freedom [LWN.net]

freedom

Posted Mar 23, 2013 17:05 UTC (Sat) by HelloWorld (guest, #56129)
In reply to: freedom by ibukanov
Parent article: Blum: Adria Richards, PyCon, and How We All Lost

If firing can ruin person's life, this is a big problem with society.

I don't think there's much one can do about that. For many people their job is among the things that gives their live a purpose. Therefore even if your material needs are catered for by social security benefits, being unemployed still bores the hell out of people and makes them miserable. And an elderly person in an ailing industry will have a hard time finding a new job in any society.

Also, one of the (few) things that I remember from my economics classes is that there's a natural rate of unemployment, so as long as we live in anything vaguely resembling a market economy, full employment simply isn't going to happen.

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freedom

Posted Mar 23, 2013 19:29 UTC (Sat) by ibukanov (subscriber, #3942) [Link]

> I don't think there's much one can do about that. For many people their job is among the things that gives their live a purpose.

From my experience of living in Norway people here much less attached to their jobs. It could be a cultural thing, but a social protection must be playing a role here.

> And an elderly person in an ailing industry will have a hard time finding a new job in any society.

I know a person (as me he was also an immigrant) in Norway who, after loosing his engineering job here, first literally enjoyed few months of doing nothing while getting 75% of his salary, and then became a rather successful art dealer. Such stories of people of any age trying different things after quitting their jobs willingly or unwillingly are common.

I suspect that "alien industries" is a rather artificial notion caused by too much fear of loosing jobs so people stick to theirs even if long-term prospects are not good. Add to that corporate laws that favor executives like in US and the result in excessive number of big companies and industrial mono-culture and ghost towns when the companies finally die.