Leave capitalism to the Chinese and relax

Venetia Thompson and Rory Sutherland

21 March 2009

Venetia Thompson and Rory Sutherland say that the era in which all graduates want to work in the financial sector is at a close: a splendid time to rebrand inactivity as ‘travel’

University careers fairs have always been a complete waste of time. In the old days students came away armed with nothing more than ABN-Amro highlighters and miniature alarm clocks (probably now collectable), some unusable minute RBS Post-it notes, and perhaps the odd snow-shaker. Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and their cohorts quickly ran out of all paraphernalia — but no matter because everyone wanted to be a banker anyway. Even hapless blondes who hadn’t studied maths, economics, business or anything vaguely related, still wanted to be in banking (trust us, we have inside information on this one). They were from a generation which had grown up thinking that careers were simply divided into law and finance.

Even students who had never balanced an equation, barely passed maths GCSE, never read the FT and had no clue what a bond was could still end up ensconced on a trading floor: because that was the sort of place the City was throughout the 1990s and early Noughties — joyously up for grabs to even the most mathematically challenged.

But the City is no longer a world that everyone with a vague desire to make money can stumble into and embark on a career. More to the point: they don’t want to. The City is suddenly as out of fashion as it was three decades ago.

In the 1970s almost all glamorous jobs (spy, astronaut, detective, test-pilot, Concorde engineer, nuclear scientist, doctor, New Avenger, Jason King) seemed to be in the public sector — at least judging by what you saw on television. The single role for the private sector in Seventies TV drama was villains, something which applied even to American-made programmes. Possibly the most poisonous piece of anti-capitalist propaganda ever made in the West must be the series of Scooby-Doo cartoons, in every episode of which a healthy private-sector plan to create something useful on the site of some abandoned property is ruined by the arrival of some pesky interventionist kids. The same anti-commercial bias was seen in Skippy, Flipper and even Star Trek, the last depicting a kind of bizarre post-capitalist world where the state even decided what you wore. It was only in the 1980s, with the appearance of The Dukes of Hazzard and The A-Team, that television finally introduced young people to some attractive libertarian alternatives.

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N

March 19th, 2009 3:38pm Report this comment

Well, with the financial system and crisis and no hope for the future, why would anyone want to go to school and learn to be a banker only to graduate and not be able to find work in a broken system?

Kevin

March 19th, 2009 8:54pm Report this comment

Gizza job. I can do that. All you gotta do is waffle on with no accountability.

Rich

March 19th, 2009 11:15pm Report this comment

I'm pretty sure the 40,000 starting salary and Audi A4 is for Aldi recruits - I should know, I almost went for it (maybe Lidl have copied it exactly?)

But anyway - there is a catch, which is pretty obvious as they offer much better incentives than other retailers - the job is ridiculously demanding, you are basically thrown into looking after up to 6 stores, (hence the car) and half the time you are actually running the store you visit, because Aldi have as few staff as possible - it's long hours and horrible work, but good pay - I chose to not pursue it once I saw their offer

All I can say is I hope you're right - I left uni expecting a job last year, the market dried up and all I could get was two months bottom-end work, which also dried up - so I went to australia

I just hope in hindsight that I will find what I want to do and this period was actually a useful one, not utterly soul-destroying

Alison

March 20th, 2009 11:02am Report this comment

Why is this such an issue? When my generation graduated, unemployment and a hard time finding a job was expected. We also knew we hadn't a hope in hell of getting on the housing ladder.

Young people have been spoiled the past few years and never have a generation been so self-obsessed, lacking in imagination and boring. It will do them good to experience the uncertainties of life.

Since when was instant employment and a house of your own a right at the age of 21?

By the way 'amount' of applications? Please

donald fraser

March 23rd, 2009 2:46am Report this comment

What does the recession mean for generation Y, those too young to be "dotcom" entrepreneurs before the crash of 2000? The crash of 2008 puts banking (or private equity) out to pasture. So what next for them? They should focus on "traditional Keynesian theory" with an eye to future dotcom jobs. However many are currently perverting the meaning of “Keynesianism” for political convenience.

Firstly Keynesianism is highly complex, but not on the same "maths level" as Monetarism. Generation Y in terms of social networking technologies (Web 2.0) already has a natural affinity with the complexities of "managing society". The lack of fixed rules on what "society" is does not mean that all views are of equal value. Current efforts by bankers & monetarists are unlikely to work. That is because the new rules on "society" are most likely to emerge directly from the demands of Web 2.0 users.

Keynesian governments are by nature "less open" because the complexity of the debate on how to "manage society" is fruitless if it requires scope reduction at every stage. This is why Keynesianism is complex in a non-maths way, just as money supply figures behind Monetarist policy are not normally aired in public - because the public would not understand. It is not an elitist discussion required but Web 2.0 Keynesianism demands direct experience of the technology itself to enable meaningful discussion.

The fundamental obstacle to full recovery from the 2008 crash is that the new policies required are not about maths - so everyone feels entitled to discuss their opinion. That is not going to work because "the devil is in the detail". New Keynesian policies designed to “manage society” are doomed to failure if each proposal needs reduction in scope to the level at which every non Web 2.0 user feels able to discuss them. Hence the recovery will be delayed as long as it takes for the demands of Web 2.0 users to emerge and be packaged into new governmental policies.

Secondly Keynesianism looks for efficiencies both in terms of national infrastructure and export potential. It is a global crisis & consolidating Web 2.0 as a trusted investment platform will require new global regulatory objectives. The potential wealth creation from pump-priming web 2.0. Keynesian works best on a massive ("economies of") scale, including planned development of transport & power systems.

After 30 years of Monetarism, Keynesianism is largely unrelated to how it is being discussed at present. It is meaningless term without developing forms of "state protectionism" for the types of jobs people are willing to do. That is what a “mixed economy” is. It does not mean “mixed” because it is a blend of activities dictated by the comparative trade advantages. Humans are imperfect capital since efficient output is related to abstract things - such as motivation & belief.

This current global fiscal policy period is just a lot of emergency spending. It is not the start of a Keynesian program but simply retrospective justification of uncontrolled spending. It does not reflect any real theory behind it because those authorising it are not targeting the new types of output needed. Selective protectionism will be needed once proper plans start to emerge. Simply put, any type of “Web 2.0 protectionism” is good, all other forms of protectionism is bad. “Google-style” workplaces still have a firm place in the UK’s future.