On 10/10/2002 1:54 AM, "Devine, James" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Thiago Oppermann: >> Wouldn't the quality of unemployment also be relevant? A rate of 1% where > the >> unemployed end up indentured to credit companies might be a lot worse than > 5% >> if they are free to enjoy productive unemployment. ... > > there's another, related, issue: any given unemployment rate tends to have > more "oomph" these days in the U.S. than it used to, in terms of protecting > profits and detering inflation. This fact might be captured by noting that > unemployment is only one part of the "cost of job loss" (a concept developed > by Julie Schor and Sam Bowles). For example, the cost of job loss is larger > for any given unemployment rate if the availability of unemployment > insurance is lower. > > (cf. Schor, Juliet. 1987. "Class Struggle and the Macroeconomy: The Cost of > Job Loss." In Robert Cherry et al., eds. The Imperiled Economy, Book I: > Macroeconomics from a Left Perspective. New York: URPE.) > > JD > Thank you for the reference, I'll be sure to read it. This is a rather out of my school (that being Melanesian anthropology), but to me it seems that there also is an issue here about what it means to be unemployed these days. It doesn't necessarily mean one is not working: here in Oz we have these hare- brained and politically expedient work-for-the-dole schemes; there are also whole communities which are pulled together by pensioned activists. From a fairly totalising social perspective, are these people's labours so different from those of someone on a state payroll? As unemployment controls become ever more draconian and people are forced to 'volunteer' in ever larger numbers, unemployment could become the labour relations version of parole, although at some point, I suppose, it must all go a wee bit Speenhamland... Thiago ------------------------------------------------- This mail sent through IMP: www-mail.usyd.edu.au
