From New York to Shenzhen, Workers Have Had Enough

Here is an excerpt from an article in this week's Business Week 12-13-21.  As I read it I thought of a term I have heard too many times in my involvement in revolutionary socialist politics: "The objective conditions are ripe for the overthrow of capitalism" but what is missing is the subjective factor, a revolutionary leadership that has an understanding for how to proceed. The working class internationally is the most powerful force on earth,  and socialism is an international affair as we can't build socialism in one country and it is undoubtedly ripe for revolutionary change I believe. I think that the statement the Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky made not long before his assassination by an agent of Stalin in 1940, the "crisis of the working class is one of leadership", rings true today. 

Those of us around this blog have referred to the present objective situation as the "unraveling" of capitalism and I think this article is an indication of that, and not just in the US but internationally. FFWP Admin

From the Great Resignation to Lying Flat, Workers Are Opting Out

In China, the U.S., Japan, and Germany, younger generations are rethinking the pursuit of wealth.

Source: Bloomberg BusinessWeek

Around the world, millions of people are rethinking how they work and live—and how to better balance the two.

The Great Resignation has U.S. workers quitting their jobs in record numbers—more than 24 million did so from April to September this year—and many are staying out of the labor force. Germany, Japan, and other wealthy nations are seeing shades of the same trend.

The pandemic has taken a toll, with surveys showing an increase in feelings of burnout and a deterioration in mental health in many nations.

But the pressure has been building in developed countries for decades. Incomes have stagnated, job security has become precarious, and the costs of housing and education have soared, leaving fewer young people able to build a financially stable life.

Although the Great Resignation is a phenomenon among those who are younger than 40, it’s also reverberating across the economy and forcing a broader conversation about work. Millennials (born between 1980 and the late 1990s) and Generation Z (the demographic cohort after them) tend to marry, buy houses, and have children later than their forebears—if at all.

China’s “lie flat” movement, jump-started by a social media post from which it got its name, is also about opting out. It’s a reaction against a system in which a grueling “996” work schedule—9 a.m. to 9 p.m., six days a week—is common in industries like technology. So is unrelenting pressure from family, society, and even the government to keep climbing the ladder.

The country’s economy has doubled in size over the past decade, but not everybody is reaping the benefits: In many big cities the rising cost of living is outstripping wage growth.

As a result, some see the lie flat phenomenon as a warning of impending Japan-style stagnation—one that’s arrived unexpectedly early in the economy’s development. Others argue it’s more of the 1960s-style counterculture movements that cropped up in the U.S. and parts of western Europe, with ordinary people seeking a lower-pressure society that’s more focused on personal development.

“It’s basically a coincidence that these two discourses emerged at the same time,” says Xiang Biao, director of the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology in Germany. “But we can make a connection. It’s about how the economy has become overheated and unsustainable, both in an environmental sense and in a mental sense.”

Almost half of the world’s workers are considering quitting, according to a Microsoft Corp. survey. About 4 in 10 millennial and Gen Z respondents say they’d leave their job if asked to come back to the office full time, a global survey by advisory company Qualtrics International Inc. found—more than any other generation.

Some among older generations have criticized these attitudes as privileged and lazy. But the reality is that working hours have been dropping in richer countries for decades across all age brackets. 

Here's a few quotes from the article.

"As the world collapsed, I don't think they gave a shit about me," US Federal government employee

In October thousands of employees at companies including Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. and TikTok owner ByteDance Ltd. participated in an online campaign branded “Worker Lives Matter” by posting information on when they start and end their workdays on a public spreadsheet. ByteDance has since mandated a shorter workweek

Almost half of the world’s workers are considering quitting, according to a Microsoft Corp. survey.

Two-thirds of millennials who left their jobs in 2021 cited mental health reasons, according to a Mind Share Partners survey, and the proportion for Gen Z was even higher, at 81%.

“When confronted with the prospect of mortality, people definitely behave differently,” says Benjamin Granger, head of employee experience advisory services at Qualtrics. “People are looking at work through a very different lens. The lens is things like, ‘I am not working for a paycheck. That’s not what this is about. I need to be fulfilled.’”

The entire article can be read by following this link