Chapter 77 Chapter Fourteen Twenty Years of Crisis 1

1 The history of the 20 years after 1973 is a page in which the world is full of crises, lost its fulcrum and slipped into instability.But it was not until the 1980s that the world realized that the golden age was gone forever, that the foundation stone of that year had been crumbled and could never be shaped again.It was not until the collapse of one part of the world—that is, the de facto "real socialism" of the Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc—that the global dimension of the crisis was recognized.Prior to this, the developed non-communist regions naturally did not recognize the existence of the crisis. For many years, everyone still called every economic problem a transitional "recession".For half a century, the words "depression" and "slump" are reminiscent of the catastrophic period, and thus have become forbidden words that have not been completely lifted.What's more, just mentioning this word can make people shudder and bring back the terrifying ghost of that year.Even when the "depression" of the 1980s was "the worst in fifty years," even the phrase was used with care not to refer directly to the comparative period—the 1930s. (The word magic of advertisers has been promoted by human civilization to be a basic link in human economic activities; but civilization itself has now fallen into its own special mechanism for constructing illusions.) Only in the early 1990s did someone Dare to start to admit (as in Finland) that the current economic difficulties are indeed worse than those of the 1930s.

In many ways, the situation is bewildering.Why has the world economy become unstable?As observed by economists, the factors that contribute to economic stability are actually stronger than before—although the governments of some free market countries, such as Reagan and Bush in the United States, Margaret Thatcher and her successors in the United Kingdom, Attempts to weaken the power of several of these factors (World Economic Survey 1989, pp. 10-11).A key element of the old mass-production system—the elusive "inventory cycle"—has been greatly diminished by computerized inventory management and better and faster communications.Today, the production line can adapt to changing needs and adjust output at any time: during the expansion period, large-scale production is "just in time", and during the shrinkage period, "stand still" and wait for the inventory to be sold out.This new method was first tried by the Japanese and made possible with the help of technology in the 1970s.The idea is to keep inventories down and just make enough to "just keep up" with what dealers need.In short, the flexibility of production capacity has been greatly increased, and it can be flexibly dispatched with very short notice in response to changes in demand at any time.This is no longer a Henry Ford, but a Benetton era.At the same time, high levels of government spending, and the amount of private revenue that falls under the category of government spending -- "transfer payments" such as social welfare and bailouts -- also help stabilize the economy.The sum of the above two government expenditures now accounts for one-third of the gross domestic product.If anything has gone up in this era of crisis, it's probably these two.Unemployment benefits, pensions, and increases in medical costs alone should be enough to drive them up.This era of crisis lasted until the end of the short twentieth century.We'll probably have to wait a few more years before economists also take up the historian's last weapon—hindsight—to find a convincing explanation for this period.

Admittedly, comparing the economic difficulties of the 1970s to the 1990s with the difficulties of the interwar period is methodologically flawed; although in this new twenty years another "Great Depression" "The fear haunts people's hearts from time to time. "Is it possible to do it again?" Many people have asked, especially after a very dramatic crash in US (and world) stock markets in 1987 and the international exchange crisis in 1992 (Temin, 1993, p. .99), more people are worried. The decades of crisis that began in 1973 were no closer to the meaning of the "Great Depression" of the 1930s than the decades after 1873 (although the period in 1873 was also considered the Great Depression), this time , the global economy did not collapse for a moment - although when the golden age ended in 1973-1975, there was something of a classical cyclical depression.At that time, the industrial production of the "developed market economy" plummeted by 10% in just one year, and international trade fell by 13% (Armstrong, Glyn, 1991, p. 225).After the golden age, although the economy of the advanced capitalist world continued to grow, it was obviously much slower than in the good old days, with the exception of certain "newly industrialized countries" (mostly in Asia, see Chapter 12), and later The history of industrial revolution is very short, only started in the 1960s.In general, however, gross domestic product in the advanced economies continued to grow until 1991, interrupted only by brief stagnation in the recession years of 1973-1975 and 1981-1983 (OECD, 1993, pp. 18-19).The main driving force of world growth, that is, international trade in industrial products, is also continuing to increase, entering a period of great development in the 1980s, and its acceleration is even comparable to that of the golden age.By the end of the short twentieth century, the wealth and productivity of the developed capitalist world countries, on the whole, even far exceeded that of the early 1970s, and the global economy, which still played an important role in it, was now more prosperous than it was then. active.

On the other hand, there are other corners of the world where things are less rosy.In Africa, Western Asia, and Latin America, GDP per capita stopped growing altogether, and by the 1980s most people were poorer than before.Production in Africa and West Asia declined for most of the decade, and in Latin America in the last few years as well (UN World Economic Survey 1989, pp. 8, 26).For these regions, the 1980s was undoubtedly a time of severe depression.As for the "socialism in reality" in the West, it maintained an unsatisfactory growth rate in the 1980s, but it completely collapsed after 1989.The precarious situation they are in is aptly named the Great Depression.In the early 1990s, the situation in these countries was even worse.During the four years from 1990 to 1993, Russia's gross domestic product fell every year, and the declines were 17% (1990-1991), 19% (1991-1992), and 11% (1992-1993). ).Although the Polish economy began to stabilize to some extent in the early 1990s, during the period from 1988 to 1992, Poland's gross domestic product dropped sharply by more than 21%.As for the Czech Republic, it was reduced by 20%; Romania and Bulgaria were even worse, with losses of up to 30% or more.Looking at the industrial production of these countries in mid-1992, it was only half to two-thirds of that in 1989 (Financial Times, 24/2/95; EIBPapers, November 1992, p. 10).

Turn the focal length to the east and the situation is quite the opposite.Just as the economies of the Soviet bloc were collapsing and disintegrating, China's economy began to grow astonishingly. There is no more amazing phenomenon than this.In China, and indeed, since the 1970s, one of the most dynamic corners of the world economic map (Southeast Asia and much of East Asia), the term "depression" is meaningless - literally Strangely, Japan in the early 1990s was not among these lucky countries.However, despite the prosperity and growth of the capitalist world economy, the atmosphere in it is not easy.All the most condemned flaws of capitalism in the pre-war world - "poverty, mass unemployment, chaos, instability" - which had been swept away by the golden age for a generation, began to reappear after 1973.Economic growth has been repeatedly interrupted by severe recessions, including in 1974-1975, 1980-1982, and three times at the end of the 1980s. The scale is so large that it cannot be described as a "small recession".The average unemployment rate in Western Europe jumped from 1.5% in the 1960s to 4.2% in the 1970s (Van der Wee, p. 77).At the peak of the boom in the late 1980s, the unemployment rate in the European Community was as high as 9.2% on average, and climbed to 11% in 1993.Half of the unemployed population have been unemployed for more than one year, and one-third of them have been unemployed for more than two years (Human Development, 1991, p. 184).The problem is that the golden age of the post-war baby boom is over, the potential working population shouldn't be expanding any further, and, in good times and bad, the young are generally more unemployed than the older.Under these circumstances, any change in the permanent unemployment rate would normally be in a contraction.

As for poverty and chaos, by the 1980s even many of the richest and most developed countries found themselves "re-accustomed" to the daily sight of beggars roaming the streets.Even more horrifying is the fact that footage of homeless people sheltering under eaves and hiding in cardboard has become so commonplace that everyone has become accustomed to turning a blind eye—if the police haven’t intervened to remove them from public view. In 1993, on any given night in New York City, 23,000 men and women were sleeping rough or in shelters.This number is really just a trifle—we must know that in the five years counting down from 1993, 3% of the citizens in New York City had no roof tiles to cover their heads (New York Times 16/11/93).In the UK (1989), 400,000 people were officially classified as "homeless" (UN Human Development, 1992, p. 31).Back in the 1950s, or even the early 1970s, who could have predicted such a tragedy today?

The resurgence of homelessness is part of a new era of growing social and economic inequality.In fact, according to worldwide standards, the income distribution of rich countries with "developed market economies" is not too unfair—at least not yet extremely unfair.Among these countries, in Australia, New Zealand, the United States, and Switzerland, the income of the top 20% of households is 8-10 times that of the bottom fifth on average.As for the top 10% of families, the income they bring home is usually as high as 20% to 25% of the total national income.The top darlings in Switzerland and New Zealand, as well as the rich in Singapore and Hong Kong, have even higher income ratios.But the above-mentioned disparity pales in comparison to the inequality in the Philippines, Malaysia, Peru, Jamaica, or Venezuela, where the rich earn more than 30% of their total income.As for countries such as Guatemala, Mexico, Sri Lanka, and Botswana (Botswana), the gap between the rich and the poor is even greater. The income of the rich accounts for as much as 40% of the country's total income.As for Brazil, the world champion of wealth disparity, in this country where social injustice is so extreme that it can be called a "monument to social injustice", the bottom 20% of the population only accounts for less than 2.5% of the country's total income. For sharing; and the top 20%, but almost two-thirds.As for the 10% at the top, as many as half were stolen (UNWorld Development, 1992 pp. 276-277; Human Development, 1991, pp. 152-153, 186).

However, in this "twenty years of crisis", the phenomenon of inequality between the rich and the poor has become more and more serious even in the "advanced market economy" countries.The "automatic salary increase" (that is, almost equal to the automatic increase in real income) that everyone has been accustomed to in the golden age has now been sadly terminated, which makes people feel worse.The proportions of both the rich and the poor began to increase, and the gap between the two sides also widened. From 1967 to 1990, the number of African-Americans with an annual income of less than $5,000 and more than $50,000 increased, and the victims were naturally those in the middle (NewYork Times, 25/9/92).However, the level of social unrest is lower than it might have been, since the wealthy capitalist countries have more pockets than before, and their people, on the whole, now have the bottom of the social security welfare system (see page 427) which was generously set up by the golden age. .But the burden of social security benefits is too heavy, and economic growth today is much lower than it was before 1973.Under the circumstances that expenditures are faster than incomes and incomes cannot make ends meet, the government's finances are naturally becoming more and more tight.Yet despite all their efforts, governments in rich countries—mostly democracies—have been unable, or even found it difficult, to curb their enormous expenditures, even in countries most hostile to social welfare. Of course.

Back in the 1970s, no one would have predicted—much less planned—that things would change like this in the future.By the early 1990s, a climate of insecurity and resentment had begun to permeate even most of the rich countries.As we will see, this atmosphere led to the disintegration of the traditional political formations in these countries.By 1990-1993, it was no longer possible to deny the fact that the advanced capitalist world had indeed fallen into a recession.But how to treat it, but no one dared to pat his chest seriously, and could only secretly hope that the bad luck would pass quickly.However, the biggest truth about the two decades of crisis is not that capitalism does not seem to be as brilliant as it was in its golden age, but that its overall operation has completely lost control.The world economy is unstable, and no one knows how to fix it, and no one has instruments to operate it.The main instrument of the golden age, government policy coordinated nationally or internationally, is now broken.Twenty years of crisis is an era in which national governments lose their grip on the economy.

This phenomenon is not obvious for a while, because most politicians, economists, and business people (as usual) cannot see that the economy of the times has reached a permanent turning point.The countermeasures proposed by most governments in the 1970s were only short-term solutions. They believed that within a year or two, the overall situation would definitely improve and return to the previous prosperity and growth. Random change?So the story of the past 10 years is actually a story of living beyond what is needed and borrowing money from the future. As far as the third world and socialist governments are concerned, their countermeasure is to borrow a large amount of foreign debt, hoping to repay it in a short period of time ——and use the old recipe of Keynesian economic management to cure the new disease.As a result, for most of the 1970s, the most advanced capitalist countries in the world were governed by social democracies (or, after the defeat of the conservatives, came back again), such as the United Kingdom in 1974 and the United States in 1976. .It is naturally impossible for them to give up the magic weapon of the golden age.

The only other countermeasure proposed at the time came from the ultra-liberal side of economic theology.This long-isolated minority believed in the absolute freedom of the market system and began to attack the Keynesians and other camps that advocated a managed mixed economy and full employment long before the stock market collapsed.This policy, which has always been practiced, is obviously no longer effective, especially after 1973, which makes the beliefs of these old fighters of individualism even more fanatical.The newly added Nobel Prize in Economics (1969) was awarded to Hayek in 1974, which further promoted the popularity of neo-liberalism (neo-liberal) thereafter.Two years later, the title was once again given to another ultra-liberal star, Milton Friedman.So after 1974, the free market faction began to turn from defense to offense - but it was not until the 1980s that their arguments became the main tone of government policy.The only exception was Chile, where a terrorist military dictatorship, after overthrowing the popular government in 1973, had American advisers build it an unrestricted, completely free market economy.It can be seen that there is no real connection between the free market and political democracy (although, to be fair to Professor Hayek, he is not like those second-rate Cold War propagandists who insist that the two do have a connection ). The debate between the Keynesian school and neoliberalism, in terms of its content, is not a purely academic confrontation between the two schools of economic experts; nor is it in terms of its motivation, seeking answers to the current unprecedented economic dilemmas. (For example, who ever thought about the phenomenon that forced the 1970s to create a new economic term "stagflation" to describe it-that is, economic growth stagnates, but prices go up blindly, both A completely unexpected and unexpected combination?) Basically, this is a battle of ideological ideas between two completely incompatible factions, each with its own economic point of view.Keynesians believe that thanks to the three characteristics of good wages, full employment, and the welfare state, consumer demand is created, and consumer demand is the energy source of economic expansion.With the economic downturn, it is time to add more demand boost.The neo-liberals countered that the free political and economic climate of the golden age prevented the government and private companies from adopting measures to control inflation and cut costs, so that the real driving force of capitalist economic growth, that is, profits - can continue to rise .In sum, they argue that what Adam Smith called the "invisible hand" of the free market must produce the greatest increase in the "Wealth of Nations" and that the distribution of domestic wealth and income must therefore last long.This set of arguments is completely denied by the Keynesian school.The two sides are fighting with each other, but the economic theories of both sides rationalize a certain ideology, that is, they hold certain a priori views on human society.For example, Sweden, a social democracy, was one of the great economic success stories of the 20th century, but neoliberalists neither trust nor resent it.The reason for the disgust is not that Sweden will soon crash headfirst into the 20 years of crisis-in fact, no matter what kind of economy at that time, it will not be immune to this bad fate-but because Sweden's success is based on "Sweden's famous Economic model, and its collectivist views of equality and cooperation" (Financial Times, 11/11/90).On the contrary, the British government led by Margaret Thatcher was disliked by the left even in its economically successful era, because her government was based on a self-centered view that had no social concept, or even anti-social. superior. Potential positions in this regard are basically not brought up for discussion at all.Suppose, for example, that we could prove that medical blood is best obtained from voluntary blood sellers who are willing to pay market prices.Is it possible to refute the righteous arguments in favor of the British system of free blood donation with a statement like this?The answer is of course no.Titmuss (R.M. Titmuss) in his book "The Gift Relationship" (The Gift Relationship), that is, he made a speech for the blood donation system.He also pointed out that in fact, the non-commercial blood donation method in the UK is not worse than commercial blood donation in terms of efficiency, and even worse in safety.All else being equal, a society in which its members are willing to extend their generous hands to help other unknown fellow-citizens is better for many of us than doing nothing.Just as in the early 1990s, the Italian political system collapsed as voters revolted against rampant local corruption—the only ones not caught up in this avalanche of righteousness were the parties outside the system.Voters are outraged, not because many people are actually victims of corruption — a significant number, if not the vast majority, benefit from it — but because of a moral standpoint.All in all, the standard-bearers who wave the banner of absolute individual freedom can turn a blind eye to the various injustices of the unrestricted market capital society (such as Brazil for most of the 1980s), even when such a system cannot affect the economy. While contributing to growth, it still does not change its insistence.On the contrary, those who believe in equality and social fairness (such as the author) say at every opportunity that even the achievements of a capitalist economy can be most stable when the national income is fairly balanced, such as Japan.At the same time, both parties further transformed their basic beliefs into practical viewpoints.For example, determining the allocation of resources based on free market prices is ideal, or should it only be a secondary means, etc.However, while the spittle is flying around, both sides still have to come up with appropriate measures to deal with the "slowdown in economic development" in order to be regarded as real skills. From a policy perspective, proponents of "golden age economics" have not fared so well.In part, this was because they were bound by their own political views and ideological orientations: full employment, the welfare state, and postwar majority parliamentary politics.Furthermore, when the growth of the golden age can no longer maintain the increase of "corporate profits" and "non-corporate income" at the same time - one of the two goals must be sacrificed - this group of people will be driven by capital and labor. Need to be caught in the middle.Take Sweden as an example. In the 1970s and 1980s, this model country of social democracy relied on state subsidies to industry and distributed and expanded employment opportunities for the state and the public in large quantities. As a result, full employment was quite successful, and it became the overall A great extension of the welfare system.But the policy of full employment still has to rely on the following means to maintain: limiting the living standard of the working population, adopting punitive tax rates for high incomes, and huge national deficits.Once the era of the "Great Leap Forward" is gone forever, these will naturally become temporary means that can be cured for a while, but cannot be saved forever.So from the mid-1980s, everything was reversed. By the end of the short twentieth century, the so-called "Swedish model" retreated sadly even in the country of origin. However, the biggest blow among them is the globalization of the world economy after 1970. Wherever the wind of internationalization passes, the governments of all countries will bow their heads under this difficult-to-control "world market"-I am afraid that only those with a huge economy The powerful United States will not be at its mercy. (What's more, this "world market" clearly distrusts governments on the left far more than those on the right.) Even as early as the 1980s, wealthy large countries such as France (then under a Socialist government) found themselves Its own unilateral means have been unable to revive the economy.Within two years of President Mitterrand's coming to power, France faced a crisis of balance-of-payments, the franc was forced to depreciate, and the Keynesian theory of "demand stimulus" had to be shelved, and began to change course and use "bringing money". Humane economy policy". On the other hand, the people of "neoliberalism" also felt confused, which was more obvious by the end of the 1980s.Once the rising tide of prosperity in the golden age receded, the waste and inefficiency that had been under the cover of government policies were exposed one by one, and neoliberalists began to attack them sparingly.And many of the "Hybrid" economic ships did have to be remodeled. Their rusty hulls did have a new look after being scrubbed with the "New Freedom" cleaner.In the end, even the British left has to admit that Mrs Thatcher's slashing of the British economy may have been necessary. People in the 1980s were generally disappointed with state-owned enterprises and administrative efficiency, not without reason. However, blindly treating enterprises as "good things" and the government as "bad guys"-according to Reagan's words: "The government is not the solution to the problem, it is the problem itself."-in fact, it is not only useless to the economy, but also It doesn't work.Even in the years of Reagan's administration, the expenditure of the central government of the United States was as high as a quarter of the total national production; while in the European Community countries during the same period, the average amounted to 40% (UN World Development, 1992, p. 239).Such huge expenditures can certainly be operated in a "cost-effective" concept (although the fact is often the opposite), but they are neither nor can they be operated in a "market" way-even if the general empty-handed and high-profile people insist on in this way.All in all, the neoliberal government has to intervene in management and command under the actual needs.At the same time, he plausibly stated that he was only revitalizing the vitality of the market.What is more, the role of the state in economic affairs cannot in fact be reduced at all.If you look at the regime with the strongest free market ideology, the government of Margaret Thatcher in the UK is the first. After 14 years in power, the tax burden of the British people is much heavier than that of the Labor Party. In fact, looking around the world, there is no so-called economic policy based entirely on neoliberalism—the only exception is probably the socialist countries of the former Soviet bloc after 1989.Under the guidance of some Western "economic prodigies", they dreamed of becoming a free market overnight, and the result is naturally disastrous.On the contrary, the United States under Reagan, who was the head of the neoliberal regime, although the official policy on the surface was to keep tight to the treasury—that is, budget balance (balancde budgets)—and follow Friedman’s "money supply and demand policy" (monetarism) , but in fact, it was the Keynesian method of using money as a means to get out of the recession of 1979-1982 through staggering deficits and arms spending.Similarly, in terms of monetary policy, instead of allowing the dollar to be determined by its own value and market operations, Washington has deliberately manipulated it through diplomatic pressure since 1984 (Kuttner, 1991, pp. 88-94).All kinds of facts have proved that the countries that adhere to the laissez-faire economic system the most are often the countries with the deepest sense of nationalism and the least trust in the outside world.The United States under Reagan and the United Kingdom under Margaret Thatcher are two of the most prominent examples. Here, historians cannot but pay attention to the great contradictions.In short, in the early 1990s, the world economy suffered another setback, and the triumphant song of neoliberalism had to be quietly suspended.Especially when everyone was shocked to discover that after the end of Soviet Communism, the most dynamic and fastest-growing economy in the world today turned out to be Communist China.The group of so-called experts and scholars in the West who specialize in publishing high-level theories in business management departments and writing "new chapters in management" (business management series is the most published favorite nowadays), so they all hurriedly read the lessons of Confucius. It is not known what secret instructions have been given to such a successful entrepreneurial spirit. The economic predicament of the twenty-year crisis is not only extremely annoying, but also extremely dangerous for social disruption, because its ups and downs coincide with major structural changes. The problems of the world economy in the 1970s and 1980s were quite different from the problems of the golden age, and were peculiar products of their time.The production system at that time has been completely changed under the technological revolution, and it has gone further and achieved amazing results with a considerable degree of "globalization" (or so-called "transnationalization").In addition, as we have discussed in the previous chapters, the revolutionary trends generated during the golden age had an impact on social culture and the ecological environment that could not be ignored even as early as the 1970s. The above phenomena can be best understood from the work scene and unemployment phenomenon.One of the most common trends in the process of industrialization is to replace manual technology with machine technology, and replace human strength with machine "horsepower". The result is naturally to drive people out of the workplace.It also "correctly" assumes that the scale of economic growth under a continuing industrial revolution will automatically generate enough new jobs to replace old industries that are no longer needed - though how many people does it take for such an economy to function Unemployment is considered efficient, but there are different opinions on this.The development of the golden age obviously provides evidence for this optimistic view.As we saw in Chapter 10, the growth of industry was so great that even in the most industrialized countries the number and proportion of workers did not fall seriously.Two decades into the crisis, however, demand for workers began to shrink at an alarming rate, even in countries with moderate expansions. From 1950 to 1970, the number of long-distance telephone calls in the United States increased by 5 times, and the number of operators only decreased by 12%.However, from 1970 to 1980, the number of calls increased threefold, while the number of operators dropped by 40% (Technology, 1986, p. 328).The number of workers is constantly decreasing, both relatively and absolutely, and at a rapid rate.The rising unemployment in these decades is not only a cyclical phenomenon, but also a structural unemployment.Jobs lost during the bad years will never be recovered when the new year gets better.And, they never come back. Permanent unemployment is not just due to the large-scale transfer of industry from old industrial countries and regions to new areas, turning old industrial centers into "rust-belts" (rust-belts)—sometimes it even seems to completely shed their skin. Old industrial remnants were uprooted from the urban landscape—indeed, some of the newly industrialized nations themselves thrived more impressively. In the mid-1980s, there were seven such countries in the third world, covering 24% of global steel consumption and 15% of production (steel production and consumption is still an excellent index of industrialization).What's more, in a world where economic currents cross national borders and come and go freely between countries (with the exception of labor migration, which is a phenomenon unique to this age), labor-intensive industries can only naturally develop outward, from high to low. Wage countries move to low-wage areas, that is, from rich countries at the core of capitalism, such as the United States, to poor countries in the periphery.If you can hire people on the other side of the river in Juarez (Jrarez, Mexico) at one-tenth of the wages in Texas, even to a lesser degree, it is more cost-effective than staying on this side of the river in El Paso (EI Paso) . Even in unindustrialized or fledgling countries the law of mechanization has become the supreme principle.As a result, labor, which was originally the cheapest, will become the most expensive cost because it will be replaced by machines sooner or later.These countries are also unable to escape the control of the law of global free trade competition.Take Brazil as an example. Although local labor is cheaper than Detroit or Wolfsburg (Wolfsburg), Sao Paulo’s auto industry has also followed in the footsteps of Michigan and Lower Saxony (Lower Saxony), facing the problem of surplus labor after mechanization Difficulties (at least in 1992, the author heard local trade union leaders say so).As far as practical purposes are concerned, the efficiency and productivity of a machine can be constantly, even continuously, improved by technological updates, while its cost can be greatly reduced at the same time.But human beings are not the same. Comparing the 10,000-mile high speed of air traffic with the 100-meter record of a sprinter, one can see the clue.All in all, no matter for any length of time, the cost of labor cannot be reduced below the level recognized by the society-or measured by any standard-sufficient to maintain the basic needs of human beings.The functions of the human body are fundamentally not designed for capitalist-style efficient production.The more advanced the technology, the more expensive the cost of labor compared with machinery. The tragedy of the twenty-year history of this crisis is that the rate at which workers are being thrown off production lines far outpaces the rate at which the market economy can create new jobs for them.What's more, this process is accelerated by factors such as intensified global competition and the increasing financial burden on the government (directly and indirectly, the largest single employer).What's more serious is that after 1980, the group of free market theology that still prevailed at that time continued to put pressure on them, demanding that job opportunities be transferred to the form of business operations aimed at the pursuit of maximum profits; among them, employment The shift in the market to private companies has had the greatest impact.These profit-oriented groups are, of course, inherently indifferent to anything other than their own monetary interests.The trend of the times means that the government and other public institutions no longer play the role of “employers of last resort” (World Labor, 1989, p. 48).The power of trade unions, however, is also declining day by day amidst the economic downturn and the hostility of the neoliberal government, which has further contributed to the evolution of the trend of manual elimination, because the job security of members has always been one of the most precious tasks of trade unions.In short, the world economy is constantly expanding, but during the expansion, the mechanism that can automatically create jobs for men and women who lack specific conditions in the labor market is obviously malfunctioning at this time. In other words, when the Agricultural Revolution came, the farmers who had always occupied the vast majority in human history began to become a redundant group.In the past, these millions of laborers who were no longer needed by the land could be taken over by others at any time as long as they were willing to work, as long as their skills of doing farm work (such as digging soil and building walls) could be re-adapted, and as long as they were able to learn new skills. Be absorbed by occupations that are thirsty for labor.However, when these occupations are no longer needed, where will they go?即使其中的某些人，可以经过再训练，转行至信息时代不断扩张的高档工作（这些工作往往越来越需要较高的教育程度），其数量却不足以吸收由旧生产线上淘汰下来的人潮（Technology 1986，pp．7-9 335）。就这个层面而言，那些仍在继续涌出乡间的第三世界农村人口，真不知下场将是如何？ 至于富裕的资本主义国度失业者，如今都有福利制度可以依靠，然而，那些变成永久性寄生福利的一群，却被其他认为自己是靠自己工作糊口的人所憎恨鄙视。而穷国的失业人口，只好加入庞大却暧昧隐蔽的“非正式”或所谓“平行”（parallel）经济，男女老少，做小工、当小差、交易买卖、因利就便，也不知靠些什么法子生活着。这些人在富有的国度里则形成（或可说再度形成）愈发与主流社会隔离的“下层阶级”。他们的问题，被视为无法解决的“既成事实”，而且是无关紧要的次要问题，因为他们反正只是一群永久的少数。于是美国本土黑人在自己国境内形成的“种族聚居社会”（ghetto），就是这种地下世界社会的教科书标准实例。其实“黑市经济”（black economy）现象，在第一世界也并非不存在，研究人员曾经惊讶地发现，90年代初期，英国的2200多万户人家，竟持有100亿英镑现金，平均每家460英镑。这个数字如此之高，听说是因为“黑市只以现金交易”（Financial Times，18/10/93）。