5% unemployment or somewhat less is generally considered by economists to represent a beneficial “reserve army” of potential workers that can be hired when a certain sector suddenly needs them. But in France unemployment has been far more than 5% and 1% more than the European average already for decades. And I can see no quick improvement. While we are still in the middle of crisis, we are already moving in to a next difficult phase that requires a lot of public intervention. A transition to energy sources alternative to cheap oil, a warming climate, deterioration of ground water and degradation of agricultural soils.
At the same time there are still a lot of under-utilised resources. Things that the modernisation process has left as being “not economically exploitable”: huge forests that lost the competition with Nordic countries, enormous amounts of agricultural mountain land that lost the battle with the plains, large number of small plots like road sites and areas around industrial and shopping buildings, communal land and ofcourse: waste.
The lack of management of many of those areas, or the mismanagement, are in fact a threat to nature or the environment: monoculture as solution for easy management (grass, pine trees), or pavements of concrete. Although waste is more recycled nowadays, the mountain doesn’t really diminish.
My idea would be to improve access for the economically deprived to these under-used resources in sustainable way: introduce to them edible landscapes or in other ways useful landscapes (hedges), invent creative ways to turn waste in resources
These solutions must be easy to learn and to do, should not take a lot investments, or just a one time start-off investment as part of a social program. And it should be not very far from home. It should be a contribution to the quality of life of unemployed people, not a complete alternative for a job, so maximum two days per week, in order not to create a permanent situation, or “economic trap” for them.
Some possibilities: - Organise forest thinning days, after which the thinning wood is sold as soil amendment to farmers (our famous Ramial Chipped Wood) - Make more consumer goods recyclable, so that parts can be re-used, and give unemployed people access to the place where this waste is being gathered - Plant fruit and nut trees in parks and besides roads, and let them being managed and harvested by a collective of unemployed people - Create communal gardens on all this underutilised land where unemployed people are guided to produce vegetables and fruits for themselves - Create space for communal restaurants where unemployed people can cook for themselves, to reduce costs, and where the scale advantage can create interesting links with urban gardens and food stores (overproduction, close to overdate food)
I guess these possibilities will be developed by itself if the unemployment remains high, like is the case in developing countries. The demand for communal gardens in France is already skyrocketing. But at this moment there is still the opportunity to guide those developments in a sustainable way. The objective would be to create as much and equal access to this land and materials for as much unemployed people as possible and to prevent that they will fight for it.
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