Subject:  From 'Winners-Take-All' to 'Work-Sharing' |
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Liberal
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Date Posted: 13:13:06 04/26/04 Mon
In reply to:
筆芯
's message, "附錄﹕今天工作到處都是不穩定的" on 20:39:40 04/18/04 Sun
Hui Po-keung
Assistant Professor
Department of Cultural Studies
Lingnan University
It is said that the economy of Hong Kong is gradually recovering, but what does this mean to the people of Hong Kong? Do we have more jobs? Are we happier? Not necessarily. Take, first of all, the new concept called "jobless recovery." Today Hong Kong's unemployment rate is still more than 7 percent. The unemployment rate for the youth is even higher. Yes, now people want to consume more and, in fact, do consume more, but there is still a huge gap to be bridged before we can translate consumption into happiness. Meanwhile, for those who are lucky enough to keep their jobs or to get a new one, their working hours are significantly prolonged and their work-related pressure has tremendously increased.
Thus, are we really looking for higher economic growth rates, more consumption, longer working hours and greater pressure, or do we simply want a better quality of life? If quality of life is not necessarily related to economic growth or consumption, what is then an alternative economic policy that focuses less on "economic recovery" and more on directly addressing people's needs? How can we create social conditions in which people can enjoy their life without suffering from high pressure and long working hours? It is time for us to take the above questions seriously. Here I put forward some preliminary suggestions hoping to stimulate further discussion.
The recent "jobless recovery" and its related problems, such as work-related pressure and unemployment, are rooted in our "winners-take-all" social structure. "Winners-take-all" means people in advantaged positions will grab almost all of the gains of society whereas those in underprivileged positions, such as the unemployed, will have very little chance to improve their living conditions. A direct consequence of the "winners-take-all" social structure is the increasing polarisation between the rich and the poor. A more serious problem then follows. On the one hand, the rich, though able to easily get richer in this structure, have to work harder because their duty will not be shared by newcomers. The poor, on the other hand, have to face increasing uncertainty and insecurity. As a result, the quality of life for both groups is unlikely to improve, and they may even be more unhappy than before. In order to reverse this "lose-lose" situation, new economic policies and development strategies have to be in place whose principle is very simple: replace the "winners-take-all" principle with a "sharing" principle. Here are two suggestions.
1. From 'Winners-Take-All' to 'Work-Sharing': To resolve the unemployment problem and relax our work-related pressure, we may consider work-sharing. One way to share work is to reduce the average working hours from, say, 44 per week to 40 per week, through legislation. Another way is "job-sharing," which divides the existing positions into more positions (of course, each new post will receive less pay with fewer working hours), such as five people sharing four jobs. This is clearly better than our existing "last in, first out" employment policy and the freezing of new posts, or the reduction of existing posts, that will result in more unemployment for the younger generation and will increase the workload of existing staff. Needless to say, before implementation, work-sharing first has to be endorsed by the employees on a voluntary basis. Another way to reduce unemployment is to recover some abandoned or repressed labour-intensive economic activities, such as agriculture and street hawking. To achieve this aim, we have to shift our existing policies that discourage these activities into more positive and encouraging measures.
2. From Economic Growth to Equal Distribution of Income and Opportunities: If economic growth does not guarantee a better quality of life and happiness, we may need to reconsider our existing growth-led development strategy. The average income per capita in Hong Kong is about HK$180,000 (US$23,077) per year, which is higher than most other countries. Even if we maintain a low or even zero growth rate, we are still able to enjoy a decent material life if the wealth in Hong Kong is redistributed more equally. It is therefore sensible to focus our future economic development more on the equal distribution of material wealth. In order to do so, we may transform the existing corporate and income tax scheme into a more progressive tax scheme, or we may reallocate the explicit and implicit subsidies that benefit large businesses (building infrastructure, like the airport and highways) to the small businesses or labour-intensive sectors (creating more free hawking zones and agricultural infrastructure) or directly to the people and the community (a better social welfare system). In the "winners-take-all" structure, social welfare is obviously shrinking in order to "bring the poor back into line." The role of the State is increasingly regulative and less redistributive. The new social welfare system has to reverse this trend.
To move forward, we should discuss and debate more on what social, economic, cultural and political policies will make our life easier and better. We should invite more people to talk about their ideal socio-economic policies without dismissively labelling them as unrealistic because this will kill our will to change. Another world is possible if we have the will to imagine, to analyse, to debate and to act.
(Hong Kong Christian Institute Newsletter No.187)
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