Get to Work : Anglophile reader compares U.S. job scene, safety net to UK equivalents

Santa Rosa resident Nancy Roberts lived in England for five years in the 1970s and got her master's degree there. She wrote this note in the wake of a recent Chronicle article and SFGate blog posting about the underemployment rate -- a measurement that adds people forced to work part-time and discouraged job-seekers to the unemployed. California's unemployment rate is 12.2 percent. Its underemployment rate is 21.9 percent. -- Tom Abate

Here's the situation for some of my American friends. (Their names have been changed.)

-- Todd: Qualified as a Special Ed teacher 2 years ago; can't find a job. Working as a substitute teacher. Having trouble paying his property tax. May lose his house.

-- Bill: Engineer. Company cut everyone's hours by one-fifth, then laid everyone off. He's unemployed and looking for work.

-- Vanessa: Working full-time in marketing. Owner acknowledges he should be paying her more, but can't afford to. Also taking care of her bedridden mom. Behind on her mortgage. May have to declare bankruptcy and lose her house. May have trouble renting given her relatively low salary.

-- Sean: Paid a lawyer to consolidate his debts as a way to avoid bankruptcy. Working 60-plus hours/week. May be demoted and have his pay cut as the city he works for tries to keep its best people (he's one of them).

-- Mary: Working 20 hours a week as a tech writer. Would like to be working 40, but afraid to leave the company, because at least they're stable.

Well the lady is in Santa Rosa and I guess the people she is talking about are in Santa Rosa (SR).

SR is very liberal so they voted for ALL of this. Liberalism, Pelosi, Boxer, Feinstein and Obama. They got what they wanted. Let em eat cake and drive Napa wine.

Free food, free shelter, free TV, free health-care, free dental, free gym membership, no need for a car, no utility bills, low environmental impact per person, the watchful authorities rarely fail to observe crime in progress.

Sounds like paradise? I described a prison. Oh, mind that you can only eat what the authorities deem is acceptable, your residence is standardized and equal in size to those of your neighbors, your TV only shows the content the authorities deem appropriate, you have little choice in employment because the authorities assign you work, etc.

This is the reality those “enlightened” few wish to move Europe and America towards. Glorified slavery - not slavery to one man, but slavery to “all men” (the collective state). One votes for the kindest master, for the one who promises to set the chains loosest and set the whip softest. The Hegelian “rational society” lies at the confluence of fascist, socialist, and communist ideals, promising to transform the fear, challenges, uncertainty, and pain of the individual into a collective geist. It is the height of nihilistic historicism to seek to supplant the individual with the collective. hoping to bring about some “ideal form” for a state.

They will achieve only a social boneyard.

Meanwhile, none of my friends in England is in financial trouble, although the UK economy is in worse shape than ours. But thanks to the old university grant system (eliminated in 1997-98), none of them had any student debt to pay off, and none of them has ever paid for medical insurance or care. It's also possible in many parts of the UK to get by without a car, thanks to decent (though not great) public transport. Most of my married friends have only 1 car.

And when is she moving back to this paradise?

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