This peculiar unfairy tale is being repeated all over western Europe, with only minor variations. The most common variation is in the extent of net job loss : usually, the jobs lost are more than the new, more insecure jobs that are created. Everywhere, governments and private employers are turning "lean and mean" which means not just that employment itself has become more precarious for ordinary people, but that social relations themselves are affected. Yet the same governments that impose these strange rules upon its citizens, also increasingly complain about the loss of community, of the breakdown in social and family values, without recognising their own role in bringing this about.
 
Much has been written about unemployment in Europe, and many economists have spent years and made their careers by advancing explanations ranging from "institutional rigidities" in the system such as too much labour protection, to technological change, to threats from manufactured goods import from developing countries with cheaper labour. But all of these explanations ignore one important social factor which has dominated the process of job loss in Europe and is now becoming more important in developing countries as well.

This is the general perception that is created, by governments, big business and much of the media, that employing less people indicates the greater efficiency of an enterprise, be it public or private. The strangeness of this belief is most starkly illustrated in the behaviour of stock markets in the OECD countries, whose indices tend to go up with announcements of increases in unemployment rates. But it is now widespread, probably because sheer repetition tends to make people believe that something must be true.

The result of this belief is social acceptance of continuous tendencies towards down sizing, even when the evidence that this actually leads to better outcomes is negligible if not non-existent, and when the negative consequences are felt not only in terms of actual job losses but also more tense and unsatisfactory social relations. Quite apart from the sheer economic waste in terms of unused human labour power, there are real problems in terms of the isolated and individualistic social contexts this process generates.
 
In England, the partial privatisation of the railways under Thatcher had the effect of closure many of the smaller lines that were deemed to be "uneconomic", causing much inconvenience to passengers. Some sociologists have already pointed to the implications for community relations within rural communities, as well as networking within regions. More recently, of course, there have been major accidents in or near London, associated with the inadequate safety precautions and overuse of certain lines by private rail companies seeking the hallowed combination of lower costs and higher profits.
 
Across Europe, there are fewer bank branches, and most consumers of banking services deal dominantly or only with automated teller machines or disembodied voices at the other end of telephone lines, with minimal actual human contact. Many other services are losing the human interaction that was normally associated with such activity, and as a result, not only are people becoming more isolated, but sociologists argue that there is real evidence that even the actual ability to form and pursue social relationships becomes impaired.
 
Increasingly, interaction is no longer direct between people, but mediated through some sort of electronic media, whether television or internet or even cellular telephone. And then the little human interaction that does occur becomes fraught with dangerous possibilities. Perhaps that is why we find that even occasions for general celebration or entertainment become redolent with more sinister overtones.
 
Thus, the Euro 2000 football cup, which is being played in the Netherlands and Belgium currently, ought to be (and thankfully, still is to some extent) a source of public enthusiasm and enjoyment. Yet fears of potential violence and hooliganism appear to dominate not only the media but also public perception and official intervention. People avoid areas and streets likely to be frequented by football fans; bars and cafes are told to serve all drinks in plastic cups so that glass cannot be used in fights; the media coverage is more about the potential for
violence, the measures taken to avert it and the relief when it does not occur, then about the game itself.
 
It is tempting to jump to simplistic conclusions about cultural trends in the West which lead to such unfortunate outcomes. The reality is that many of these tendencies are grounded in material changes which have rendered human social existence more insecure, more competitive and more subject to aggression than before. And it is also true that many developing countries, including our own, are opting for the same combination of economic strategies that have created these depressing social results.
 
However, people everywhere have a remarkable capacity not just to survive and but to confront and transcend these atomising tendencies. Witness, in Holland, the carnival-like atmosphere that occasionally triumphs around the football matches, or the basic generosity and courtesy that people display towards visitors. Perhaps these more generous human instincts will eventually dominate over the attempts by the system to privilege individualistic goals over communitarian ideals.