Re:Nevada passes law authorizing driverless cars
by nhaehnle on Thursday June 23, 2011 @06:09PM
(#2690124)
Curiously enough, though, all of Europe and the US has seen more or less the same kind of development of this kind in recent history. Yet the disparity between rich and poor differs widely between those countries, and it has also gone up and down quite strongly over time.
This is very strong evidence that the kind of disparities you mentioned are not truly structural. The "structural argument" is just a decoy used to prevent the disadvantaged from asking inconvenient political questions.
Re:Nevada passes law authorizing driverless cars
by william42 on Thursday June 23, 2011 @07:30PM
(#2690348)
Sweden actually has higher unemployment than the US, but less wealth disparity, because they have a better social support net for the unemployed.
Re:Nevada passes law authorizing driverless cars
by nhaehnle on Friday June 24, 2011 @03:50AM
(#2691414)
Exactly. It is about political choice, not about structural inevitabilities.
Actual numbers: http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=unemployment+rate+swede...
It looks like Sweden merely caught up with the US in terms of unemployment in the last 20 years.
Look at the quite drastic ups and downs in unemployment in Sweden in the 1990s. I know that's not exactly what you wrote, but does that look like something that is driven by "structural changes"?
When that happens competition for the qualified labor goes up, and salaries rise in response. While the structurally unemployed[1] remain so and remain poor. This leads to a building disparity between rich and poor and that the problems such a disparity creates are quite well known.
[1] 'structurally unemployed' refers to a person who is unemployed and unqualified for all of the employment opportunities in their area. It comes from a similar concept 'structurally fired' where a company removes the positions that are held by current employees without creating other opportunities.