"Guard labor" and social inequality in the US

This is turning into a series of posts about the US.

A very interesting report about Samuel Bowles and his theories around the causes and consequences of the incredibly high levels of social inequality in the US.

Especially interesting I found the idea of "guard labor":

Inequality leads to an excess of what Bowles calls “guard labor.” In a 2007 paper on the subject, he and co-author Arjun Jayadev, an assistant professor at the University of Massachusetts, make an astonishing claim: Roughly 1 in 4 Americans is employed to keep fellow citizens in line and protect private wealth from would-be Robin Hoods.

The job descriptions of guard labor range from “imposing work discipline”—think of the corporate IT spies who keep desk jockeys from slacking off online—to enforcing laws, like the officers in the Santa Fe Police Department paddy wagon parked outside of Walmart.

The greater the inequalities in a society, the more guard labor it requires, Bowles finds. This holds true among US states, with relatively unequal states like New Mexico employing a greater share of guard labor than relatively egalitarian states like Wisconsin.

In case you are wondering, the "Gini index", which measures social inequality (where 0 is totally equal and 100 is where one person has everything) for the US is are 46 (comparable to most 3rd world countries), whereas in Spain it is about 31 (average for EU). Sweden has the lowest in the world at 26.

Looking on the bright side of schools in Spain

At least they don't call the police to arrest twelve year old girls that doodle on their desks:

A 12-year-old Queens girl was hauled out of school in handcuffs for an artless offense - doodling her name on her desk in erasable marker, the Daily News has learned.

[...]

Alexa is the latest in a string of city students who have been cuffed for minor infractions. In 2007, 13-year-old Chelsea Fraser was placed under arrest for writing "okay" on her desk at Intermediate School 201. And in 2008, 5-year-old Dennis Rivera was cuffed and sent to a psych ward after throwing a fit in his kindergarten.

I didn't even know they made handcuffs for 5 year olds. Only in the US, I guess.

Off to California

I'll be back in a week.

You'd think it would be nicer weather there, but nope.

Hopefully everyone can avoid the emergency room this time around. The kids have this habit of always breaking stuff or developing new and interesting medical conditions while one of us is gone.

Suerte.

An unreasonable fear of coconuts

Run away everyone! It's "El Coco!"

Mothers have been were scaring their kids on the Iberian peninsula with stories about brown hairy blob-shaped creatures since the middle ages. Strangely enough, when Portuguese sailors discovered the coconut, they named it after the creature (not the other way around).

There's a lovely lullaby that goes:

Duérmete niño,
duérmete ya,
que viene el coco
y te comerá.

Sleep child,
Sleep already,
Or the coco will come
and eat you

The kids who say 'ni-ni'

On the radio there was a feature the latest sociologic trend in Spain: The ni-ni generation. It stands for neither-nor, as in neither in a job nor in at school.

There was a study back in 2009 that found that 54% of Spaniards between 18 and 34 have no hope for the career prospects. Considering that the unemployment rate for youth is now 39% (EU27 average is 19%), this isn't all the surprising.

The high school dropout rate in Spain is around 30% (vs 12% in Europe), so it's pretty easy to guess where those unemployed kids are coming from.

Why are they dropping out? Here's a clue:

Repetition rates in lower secondary education across OECD countries

El hombre del saco

If you want to scare your children in Spain, the 2nd most popular choice (#1 will be the topic of tomorrow's post) is a man who will put your child into a sack and take him away:



There was a great version of it on Contando Cuentos last week.

The Catholic Church

No blog about Spain would be complete without mentioning the strange relationship that most people here have to the Catholic church.

An old joke to demonstrate:

Mother-in-law: "Are you a catholic?"

Me: "I'm an atheist actually"

Mother-in-law: "But you're a catholic atheist, right?"