Postmodernity, always according to Bauman, forced a change of religious discourse: life, which used to be grounded on certainty and human powerlessness, becomes one of uncertainty. Thus, the individual, who is unclear about her destiny, must now feel self-sufficienty. Why? Because that way there’s at least the appearance of being capable of effecting change in her life. If the changes that occur in her life (and which cause this uncertainty that is typical of postmodernity) are not subjected to the person’s control, they cease to be a human subject and people lose interest.

In practice, it’s a marketing strategy: religion must guarantee to us that “we can,” that “we’re capable,” that “we’ll achieve” our maximum potential, otherwise they cease to be relevant to us — death, the classical religious theme, has lost its luster, since it can’t be changed through human action.

I was reminded of this observation by Bauman — about the current need for a guarantee of individual self-sufficiency — with the beginning of the electoral campaigns in Brazil. A very common line of thought has predictably found its way back into political discourse: there are enough jobs, what we need is professional training.

The idea is analogous: if we say that there are no jobs, the problem is structural and very little can be done on an individual level to change the situation. By contrast, if “there are job openings, but people lack the required skill to fill them,” the individual becomes the center of the discussion. Unemployment is now not a systemic problem, but the exclusive problem of the unemployed. If they can’t leave their unemployed situation, it’s their fault, because they have all the tools to do so. They only have to want it.

Truth is that we have to want it and use the appropriate middlemen. In religion, you can reach salvation by wanting it — but don’t forget that God answers through our temple. In the neoliberal economy, you have to want it and find the right middlemen to provide you with jobs and abundance. In Brazil, ironically, these middlemen are the unions.

As Raúl Zibechi notes in The New Brazil: Regional Imperialism and the New Democracy, the main proponents of this neoliberal idea that we don’t lack jobs but training are the largest unions in the country: CUT (Unified Worker’s Central Union) and Força Sindical (Union Force), which also control the largest pension funds in the country.

To CUT and Força Sindical, the current system is extremely convenient, since they are wholly inserted in the Brazilian corporate capitalism. To them, it’s not a good idea to fight for a deep structural change; they want workers to try and insert themselves in the market through these unions, through their “training programs” (which, because of FAT — Worker’s Support Fund —, guarantee a steady flow of money from the government to these organizations), and trust their “propositive” rather than “combative” unionism. It’s not by chance that May Day celebrations in Brazil are marked not by protests but parties sponsored by unions.

This enthusiasm for training and professional qualification programs is quite convenient to businesses, specially large ones, which frequently advertise the fact that they have many “job openings” that can’t be filled for the lack of skilled workers. Government is always all too happy to propagandize the story, because that allows it to keep the current system intact, spend a lot of money in frankly irrelevant qualification programs, and afterwards state that that’s how “unemployment is fought,” at the same time that it elevates work requirements, cutting low-skill workers off. Businesses, on the other hand, get giddy when they find out they can externalize their costs, turning the responsibility to qualify workers over to the government, and eliminating the need of spending on capital, raising wages, or even shrinking their firm size in response to the lack of labor.

In 2014, as always, candidates are going to show up on your TV to say that you are able to realize your every dream, provided you want it really badly, because it all depends on you. Look for a nearby community college, qualification program, or union chapter.

The same way salvation depends on you (through church), your economic welfare is your problem. If you fail, it’s your fault.

But if you manage to get a stable job, with a carreer plan and benefits, thank the government and the unions. You wanted it, but they made it possible.

A guardare bene le statistiche sulla disoccupazione ci si accorge che non solo i numeri “ufficiali” sono fuorvianti, ma anche che il tentativo della stato di controllare e dirigere l’economia è un fallimento completo. Ad aprile, 800.000 persone sono uscite dalla forza lavoro. Quasi un milione hanno smesso di cercare un lavoro. Il numero di nuovi posti di lavoro non è neanche sufficiente a coprire la crescita della popolazione, che è di quasi il 7%.

Ora, agli occhi di una persona normale questi dati statistici sono un brutto segno, significano che non c’è crescita e che l’economia è ancora arenata. Ma nella sua crociata contro il senso comune, governo e media enfatizzano quei dati statistici che fanno apparire ogni cosa meno deprimente di quanto non sia in realtà. In questo caso, le statistiche migliorano quando le persone esce dalla forza lavoro.

La statistica più diffusa tiene conto soltanto di quei disoccupati che sono nella forza lavoro. Se una persona smette di cercare un lavoro, esce dalla forza lavoro. Questo fa “calare” statisticamente la disoccupazione anche se nessuno viene assunto. Una persona è sempre disoccupata, ma i numeri trasformano la sua disoccupazione in un miglioramento statistico. Questo genera discussioni sulla crescita economica che vedono tutto al contrario. Commentatori e politici vantano il calo del tasso di disoccupazione e dimenticano convenientemente chi ha smesso di cercare un lavoro.

Quando, ad aprile, la forza lavoro è scesa ad appena il 62,8% della popolazione, il livello più basso dagli anni settanta, i dati statistici sulla disoccupazione sono calati in parallelo. Più persone uscivano dalla forza lavoro e meno persone venivano considerate disoccupate. Ad abbassare sempre più il tasso di disoccupazione è il calo progressivo di chi è disposto a lavorare, non la crescita economica. Ma lo stato non vuole che lo sappiate.

Questa bizzarra illustrazione dei dati statistici sulla disoccupazione potrebbe essere interpretata come pura stupidità dello stato. È la rappresentazione di un’illusione. La verità è nascosta in fondo alle statistiche ufficiali. È una cosa ingegnosa. Gli stati cadrebbero se la verità dovesse venire allo scoperto. Se lo stato è terribilmente patetico quando si tratta di gestire un’economia, è fenomenale nel creare propaganda. Soprattutto quando la propaganda nasconde i veri effetti dell’intervento statale. Lo stato ha prima provocato la recessione attraverso una bolla immobiliare causata dall’inflazione. Quindi ha prolungato questa recessione con salvataggi e nuove normative. Ora ha convinto la popolazione di aver risolto la recessione usando, tra le altre cose, calcoli fuorvianti sulla disoccupazione.

Lo stato esige obbedienza senza dissenso. Ecco perché l’amministrazione rifila queste statistiche e ignora altri numeri, meno generosi (ma più accurati), sulla disoccupazione. Se la popolazione sapesse che i numeri sulla disoccupazione sono solo propaganda, perderebbe fiducia nello stato. Soprattutto quando si parla del suo successo nella risoluzione della crisi. Questa limiterebbe pesantemente le politiche che lo stato può perseguire. Se la gente fosse intellettualmente radicale e mettesse in questione lo stato, quest’ultimo perderebbe tutto il suo potere.

Traduzione di Enrico Sanna.

A deeper look into the unemployment statistics reveals not only that the “official” numbers are misleading, but also that the state’s attempt at controlling and managing the economy is an abject failure. In April 800,000 people left the work force. Almost a million people simply stopped looking for work. Additionally, the number of jobs added is too little to keep up with the nearly 7 percent increase in population growth.

Now, to a normal person, these statistics seem like a bad sign — a sign that job growth is not occurring and the economy is still in the gutter. But, in a crusade against common sense, government and media emphasize a statistic that makes everything look much less gloomy than it actually it is. This statistic that everyone refers to improves when the labor force drops.

The most popularly used unemployment statistic only accounts for the labor force and how many people in the labor force are jobless. When someone stops looking for work, they leave the labor force. This makes unemployment go “down,” despite no one getting a job. The person is still unemployed, but the statistic shows their joblessness as an improvement. This leads to the national conversation about economic growth running completely backwards. Pundits and politicians talk about how low the unemployment rate is and the amount of people who left the labor force is conveniently forgotten.

When the labor force dropped to a mere 62.8 percent of the population in April, tied for the lowest rate since the 1970s, the official unemployment statistic also dropped. More people left the labor force so less people were considered unemployed. The increasingly smaller percentage of people considered in the labor force, not economic growth is driving the increasingly lower unemployment rate. But the state doesn’t want you to notice.

This bizarre construction of unemployment statistics could be construed as the mere stupidity of the state. After all, it’s portraying an illusion. The truth is buried deep below the official statistic. But it’s actually genius. States would fall if the truth about their existence came out. While states are terribly pathetic at running economies, they are supremely good at creating propaganda. Especially when that propaganda conceals the true effects of state intervention. The state created the recession through an inflation-driven housing bubble. Then it worsened and prolonged the recession with bailouts and new regulations. Now the state has convinced people it has fixed the recession using, among other things, a misleading unemployment measure.

The state demands unquestioning obedience. That’s why the administration touts this statistic and ignores other, less generous (but more accurate), unemployment measures. If people learned unemployment numbers were just propaganda, they would lose confidence in the state: Specifically in its success at fixing the economy. This would be a huge constraint on the kinds of policies the state could pursue. If people were intellectually radical and questioned the state, the state would lose all its power.

Translations for this article:

• Italian, Le Statistiche sulla Disoccupazione Sono Propaganda di Stato.