Along the Marxist's line of discussion, I am contented that unemployment will be the factor of change in the economic and social structure. Capitalism has risen to such heights giving the capitalist (bourgeois) power to manipulate over the worker (proletariat), who lost any bargaining power. An alternative system through means of revolution is unforeseen for the plight of war and uncertainty overwhelms a change in the current system.

The worker lost all bargaining power because they never had any in the first place. How did we get here in the first place? I stop short of calling this a conspiracy of the highest level for I believe that this is a natural progression resulting from the desire to maintain social classes. It is the intrinsic nature of the leisure class (allergic to manual labor) that the working class be exploited but this may be discussed some other day. In capitalism, the cards are held by the capitalist. Money remains money if used for consumption as most of us do. Money becomes capital if used for investment, if it is used to work for you to produce more money. While some may argue that the financial market boom in the 1980s and 1990s has lowered barriers of entry to the average consumer allowing widespread conversion of money to capital, data in the U.S. suggest that over 70 percent of financial holdings were held by the top 10 percent wealthy. The seemingly logical explanation that the labor market adjusts automatically in a market economy is only realistic if the world is devoid of a "reserve army of labor". Only then was wages adjusting to demands and supplies. Only then the checks and balances are adjusted automatically by the market. With rising unemployment, the worker is marginalized and at the mercy of the capitalists.

Physical capital (money, slaves, land) in the hands of capitalist, how else can the average worker meet subsistence? Thinkers and intellectuals, the mind your own capital is not an alternative as consumables are not produced to meet subsistence. There are only so much books you can read or haircuts you can have but not when there isn't food on the table. Ideas for technological breakthroughs and innovations cannot feed an economy of thinkers.

Many East Asian economies have cautioned that growth rates of the eighties and nineties can never be repeated after the financial crisis of 1997. Propagations which just seem logical then by virtue of approaching the flattening peak of the development stage now have many other viable reasons for this pessimistic outlook. Rising unemployment, deflation, weak consumer demand -- trends of late throughout the industrialized states, where would we find the next source of growth? The service sector is saturated, and technology bubble popped. We are now at falling industrial production and rising unemployment and arguably at the most severe business-cycle crisis as foreseen by Marx? Right now it looks as if the economy is stalling, as if policy makers have no idea what to do and also as if economists are staring blankly in the air coming up with old arguments which brought us here in the first place. It really doesn't matter if unemployment is at 4 percent or 5 percent. What matters is a significant number of the population is unemployed and having trouble meeting subsistence and the situation do not seem to be changing.

A workers revolution it may not be. Sufferings from previous world and civil wars, and revolutions are still fresh in mind, enough to offset the desired change in system. The middle-class in most industrialized countries, thanks to private property rights with legal ownerships of houses and assets, unless pushed to extremes of loosing their properties with a significant number (not necessary requiring a commanding majority), will not revolt. Developments in human ethics (though not necessarily witnessed in recent corporate America), compassion and moral values may just be the cushion softening the fall from a horizontal flying plane without a parachute. Still, what after? For we cannot go on as welfare states!

I got obsessed with the welfare state in a capitalist mode of production after observing the inherent problems of a liberal, free market capitalistic system. Deep inside, admiration held in high regards to a Dutch friend who quit his job, spent his last Guilders on a one year vacation in Asia, going home broke, thoughts and experiences however, heavier than that a weightlifter can only dream of achieving in his weight category.

The Guilders turned Euros while he was in Asia, war launched in Afghanistan against the Taliban, weak consumer demands, bubbles burst, corporate America accounting scandal, stock prices plummeted, yet maintaining a decent living condition with thanks to the generous welfare system in Holland. This, people, is choice. The argument about choice has always been trivialized by advocates of command. Having a choice of coffee or tea in the morning isn�t the same as making decisions that dictates one�s livelihood, for the former compares possibilities of how best optimizing utility in the same set while the later allows choices on different planes.

A free market system where competition is good, encourages innovation and promotes efficiency and just like all competition, is also a zero sum game. A non contributor to economic growth somehow has its dependency on some philanthropist producing in surplus creating therefore excess for the non-productive's consumption. Granting Marx's overproduction and under-consumption theories, a welfare system may well be the ultimate for economic reason as well as maintaining a well and stable social fabric. However wastages and conspicuous consumptions of a growing middle class eats into this overproduction. Under-consumption as a result of low wages for the industrial worker giving higher returns to the owners of capital is made up by consumption by workers in the service industry. The entrepreneur�s survival rooted in profit motive collides in principles with benevolent values. Adam Smith observed correctly that "it is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest". The charity of the entrepreneur if left unattended dilutes concentration of power within them and more importantly breaks down the capitalistic system leading to a welfare state � with an efficient, fair and humane system of wealth distribution running on a fragile altruistic values under constant and tremendous pressure of the capitalist's self interest.

In the tug-of-war between altruistic values and profit motives, observations of current states with long history of civilization and industrializations do provide some clue. Where the frog thrives, the tortoise dies. The capitalistic system adjust to culture and values of the civilization carving socialist-capitalist system in the Northern European, Scandinavian states originally tribal groups with values embedded in team work, loyalty, the strong helping the weak and equality for the welfare of society. Britain, the birth-bed of modern industrialization, championed free-market capitalism, the breaking down of tariff barriers for free flow of trade justifying efficiency in the system. And there is America, self-interest and enormous profit motives justifiable by trickle-down effect and supply-side economics with the natural workings of the market being fair in the distribution of income. The trickle-down effect is similar to the pouring of a 1,000 ml bottle of champagne (government spending) in a pyramid formation of glasses commonly observed in weddings. The delusion about the trickle-down effect in application is that the top glass can contain 900 ml, leaving 10 percent to be shared among three 700 ml glasses. Finally Japan, the world's second largest economy with a highly protected market and industries, and a world leader in certain technology sectors and business management styles. Since the bubble burst aggravated by late cuts in interest rates, no one quite know what to do except whine about the exchange-rates when the yen hits 109 to the US dollar.

What the world observed in this various methods in the pursuit of development has a commonality -- high unemployment and social dissatisfaction when all markets and source of growth exploited dry as the barren dessert, the foundation of which gives lives cracks with insurmountable lines exposing flaws in the system to begin with. Accounting scandals for illusionary high profits driven by self-interest in wealth accumulation and power struggle witnesses in the spectacular cascade of corporate collapses over the last year began with Enron, Tyco International, Adelphia Communications, WorldCom and ImClone Systems. Failing industries from unprotected barriers due to free market policies and globalization, efficiency from mergers & acquisitions (M&A) results unemployment at which each state deals with in their own way and tendency is towards social welfare for the failure to create jobs undermines social stability. Recommendations for generous welfare have as well economic foundations. Putting money in the hands of the neediest who are the most likely to spend generating consumer demand.

Whether the policies has its basis on family values i.e. the reliance on DNA similarities (or marriage for that matter) to part with previous accumulation of wealth to provide subsistence to the unemployed or active redistribution on income from tax revenue, the inherent conflict of capitalism and welfare is not solved. If we trim the edges of the market system which supports capitalism, survival of which somehow suits Social-Darwinism�s notion of the strongest survive. The extremes of welfare rips the social fabric capitalism has so far developed. Exhausted of markets to exploit except in China, equip only with traditional cables to jump-start ailing world economies and with no foreseeable sources of growth, economists, fortune-tellers and psychics are in conflict, even among themselves on the new world order. Jobs are not budgeted on the mega-bucks M&As deals, jobs are not created as immediate as cost-cutting policies leave the boardroom, jobs are not demanded as promptly as quarterly indicators of consumer demand increases, specialized skilled jobs if so created such as in the bio-tech and life-sciences are not as many and instantly filled due to the lag in demand and supply.