Kel Varnsen wrote:
Had to look up precarity btw, and just 😆
😆 Yes, zero hour contracts and the increasing prevalence of casualised and freelance work are a great joke. When making an argument about social cohesion based on the importance of human capital, it's rather silly to ridicule a word describing the patternised erosion of that capital currently taking place.
You've got an essentialist, embodied and static view of this "human capital" (which in your view experiences a step change as we cross the imperial border from Europe to not-Europe). But this kind of value is only a product of systems like education, apprenticeships, housing programmes, language programmes and also unemployment benefits. These amenities were all created not as gifts to the unworthy, but as vital processes to sustain and renew the productive capacity of society as a whole.
If you are concerned about the "human capital" of the migrant population of Sweden, you should be glad to see that migrants are able to access and benefit from these services as they move through them to obtain meaningful employment. That's what these services are for.
How do you feel about primary school children? "Oh, they are selfish, physically weak, they have poor reading and writing skills and contribute nothing useful to the nation."
It is only when accompanied by false, and frankly, xenophobic beliefs about a permanent deficit in ability that your arguments make sense. Ironically these are the same beliefs that keep qualified migrants out of work.
Meanwhile, when discussing the importance of productivity growth to wages growth and prosperity, one might expect some nod to the three decades of fitful or zero real wages growth that Sweden, like almost every other industrial nation has experienced. Is that due to migration?
When I discuss migration with you, I feel like I'm arguing with a sailor about a tangle in the crosstrees while the ocean rushes in through an enormous hole in the hull.
