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Job Insecurity and the Welfare State in a Globalized World1On April 10, 2006, French President Jacques Chirac①surrendered to public pressure and withdrew the First Employment Contract (known as the CPE –the Contrat Première Embauche in French) after days of protests by student groups and labor unions. The proposed law, which was designed to combat France’s 22.2 percent youth unemployment rate, would have allowed firms the freedom to hire workers under the age of 26 on a trial basis for the first two years, during which period employers could also fire such workers more easily than current laws permit.The government believed that France’s complex and inflexible labor laws – a high minimum wage, high payroll taxes, generous benefits, and an onerous labor code, all enshrined in many different contracts and numerous collective bargainin g②agreements; served as a disincentive to hiring young, untested workers. A previous incarnation of the law, the New Employment Contract, applied similar provisions to small businesses with fewer than 20 employees and had successfully created up to 400,000 new jobs.Opponents of the government’s strategy, including the millions of students and unionists who marched against it in the streets of Paris, called the law a betrayal by the French state and claimed the new measure would just make it easier for employers to hire cheap, disposable labor and keep young people in an unsteady netherworld of partial employment.When President Chirac decided to revoke the CPE after just eight days on the books, replacing it with a package of subsidies, some commentators labeled the action a humiliation for the government, a triumph of mob rule and of the entitlement mentality. Some lamented the public reaction as a sign of the “depth of popul ar misunderstanding regarding the realities of our globalizing economy.”On a deeper level, the reaction against reforms to France’s labor laws is indicative of deeper anxieties, broadly held in Europe and elsewhere, about how the forces of globalization are impacting the stability of the welfare state. In the eyes of many, the swifter the currents of globalization, the more fiercely the continental Europeans cling to the traditions of the welfare state, “While most of the world struggles to cope with the shifting threats and opportunities of an increasingly global economy, much of Europe, and France in particular, remains devoted to a quasi-socialist ideal.” According to Dominique Moisi, “The French produce ‘ideas and dreams’ and they challenge the assumption of the liberal and market-oriented order by their refusal to accept change in the name of economic flexibility.”French resistance to change largely stems from a very different conception of the social contract between the citizen and the state in the realm of job security. On this subject, Philippe d’Iribarne, author of French Strangeness, has remarked, “In the American imagination, the relationship between a worker and employer is that of a supplier and a client…In France, when people work they say they have a ‘situation,’ which they expect to endure for life.” The function of the state under this model is, above all else, to “make sure that workers are taken care of” in hopes of creating a “healthier, more humane society” than is possible in more fully liberalized economies. The pervasive role of the French government in employment is reinforced by the fact that 25 percent of the country’s workforce is employed in th e public sector, with 45 percent of thenational budget devoted to civil service③salaries and pensions.Many advocates of greater economic liberalization attribute France’s economic stagnation and political deadlock –conditions symptomatic of much of Europe –to the “hypertrophy” of the welfare state. In a country where “75 per cent of young people openly declare that their dream in life is to become a civil servant, something is obviously wrong…A lack of confidence in the future and fear of precariousness have taken over the spirit of adventure, a frame of mind in which to be protected from life becomes more important than what you do in life.” The flexibility necessary for a healthy economy in an increasingly fast-paced world comes at the expense of the security that most workers – including more and more young workers – cherish.At bottom, as Dominique Moisi has said, “The hostility towards the concept of flexibility in the labor market was not only the product of a reactionary, status quo impulse, but the result of a deep resentment at seeing one’s life being so totally at the disposal of others.” Trying to shut one’s borders to the forces of globalization is, however, no longer a viable option. Continued calls for state intervention in labor markets merely accelerate an already vicious cycle in which protectionism begets slower growth and unemployment, thus multiplying the need for more extensive social safety nets and exacerbating the original problem.Concerns over job security are by no means confined to France or even Europe; rather, they are grounded in changes in global labor markets that impact every country, including the United States. Three forces are reshaping labor markets around the world: First, an oversupply of increasingly mobile workers relative to capital and investment; Second, technological innovations that put previously isolated workers in competition with one another; and third, increases in productivity that, while beneficial in the long term, contribute to short-term economic instability.The interaction of these forces has resulted in declining wages for manufacturing and unskilled workers – a phenomenon now beginning to affect service and skilled workers as well.Whatever jobs are created by robust US economic growth are often not as good as the ones being lost; many new jobs are in the “low-wage and low-skill end of the non-unionized service sector – on the check-out counter at Home Depot or delivering Domino’s pizzas. Often those are replacing secure jobs at places such as General Motors or Ford that traditionally provided generous wages and full health and pension cover.”According to Martin Bailey of the Institute for International Economics, “There is a social compact in which says each generation will be better off than the last. But it appears to have been broken in the last 10 to 20 years. If you look at the data then it is clear people’s insecurities are not irrational.”Job insecurity is a real and understandable phenomenon in today’s globalized world. Increased competition forces both governments and companies constantly to adjust their labor policies just to keep pace with rapid change, and the traditional safety nets of the welfare state can no longer be taken for granted. As long as workers continue to feel a lack of control over their futures, it is likely they will continue to express their anxious discontent in protests, strikes, and in some cases “protection” from international competition for many years to come.(Total words: 1107)New Words and Expressionssurrender/sJ'rendJ/ v.to admit that one has been defeated and want to stop fighting; to allowinflexible /In'fleksJbl/ a. that cannot be changed or made more suitable for a particular situation不容变更的，不可改变的payroll /'peIrJUl/n. a list of people employed by a company showing the amount of money to be paid to each of them （一家公司的）发薪员工表，在职人员名单onerous /'JUnJrJs/ a. needing great effort; causing trouble or worry 沉重的，繁重的enshrine /In'SraIn/ v. to make a law, right, etc. respected or official, especially by stating it in an important written document 把…奉为神圣disincentive /%dIsIn'sentIv/ n. a thing that makes someone less willing to do something 障碍因素，起抑制作用的事物incarnation /%InkA;'neISn/ n. giving a definite or human form to a particular idea or quality （象征某种品质、概念或思想等的）典型，化身，体现，具体化disposable /dI'spJUzJbl/ a. available for use 可（任意）处理（或处置）的，可自由支配的netherworld /'neDJw3;ld/ n. (literary) the world of the dead; hell 地狱，下层社会revoke /rI'vJUk/ v. to officially cancel something so that it is no longer valid 废除，取消entitlement /In'taItlmJnt/ n. the official right to have or do something 应得的权利lament /lJ'ment/ v. to feel or express great sadness or disappointment about somebody/ something 为…悲痛，痛惜humane /hju;'meIn/ a. showing kindness towards people and animals by making sure that they do not suffer more than is necessary 人道的，仁慈的，富有同情心的stagnation /st&g'neISn/ n. the state of not being able to develop, grow or change 停滞，不发展hypertrophy /haI'p3;trJfi/ n. excessive development or growth 过度生长，过度增大precariousness /prI'keJriJsnIs/ n. the state of being not safe or certain; dangerous 不安全，不稳定beget /bI'get/ v. to make something happen产生，引起，招致exacerbate /Ig'z&sJbeIt/ v. to make something worse, especially a disease or problem; aggravate 使恶化，使加重robust /rJU'bVst/ a. (of a system or an organization) strong and not likely to fail or become weak 强健的，健壮的Notes to the Text①Jacques Chirac: (1932- ), President of France (1995-2007). Following major studentsprotests in spring 2006, Chirac retracted the proposed CPE by “promulgating [it] without applying it”, an unheard-of – and, some claim, illegal – move destined to appease the protests while giving the appearance not to retract himself, and therefore to continue his support towards his Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin.②Collective bargaining: Negotiation between management and union representatives for thepurpose of arriving at mutually acceptable wages and working conditions for employees. The agreement reached may cover not only wages but hiring practices, layoffs, promotions, working conditions and hours, and benefit programs.③Civil service: Body of government officials employed in civil occupations that are neitherpolitical nor judicial. They often serve as neutral advisers to elected officials and political appointees. Though not responsible for making policy, they are charged with its execution.Modern civil service personnel are usually chosen by examination and promoted on the basis of merit ratings.A passport to privilegeTim Harford, Undercover Economist, November 7, 2014Class matters far less than it used to in the 19th century. Citizenship matters far moreI’ve been a lucky boy. I could start with the “boy” fact. We men enjoy all sorts of privileges, many of them quite subtle these day s, but well worth having. I’m white. I’m an Oxford graduate and I am the son of Oxbridge graduates. All those are things that I have in common with my fellow columnist Simon Kuper, who recently admitted that he didn’t feel he’d earned his vantage point “on the lower slopes of the establishment”. I don’t feel able to comment objectively on that, although we could ask another colleague, Gillian Tett. She’s female and – in a particularly cruel twist –she wasn’t educated at Oxford but at Cambridge. That’s real diversity right there. All these accidents of birth are important. But there’s a more important one: citizenship. Gillian, Simon and I are all British citizens. Financially speaking, this is a greater privilege than all the others combined. Imagine lining up everyone in the world from the poorest to the richest. The world is a very unequal place: those in the top 1% have vastly more than those in the bottom 1% – you need about $35,000 after taxes to make that cut-off to be one of the 70 million richest people in the world. If that seems low, it’s $140,000 after taxes for a family of four – and it is also about 100 times more than the world’s poorest people have. What determines who is at the richer end of that curve is, mostly, living in a rich country. Branko Milanovic, a visiting presidential professor at City University New York and author of The Haves and the Have-Nots, calculates that about 80% of global inequality is the result of inequality between rich nations and poor nations. Only 20% is the result of inequality between rich and poor within nations. The Oxford thing matters, of course. But what matters much more is that I was born in England rather than Bangladesh or Uganda. That might seem obvious but it’s often ignored in the conversations we have about inequality. And things used to be very different. In 1820, the UK had about three times the per capita income of countries such as China and India, and perhaps four times that of the poorest countries. The gap between rich countries and the rest has since grown. Today the US has about five times the per capita income of China, 10 times that of India and 50 times that of the poorest countries. Being a citizen of the US, the EU or Japan is an extraordinary economic privilege, one of a dramatically different scale than in the 19th century.Privilege back then used to be far more about class than nationality. Consider the early 19th century world of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. Elizabeth Bennet’s financial future depends totally on her social posit ion and, therefore, if and whom she marries. Elizabeth’s family’s income is £430 per capita. She can increase that more than tenfold by marrying Mr Darcy and snagging half of his £10,000 a year (this income, by the way, put Mr Darcy in the top 0.1% of earners). But if her father dies before she marries, Elizabeth may end up with £40 a year (interest on her mother’s fortune), still twice the average income in England.Milanovic shows that when we swap in data from 2004, all the gaps shrink dramatically. Mr Darcy’s income as one of the 0.1% is £400,000 today; Elizabeth Bennet’s equivalent is £23,000 a year. Marriage in the early 19th century would have increased her income more than 100 times; in the early 21st century, the ratio has shrunk to 17 times.This is a curious state of affairs. Class matters far less than it used to in the 19th century. Citizenship matters far more. Yet when we worry about inequality, it’s not citizenship that obsesses us. Thomas Piketty’s famous book, Capital in the 21st Century, consciously echoes Karl Marx. Click over to the “Top Incomes Database”, a wonderful resource produced by Piketty, Tony Atkinson and others, and you’ll need to specify which country you’d like to analyse. The entire project accepts the nation state as the unit of analysis.Meanwhile, many people want to limit migration –the single easiest way for poor people to improve their life chances –and view growth in India and China not as dramatic progress in reducing both poverty and global inequality, but as a sinister development.It would be unfair to say that Simon Kuper and Thomas Piketty have missed the point. Domestic inequality does matter. It matters because we have political institutions capable of addressing it. It matters because it’s obvious from day to day. And it matters because over the past few decades domestic inequality has started to grow again, just as global inequality has started to shrink.But as I check off my list of privileges, I won’t forget the biggest of them all: my passport.Why India is poor and corrupt while Japan is rich and cleanExcerpt from Milton & Rose Friedman’s book Free to Choose: A Personal Statement, published in 1980In the Far East, Malaysia, Singapore, Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Japan—all relying extensively on private markets—are thriving. Their people are full of hope. By contrast, India, Indonesia, and Communist China, all relying heavily on central planning, have experienced economic stagnation and political repression.An especially illuminating example, worth examining in greater detail, is the contrast between the experiences of India and Japan—India during the first 30 years after it achieved independence in 1947, and Japan during the first 30 years after the Meiji Restoration in 1867. Economists and social scientists in general can seldom conduct controlled experiments of the kind that are so important in testing hypotheses in the physical sciences. However, experience has here produced something very close to a controlled experiment that we can use to test the importance of the difference in methods of economic organization.Both were countries with ancient civilizations and a sophisticated culture. Each had a highly structured population. Japan had a feudal structure, India had a rigid caste system.Both countries experienced a major political, economic and social change. In both countries a group of able, dedicated leaders took power. They were imbued with national pride andgreat powers.Almost all differences favored India rather than Japan. The prior rules of Japan had enforced almost complete isolation from the rest of the world. International trade and contact was limited to one visit from one Dutch ship a year. Three or more centuries of enforced isolation had left Japan ignorant of the outside world, far behind the West in science and technology.India was much more fortunate. It had enjoyed substantial economic growth before World War I. That growth was converted into stagnation between the two world wars, but was not reversed. Improvements in transportation had ended the famines that had earlier been a recurrent curse. Many of its leaders had been educated in advanced countries, particularly in Great Britain. British rule left it with a highly skilled and trained civil service, modern factories, and an excellent railroad system. None of these existed in Japan in 1867.India's physical resources, too, were far superior to Japan's. India is nearly nine times as large as Japan, and a much larger percentage of its area consists of relatively level and accessible land. Japan is mostly mountainous.Finally, Japan was on its own. No foreign capital was invested in Japan. India fared far better. Since it achieved independence in 1947, it has received an enormous volume of resources from the rest of the world, mostly as gifts. The flow continues today.Despite the similar circumstances of Japan in 1867 and India in 1947, the outcome was vastly different. Japan dismantled its feudal structure and extended social and economic opportunityto all its citizens. The lot of the ordinary man improved rapidly. Japan became a power to be reckoned with.India paid lip service to the elimination of caste barriers yet made little progress in practice. Differences in income and wealth grew wider. Population exploded, as it did in Japan, but economic output per capita did not.India prided itself on being the largest democracy in the world, but it lapsed for a time into a dictatorship that restricted freedom of speech and press.What explains the difference in results? Many observers point to different social institutions and human characteristics. Religious taboos, the caste system, a fatalistic philosophy—all these are said to imprison the inhabitants of India.By contrast, the Japanese are lauded as hardworking, energetic, eager to respond to influences from abroad, and incredibly ingenious at adapting what they learn from outside to their own needs.This description of the Japanese may be accurate today. It was not in 1867. An early foreign resident in Japan wrote: "Wealthy we do not think it [Japan] will ever become. The advantagespeople themselves forbid it."Similarly, the description of the Indians may be accurate today for some Indians, but it certainly is not accurate for Indians who have migrated elsewhere. In many continents, Indians are successful entrepreneurs, sometimes constituting the mainstay of the entrepreneurial class. They have often been the dynamo initiating and promoting economic progress.In any event, economic and social progress do not depend on the attributes or behavior of the masses. In every country a tiny minority sets the pace, determines the course of events. Inthe countries that have developed most rapidly and successfully, a minority of enterprising and risk-taking individuals have forged ahead, created opportunities for imitators to follow, have enabled the majority to increase their productivity.The characteristics of the Indians that so many outside observers deplore reflect rather than cause the lack of progress. Sloth and lack of enterprise flourish when hard work and the taking of risks are not rewarded. A fatalistic philosophy is an accommodation to stagnation. India has no shortage of people with the qualities that could spark and fuel the same kind of economic development that Japan experienced after 1867, or even that Germany and Japan did after World War II. Indeed, the real tragedy of India is that it remains a subcontinent teeming with desperately poor people when it could, we believe, be a flourishing, vigorous, increasingly prosperous and free society.What then accounts for the different experiences of Japan from 1867 to 1897 and of India from 1947 to date? We believe that the explanation is the same as for the difference between West and East Germany, Israel and Egypt, Taiwan and Red China.Japan relied primarily on voluntary cooperation and free markets—on the model of the Britain of its laissez-faire time. India relied on central economic planning—on the model of the Britain of post-WWII.The Meiji government......at no time did it try to control the total amount or direction of investment or the structure of output...India is following a very different policy. Its leaders regard capitalism as synonymous with imperialism, to be avoided at all costs. They embarked on a series of Soviet-type five-year plans that outlined detailed programs of investment. Some areas of production are reserved to government; in others private firms are permitted to operate, but only in conformity with The Plan.Tariffs and quotas control imports, subsidies control exports. Needless to say, these measures produce shortages of foreign exchange. These are met by detailed and extensive foreign exchange control—a major source both of inefficiency and of special privilege. Wages and prices are controlled. A government permit is required to build a factory or to make any other investment. Taxes are ubiquitous, highly graduated on paper, evaded in practice. Smuggling, black markets, illegal transactions of all kinds are every bit as ubiquitous as taxes......Reliance on the market in Japan released hidden and unsuspected resources of energy and ingenuity. It prevented vested interests from blocking change. It forced development to conform to the harsh test of efficiency. Reliance on government controls in India frustrates initiative or diverts it into wasteful channels. It protects vested interests from the forces of change. It substitutes bureaucratic approval for market efficiency as the criterion of survival.。