Tom said: The semi-official conventional wisdom on unemployment is that it doesn't exist. If it does exist, it is voluntary. If it is involuntary, it reflects moral defects of the unemployed themselves. If it exists, is involuntary and not the fault of the unemployed it will soon be eliminated through the equilibrium of the market. Therefore it doesn't REALLY exist.
REH comment; This is what Thomas P.M. Barnett of the Navy War College calls "Unwritten Rules." It is his contention that these are the rules that diplomats and soldiers must pay attention to if they are to survive in the field. Good job. Tom. The Unwritten rule of the Republican Right wing in America is that unemployment doesn't exist except in the immorality or lack of entrepreneurship of the unemployed. Gregory Bateson would have been impressed. That is also what I meant when I spoke years ago on this list about a social contract with business to overhire and keep unemployment down in exchange for tax breaks. A social contract that business abandoned in 1986. REH -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Sandwichman Sent: Tuesday, August 03, 2010 11:46 PM To: Keith Hudson; RE-DESIGNING WORK, INCOME DISTRIBUTION, EDUCATION Subject: [Futurework] In the name of charity Keith wrote: "Every conceivable type of government cares about unemployment, and has done so throughout history if it wants to maintain power and sleep easy." The semi-official conventional wisdom on unemployment is that it doesn't exist. If it does exist, it is voluntary. If it is involuntary, it reflects moral defects of the unemployed themselves. If it exists, is involuntary and not the fault of the unemployed it will soon be eliminated through the equilibrium of the market. Therefore it doesn't REALLY exist. So why should every conceivable type of government "care" about unemployment? There are, of course, plenty of lucrative swindles that can be engineered in the name of charity. Ray Harrell and I met up yesterday afternoon and during our conversation Ray brought up Herman Melville's "The Confidence Man." Government's care about unemployment the way the confidence man cares about... well, *confidence*! As for the efficacy of gold as a "real" monetary standard, it reminds me of Schumacher's quote from Gandhi about "dreaming of systems so perfect that no one will need to be good." Schumacher cited those words in the context of a discussion of the ethical flaw in Keynes' ironical argument that the "economic possibilities for our grandchildren" somehow depended on us continuing, for a few decades more, to "pretend to ourselves... that fair is foul and foul is fair; for foul is useful and far is not." -- Sandwichman _______________________________________________ Futurework mailing list [email protected] https://lists.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework _______________________________________________ Futurework mailing list [email protected] https://lists.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework
