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>Pfeffer quotes Article 23 on the "right to work," and indeed full employment has always been a bizarre fetish for Keynesians, social democrats, Marxists and co
by crdoconnor 11y ago
>Pfeffer quotes Article 23 on the "right to work," and indeed full employment has always been a bizarre fetish for Keynesians, social democrats, Marxists and conservatives. The Protestant work ethic is the right-wing version of the labor theory of value. It is a contradiction how so many bemoan the supposed rat race working conditions and then advocate the "solution" of having the state put everyone into the rat race through full employment policy.
There's a really banal reason for this. The vast majority of people want jobs.
In Argentina when they implemented an incredibly popular "right to a job" scheme (Plan Jefes) and then replaced it with basic income (i.e. get the same money but you don't have to turn up to work), a majority continued to do their jobs.
It helped that the jobs that the state were paying them to do were, by and large, necessary and rewarding - looking after the elderly, etc. I doubt if the work they were doing were debt collection or cold calling to sell insurance they'd have wanted to continue working.
- vezzy-fnord 11y agoBut the whole sentiment that looks down on poverty and exalts exorbitant wealth in of itself which the author underlines, emerges from the same train of thought that treats labor and full employment as the end of all ends. There's little functional difference between the conservative presenting a just world where hard work ensures success, from a social democrat who argues for large-scale centralization to shuffle people into the same capitalist institutions they allegedly look down on because "people want jobs". They're both far-reaching implicit assumptions of a labor theory of value in structuring a society. Indeed, it was the neo-Keynesian focus on full employment that led to short-sighted reliance on economic models like expectations-agnostic Phillips curves and IS-LM models with interest-sensitive money demand to the exclusion of other macro considerations, that ultimately culminated in a stagflation bust in the 1970s. Nor was this even a perversion of Keynesianism. It was Keynes himself who formulated simultaneous-equations IS-LM in lectures from 1933-1934. Employment as end in of itself also led to mercantilist-era injustices. But again, this is tangential to the issue of money.
- crdoconnor 11y agoFull employment doesn't mean everybody has a job. It just means that everybody who is looking for a job can find a job. As far as I can see, only industrialists who profit from lower wages and a more docile workforce would be against this. >Nor was this even a perversion of Keynesianism. Neo-Keynesianism was absolutely a perversion of Keynesianism. It was an attempt to marry it to Neoclassical economics, which was antithetical to Keynesianism in the first place. >It was Keynes himself who formulated simultaneous-equations IS-LM in lectures from 1933-1934. No it wasn't. It was Hicks and Meade trying to apply some sort of equilibirium fetishism to the theory of interest, employment and money.
- vezzy-fnord 11y agoDistinction without a difference. Of course there will always be some unemployment for disability or other reasons. As far as I can see, only industrialists who profit from lower wages and a more docile workforce would be against this. Job guarantee proposals are minimum wage. Even if they were not, the idea that industrialists benefit from a "docile workforce" is couching things in a questionable Marxian reserve army of labor analysis. It's not as if state-administered job guarantees are going to be tools of empowering the working class. It's going to be administered as a neutral tool for economic efficiency. Even then, the industrialists absolutely benefit from easy access to a minimum wage workforce. It was an attempt to marry it to Neoclassical economics, which was antithetical to Keynesianism in the first place. Nonsense. Keynes came from the neoclassical Marshallian tradition. No it wasn't. It was Hicks and Meade trying to apply some sort of equilibirium fetishism to the theory of interest, employment and money. Yes, it was. Hicks and Meade only developed one particularly influential variant, and they were inspired by notes from Keynes' lecture attendees who were taught a four-equation model with almost no major difference other than having an exogenous variable for "state of the news" (expectations). Ultimately this was not a major difference, since neo-Keynesians like James Tobin did focus on such areas, and on financial instability as well. Robert W. Dimand documents the origins of IS-LM and Keynes' Marshallian roots in a 2007 paper: http://www.unites.uqam.ca/philo/keynes/docs/dimand.pdf http://www.unites.uqam.ca/philo/keynes/docs/dimand.pdf
- SixSigma 11y ago> The vast majority of people want jobs. only as a proxy for security
- RodericDay 11y agoNo. People like feeling like they are useful, and like they matter. Somewhere between some people some of the time and most people most of the time.
- SixSigma 11y agopeople would find more ways to be useful if they didn't have to go to work
- krakensden 11y agoOr they would spend more time hanging out with friends and getting drunk in public, the pan-cultural pastime of unemployed young men.
- pm90 11y agoThat is a rather pessimistic view of unemployed young men. And most certainly not true.
- AReallyGoodName 11y agoIs that true though? I know a few people over 30 with ridiculously accommodating parents who still live at home and play MMOs for 12+ hours a day. I feel sometimes the solution for many people is to simply force people to do what's best for them.
- SixSigma 11y agoHow wonderful that you know what's best for everybody. Time to write a book.
- 11y ago