There may be people who believe that for now and for the future the problem of mass unemployment has become a non-problem, having been recently solved by the Biden Administration in the USA. I doubt that any of them read TMS.
I also trust that detailed explanations of phrases like “structural transformation” are as unnecessary as they are impossible here. Everyone knows about structural violence. And the reader will tolerate having to rely on context when she or he is not familiar with unusual kinds of structure-talk that I find indispensable. Let me say in advance, however, that I follow Doug Porpora in defining social structure as material positions constituted by cultural rules; and Tony Lawson in regarding the positions (e.g. employer and employee) as defined by the rights and duties of the persons who are at the moment holding them. Hence, structure-talk is ethics-talk. Structural transformation is ethical transformation.
With these assumptions I offer short accounts of two practical innovations in the social construction of dignified livelihoods for every member of the human family, and two refutations of common illusions that lead many to underestimate the depth of the transformations needed.
1. Toward Dignity for All –First Practical Innovation
In Alexandria (affectionately called ‘Alex’), a poor district of Johannesburg, South Africa, as is unfortunately the case at too many locations on this planet, the majority of the young people…
