Friday, December 30, 2011

Peter Cooper posts a sequel to the JG v. BIG


The job guarantee has been getting a lot of attention in the blogosphere lately. As Bill Mitchell notes in his latest post, some of this has involved questioning whether the job guarantee should be considered integral to MMT. Other discussion has been about the merits of the job guarantee itself. As far as I am concerned, the first question has been answered in the affirmative by the leading MMTers. In this post, I am not concerned with that issue. I am taking as given that the job guarantee is not only consistent with MMT but part and parcel of it. My concern, following on from my previous post, is with the merits of a job guarantee compared with other policy options.
My motivation in this post and my previous one is very different to that of right-leaning critics of a job guarantee. My emphasis is on finding ways to assist a transition to a society in which people can opt for more free time, if they wish. The likelihood of a high degree of mechanization in production in coming decades creates the potential for such a transition.
Read it at heteconomist.com
Job Or Income Guarantee (JIG)
by Peter Cooper

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