Themes > Current Issues
15.06.2000
A Dutch
Fairy Tale
Jayati Ghosh
Once upon a time - not so very long ago - there was a
small town in Holland with a small railway station. The Netherlands
is very well-connected by rail, but this also means that each and every
little station does not necessarily have as much traffic as the most
crowded and intensive stations in the cities. Because of this, the station
master - cum ticket seller in such stations was often the only person
permanently employed there, and this was also true of this particular
small town.
The station master/ticket seller/information provider in this small railway station thus was a person whose job was not so demanding that she or he could not spare the time for a quick chat with customers, or spend some time providing information in detail, or just smile. And many travellers found this to be one of the nicer parts of the journey, simply because of the extra human contact, the friendly exchange of greetings, the possibility of engaging with a known and trusted face.
But the Netherlands, like so many other Europeans countries then went through a phase of deciding that its public sector - of which the railways was a part - was too large, that it employed too many people, and that the most efficient way of cutting costs was to get rid of certain jobs, especially those that could be "efficiently" replaced by machines. Thus the friendly ticket seller found that he was no longer needed, since tickets were most easily and cheaply sold by clever, if ugly, machines that could also give the necessary change for money and provide programmed information.
This meant that there was now no one permanently present at the little railway station, which in the off-peak hours began to wear a deserted and desolate look. Meanwhile, other people in the society were losing their jobs, as the same attitude permeated decisions of both public and private employers, and the young found it more and more difficult to get jobs. Gangs of unemployed youths roaming the streets became a more frequent sight, and one of the places they found convenient to congregate in was the deserted railway station, which also became a home for the more derelict.
This made the users of the little railway station feel very unsafe indeed, especially in the times of day when there were few passengers. People using the services at these times occasionally faced some minor incidents, but more importantly the sense of insecurity made the public demand for better control and law and order more vociferous. So the railways put up signboards stating what people can and cannot do at railway stations, but of course such unfriendly commandments are not only not enforceable, but actually egg on some to do things they otherwise would not. Most seriously there was recently an incident of "meaningless violence" when some teenagers vandalising bicycles at the station ended up killing a passenger who tried to stop them.
There is, therefore, now a feeling that the law and order situation is so serious that more policing is required. The government which recognises the social pressure for tighter security is, however, also toying with more "innovative" ideas. Already, in schools private security firms have been employed to maintain discipline, following "rationalisation" of teacher numbers and the resulting higher student-teacher ratios. It is, therefore, very likely that the railways may engage the services of private security firms to place guards on duty at this and other stations, with strict instructions to monitor all the activities and enforce the commandments.
The job of the guard at the station will be difficult and potentially dangerous, and he will also be under constant pressure because his job will not be on a permanent contract and any slip can mean that that security firm which has hired him simply throws him out. It would not be surprising, therefore, if his demeanour is severe and unfriendly, and that seeing him hardly makes people feel more cheerful and positive. Thus, in addition to the ticket machine, our station seems destined to once again have a person continuously present at the railway station. But, instead of the relaxed and friendly station master cum ticket seller, people are now reconciled to be confronted by a tense and hostile armed guard whenever they go to the station.
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.
The station master/ticket seller/information provider in this small railway station thus was a person whose job was not so demanding that she or he could not spare the time for a quick chat with customers, or spend some time providing information in detail, or just smile. And many travellers found this to be one of the nicer parts of the journey, simply because of the extra human contact, the friendly exchange of greetings, the possibility of engaging with a known and trusted face.
But the Netherlands, like so many other Europeans countries then went through a phase of deciding that its public sector - of which the railways was a part - was too large, that it employed too many people, and that the most efficient way of cutting costs was to get rid of certain jobs, especially those that could be "efficiently" replaced by machines. Thus the friendly ticket seller found that he was no longer needed, since tickets were most easily and cheaply sold by clever, if ugly, machines that could also give the necessary change for money and provide programmed information.
This meant that there was now no one permanently present at the little railway station, which in the off-peak hours began to wear a deserted and desolate look. Meanwhile, other people in the society were losing their jobs, as the same attitude permeated decisions of both public and private employers, and the young found it more and more difficult to get jobs. Gangs of unemployed youths roaming the streets became a more frequent sight, and one of the places they found convenient to congregate in was the deserted railway station, which also became a home for the more derelict.
This made the users of the little railway station feel very unsafe indeed, especially in the times of day when there were few passengers. People using the services at these times occasionally faced some minor incidents, but more importantly the sense of insecurity made the public demand for better control and law and order more vociferous. So the railways put up signboards stating what people can and cannot do at railway stations, but of course such unfriendly commandments are not only not enforceable, but actually egg on some to do things they otherwise would not. Most seriously there was recently an incident of "meaningless violence" when some teenagers vandalising bicycles at the station ended up killing a passenger who tried to stop them.
There is, therefore, now a feeling that the law and order situation is so serious that more policing is required. The government which recognises the social pressure for tighter security is, however, also toying with more "innovative" ideas. Already, in schools private security firms have been employed to maintain discipline, following "rationalisation" of teacher numbers and the resulting higher student-teacher ratios. It is, therefore, very likely that the railways may engage the services of private security firms to place guards on duty at this and other stations, with strict instructions to monitor all the activities and enforce the commandments.
The job of the guard at the station will be difficult and potentially dangerous, and he will also be under constant pressure because his job will not be on a permanent contract and any slip can mean that that security firm which has hired him simply throws him out. It would not be surprising, therefore, if his demeanour is severe and unfriendly, and that seeing him hardly makes people feel more cheerful and positive. Thus, in addition to the ticket machine, our station seems destined to once again have a person continuously present at the railway station. But, instead of the relaxed and friendly station master cum ticket seller, people are now reconciled to be confronted by a tense and hostile armed guard whenever they go to the station.
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.
© MACROSCAN 2000