model is applicable in the services sector; for example, in the medical and sanitary services. This would be especially useful for the underdeveloped nations that suffer serious restrictions because of the lack of medical attention.

9. Global campaign of reforestation

The other option to achieve a quick and effective creation of jobs is through the development of a Global campaign of reforestation, sponsored by United Nations and the World Bank, with the cooperation of the governments of the countries.

The Global campaign of reforestation would let to create millions of ecological employments worldwide and, in consequence, to attack the problem of the poverty and the unemployment. The other big advantage of this program is that it would let to keep the environment, because of the multiple benefits that the trees give to the people. The reforestation favors the ecological balance, the oxygen of the air, the rain, the conservation of the soils among others advantages.

To develop the Global campaign of reforestation it is not necessary to employ fossil fuels, like petroleum neither coal and this is its other great positive difference regarding other forms of creation of jobs. For example, to create one employ in the agriculture, the industry or in the tertiary sector it is necessary to use big amounts of energy. The campaign of reforestation does not need big amounts of energy.

10. Conclusions

-         There is not one or a rigid number of actions to promote the employment and to fight against the unemployment and the sub employment. I think that the human being have the duty of helping to find roads, solutions. That is what I want to do, only to help to find ways to solve this big problem that hit deeply the hearts and the life in family of the human beings in the entire world. The unemployment is something terrible, especially for the young people, that lose its hope when do not get a formal work. The same happen to the adults and to the senior citizens.

-         The international community, through the international agencies, the United Nations and the World Bank, might contribute in a decisive form to diminish the problem of the unemployment and the sub employment. I think that they might sponsor three basic campaigns: a) The Global Campaign of Demographic Control, b) The Global Campaign of Double Working-day and Half Working-day and c) The Global campaign of Reforestation, like concrete measures to combat the poverty, the unemployment and protecting the environment worldwide.

-         The Global campaign of demographic control is something essential to guarantee the survival of the next generations. The rate of population growth of the last decades is unsustainable.

-         The Double Working-day and the Half Working-day should be developed especially in those activities that require the less use of energy, like the tertiary sector of the economy; for example, in the activities to improve the quality of life of the population, like the medicine and services of health.

-         The Global Campaign of Reforestation is not only a measure of conservation of the environment but a measure of conservation of energy because its realization do not imply the use of the traditional sources of energy, petroleum neither coal.

Political economy food and demographic control

Traditionally, the power of the countries has been associated to the size of their population.
Power and population has been synonymous; but with the development of the science and technology that perception has changed.
Now, the synonymous of power is the scientist knowledge domain; the atomic weapons were the main cause of that transformation.
In the past, the military force was determined by the number of soldiers’ and the conventional weapons; now, the military supremacy is decided by the possession of nuclear weapons.
The atomic experience caused a great impact in the world. The nuclear powers learned the lessons of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. In the following decades the great nuclear countries participated in new war scenarios ---Korea, Vietnam and Middle East--- but in none case they used the atomic energy.
The military power and the economic power are strongly tied. Without economic development the military power is not possible.
In turn, the economic development is related to the size and purchase capacity of the market ---population--- and other key issues like the availability or not of factors of production and their appropriate use.
Since the theorist point of view, each one of the factors of production ---capital, land and work--- has the same hierarchy. None of them is more important than other. But, in the 21st century reality, the natural resources (land) have acquired a special paper; the reason? Because of signs of scarcity and contamination are already visible in many regions of the world especially in the agriculture sector in matter of water and land.
A similar perspective occur regarding the other forms of energy, like the petroleum, because the reserves are draining in specific areas, among them, the North Sea, the United States, Mexico and China. Hence, a constant increase of the petroleum price is very possible.
The agriculture is the basic form of energy because it provides the food that feed our lives. The food is energy. Now, in the modern world, the petroleum is a basic input for the agriculture because it determines the crops yield by mean of the fertilizers and supply the combustible that move all the machinery, among other basic inputs of the productive chain. So that any increase in the petroleum price touch directly the agriculture costs. The mentioned facts exert a significant impact on the possibilities of the agriculture expansion and the food production at mid and long term.
Demographic control
The other important issue is the population growth. According with the FAO projections, the most augment will occur in the developing countries. In change, the minor growth will be in the industrial nations, because of the demographic transition phenomenon, which mean a high rate of longevity and a small birthrate. If this phenomenon augments in the coming years, the industrial countries will suffer a process of deep cultural change since that new migratory flows sure will transform the custom of those societies. The influence of the migratory groups already is evident in the industrial countries like the United States and in Europe. This will provoke a change in the politics and the economy not only of the recipient countries but in the rest of the world. This is a subject that deserve be considered in a complete work.
The effect of the population growth on the food production will be one of the most important issues for humanity in the coming years.
There are three options to satisfy the growing food population needs: a) to increase the production, b) to reduce the population growth or c) both.
The restrictions that affect the agriculture expansion are well known like the land scarcity, the water stress, the contamination and the inflation in the energy prices; so that the demographic control might be an alternative to tackle the reality.
The demographic control is the action adopted by the states through their policies of population for regulating ---increase or diminish--- the birthrates in a country or region. The objective of the demographic control is to determine the population size at mid and long term.
There are successful cases of demographic control; China, for example, diminished their birthrates in the 20th century notwithstanding to be the most populated country of the world. Other overpopulated nation, like India, has employed too the demographic control to lessen their birthrate. Where the situation is out of control is in Africa.
In other moments of the history, like in the thirty and forty decades of the 20th century, leaders as Benito Mussolini and Adolf Hitler used the demographic control to stimulate the birthrate in its countries. They promoted the marriages and for each son the government gave a reward to the parents. The objective of those governments was to increase the number of soldiers for the war.
The mentioned examples demonstrate that the demographic control has been used in two contradictory directions: by a side to enhance and by the other to restrict the birthrate, according to the population policies of the countries.
A fact that must be mentioned is that the demographic control was employed principally by autocratic governments in the 20th century; but it does not mean that it is a mechanism proper of that kind of regimes, no, the demographic control is an instrument of the policy of population that may be used the same by the democratic regimes and other type of governments.
Unsustainable
The true problem is the global high rate of population augment of the last century ---the most in the history--- and their projection, a trend that will be unsustainable for the limited resources of the Earth at mid and long term. Only the technology might help to curb the consequences of the overpopulation improving the methods of production and distribution of goods and services.
In the thirty years between 1970 and 2000, the world population increase was of 64.43 per cent; the developing countries augment of 81.75 per cent and the industrial countries growth rate 24.48 percent.

The international agencies, like FAO, assure that the population growth of the thirty years between the year 2000 and 2030 will be the half of the average observed in the last three decades between the year 1970 and 2000. They do not explain which the reasons are for suppose that the historical behavior will change. The projection for the year 2030 is 2,059 million of inhabitants more regarding the year 2000, as may be appreciated in the following table.

The foreseen total population increase for the year 2030 is a big amount, approximately the third part of the current global total; it mean that will be necessary producing the food that the new population will need. This requires more land and more water, including a most exploitation of the oceans resources and more petroleum and coal. In turn, this implies more contamination. How conciliate all these situations is the key question.
Conclusion
The political economy and the technology might supply the theorist and practice support to tackle basic issues like the production increase and the struggle against the poverty to face the future high population growth. But the demography must play a privileged paper. The demographic control to diminish the birthrate in the developing countries will be something necessary. On the contrary, the birthrate increase will be fundamental for the industrial nations to reduce the impact of the demographic transition phenomenon, which threat to become those countries in societies of old people, societies of senior citizens condemned to disappear at long term. A balance between the population growth of the developing nations and the industrial nations is the fair.
Realistic policies of population should be developed by all the nations; this encompasses key issues like the policies of immigration and the policies of population distribution in the space, to favor the nature and the environment, among others.
What do you think?

Political economy, food and population projections

Is able the Earth of to double the food production in the coming years?
That is the key question that some politicians, researchers and people linked to the agriculture have made themselves in the last months; the reason? An announcement made by the FAO food chief, Jacques Diouf on January 26 2009 during an international conference on food security in Madrid.
Jacques Diouf said that “…We face the challenge now of not only ensuring food for the 973 million who are currently hungry, but also ensuring there is food for nine billion people in 2050. We will need to double global food production by 2050…”
According with The Guardian of London in information of the journalist Juliette Jowit on April 19 2010, the Soil Association of the United Kingdom published a study with the title “The big fat lie about doubling food production,” where criticize the projection and assure that their origin is a FAO report of June 2006 entitled World Agriculture towards 2030/2050.
The Guardian informs that the Soil Association assures that “…The forecast increase needed in production would be closer to 70% by 2050…” and that “…The UK government has said that the difference between 100% and 70% is not trivial because it is more than the food production of the whole American continent…”
Nobody can predict the future with precision
I would like to comment an anecdote that I lived many years ago. In that time I was director of an area in the planning office of my country and helped a student to get a grant to study in one of the most advanced North Americans universities. I advised him to pay special attention to the planning subjects. One year after he came back and said to me: the studies have been excellent but I want to tell you something that perhaps will be disappointing. And he told me that one of his professors, a Nobel Laureate, said to him and to the rest of the pupils that the planning is possible only at short term, because the world change everyday to an unbelievable speed and for that reason is not possible to make plans at long term.
I did not forget the concept. In the following years I felt a great attraction by the philosophy and I could understand better what the professor wanted to express to his pupils. Indeed, the changes, sometimes radical and unexpected changes, are the essence of the live and they affect the possibilities of forecast at long term. It is true that there is a statistic reality, trends that we can to verify in the facts, but they are only tendencies that can change in any moment. I will give only one example in the following question:
Who could predict twenty years ago that twenty years after a young leader like Barack Obama would be the president of the United States?
The projections
The studies of the international agencies sometimes present contradictory information. The reason is, perhaps, that that information is gathered and interpreted by different people with different visions of a same phenomenon.
Observe you the three following paragraphs of the FAO document World Agriculture towards 2015/2030; the quotes belong to the Executive Summary:
“…There are three main sources of growth in crop production: expanding the land area, increasing the frequencies with which it is cropped (often through irrigation), and boosting yields. It has suggested that we may be approaching the ceiling of what is possible for all three sources…”
But in the same section says the following:
“…At global level there is adequate unused potential farmland. A comparison of soils, terrains and climates which the needs of major crops suggest that an extra 2.8 billion ha are suitable in varying degrees for the rain fed production on arable and permanent crops. This is almost twice as much as currently farmed. However, only a fraction of this extra land is realistically available for agricultural expansion in the foreseeable future, as much as needed to preserve forest cover and to support infrastructural development…”
And after it assure:
“…More than half the land that could be opened up is in just seven countries of tropical Latin America and Sub-Saharan Africa, whereas other regions and countries face a shortage of suitable land. In the Near East and North Africa, 87 percent of suitable land was already being farmed in 1977-99 while in South Asia the figure is no less than 94 per cent. In these regions, intensification through improved management and technologies will be the main, indeed virtually the only source of production growth. In many places land degradation threatens the productivity of existing farmland and pasture…” End of the quotes.
It is evident the contradiction between the first and third paragraphs and the second one.
Then the question is:
Is there or not enough water and expanding area for agricultural production?
The agricultural lands of Europe, Asia and part of Africa have been exploited by thousands of years and most of them are already exhausted; Egypt, for example, where the historians consider that the agriculture began. The lands of America have been also exploited but in less intensity and proportion; hence some of them are still a potential reserve.
The problem is that the agricultural exploitation means deforestation and a great damage to the environment. For example, since the sixty years of the 20th century ---before the region was closed for strangers--- the Amazon region has been destroyed, mainly, by the farmers, the lumberjacks and the miners. The great problem is that the Amazon area is vital for the environment sustainability of the planet. That is the last ecological reserve that survives in the world.
As a result of the expressed the other key question is:
Which are the tropical Latin American and Sub-Saharan seven countries that the FAO consider could be open to new developments in the agriculture?
How that development will affect the environment and the global sustainability?
Restricted possibilities
If you consider the reality of the planet presented by the own FAO, you will confirm that there are restricted possibilities of the agricultural expansion. The limitation in matter of land and water are a true. The FAO’s experts know and cope that true better than the rest of the world citizens but, perhaps, they can not recognize it publicly; notwithstanding, sometimes, in official papers as the quoted in the previous paragraphs, they do clear mention of that reality.
Why to hide the perspectives?
Everybody wait miracles in all the issues of the live. You expect your miracles I, the governments and the rest of the people too. Everybody wait a change, a good change. The hope of miracles feed the live of the people. Hence nobody want to see negative perspectives and anticipate measures for tackle them. Perhaps that would be an answer.
But to hide or to not recognize the true does not change the true. The governments and the international official agencies have the duty of to warn about the perspectives and to make the recommendations for a best future.
What is the most important?
The question that head this work is the most important:
Is able the Earth of to double the food production in the coming years?
The answer is in the hands of the scientists, the politicians, economists and the people linked to the agriculture: farmers and entrepreneurs, among others.
The true is that the world will need to increase the food production in an important amount to attend the growth population of the coming years. In this moment it does not matter if is 100 percent or 70 percent; the true is that any of them is an enormous quantity.
The perspectives of the world population are the base for the food estimations.

The FAO consider that the world population will reach the peak of 9 billion of inhabitants for the year 2050 and estimates that since that moment will not have growth at global level. In the Overview ---page 3--- of the World Agriculture towards 2030/2050, they explain the forecast of zero population growth for the year 2050 as “…the net result of continuing increases in some countries compensated by declines in others…”
But they assure after that “…zero population growth at global level will not automatically translate into zero growth in demand and cessation of building-up pressures on resources and the wider environment…”
Conclusion
The great problem is how to arrive to the year 2050; how to produce the food that the population will require, in a scenario of water shortage worldwide, overexploitation of the land and growing contamination.
First of all it is necessary to recognize and to say the true at the world.
It is necessary an integral effort of many sectors, among them, the science, the technology, the political economy, the demography, the politicians, the farmers and the entrepreneurs, for giving answers to those issues. The demographers have an especial responsibility. They must be listened by the political leaders and other researchers.
Which is your opinion?