One of the Classical Political Assumptions is:
"People seek to satisfy their desires with the least exertion." Seems to fit the makeup of human beings. We don't much like exertion and try to reduce it as much as possible, so the idea of "expanding the total amount of work" seems to be a no-no. The other Classical Assumption is: "People's desires are unlimited." (It was actually "Man seeks . . ." and "Man's desires . . ." but I've politically corrected it.) With unlimited desires, it seems that if we all worked 24 hours a day we could never satisfy unlimited desires. So finding things to do is no problem. Yet, we have involuntary unemployment. Perhaps, instead of trying to find work for people, we should concentrate on why they can't find work when there is so much to be done. Well, the Classical Political Economists knew why, something that seems to be beyond the present generation of neo-Classicals. Harry ****************************** Henry George School of Los Angeles Box 655 Tujunga CA 91043 Tel: 818 352-4141 ****************************** -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Sandwichman Sent: Sunday, November 15, 2009 7:17 PM To: RE-DESIGNING WORK, INCOME DISTRIBUTION, EDUCATION Subject: [Futurework] I like Ike. (sort of): Thomas Jefferson vs. Larry Summers http://econospeak.blogspot.com/2009/11/i-like-ike-sort-of.html In a speech he never gave, Ike quoted Thomas Jefferson: "If we can prevent government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them, they must become happy." Compare with Summers: "It may be desirable to have a given amount of work shared among more people. But that's not as desirable as expanding the total amount of work." -- Sandwichman _______________________________________________ Futurework mailing list [email protected] https://lists.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework
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