Is a job guarantee a viable alternative to traditional welfare? Pavline Tcherneva reviews the Argentine ‘plan Jefes’ (based on fieldwork). Her article shows, in my opinion, that:
1) People prefer (low wage) work to welfare
2) People enrolled in a ‘job guarantee plan’ are perfectly able to design their own productive community and society oriented activities and act as entrepreneurs they do not really seem to need guidance from the government. Which means that the main criticism of such programs (useless work) falls apart.
3) Not everybody likes the social changes which are engendered by such activities
4) The ‘human capital’ embedded in the labour force as well as the social capital of communities seem to increase
Real-World Economics Review Blog
A job guarantee as an alternative to welfare: the Argentine experience
Merijn Knibbe
A job guarantee as an alternative to welfare: the Argentine experience
Merijn Knibbe
23 comments:
1) People prefer (low wage) work to welfare
Sure, if the welfare precludes work such as being crammed into public housing apartments with no land to work or work on.
But hey, if you justice-adverse Progressives want to provide free workshops for the VOLUNTARY use of BIG recipients then go ahead. Nothing precludes that. If work is so grand then allow people to do it by giving them the resources necessary to do it. Hint: Farmers can't farm without the land the banks stole from them.
I'm tempted to give up. We SHALL have justice, in a short while quite possibly, but in the process how many Progressive plans and indeed Progressives themselves will have been reduced to ashes along with the bankers they protect?
"The philosophy of neoliberal doctrine is exposed quite easy when someone thinks that is not recorded by cameras. What is the deeper meaning of Romney's words? Maybe this: All people (not just half), must stop beleiving that they have a right to healthcare, food, housing and that is the job of the state to provide them. Until they do, the lower incomes should be taxed to the level that someone could barely allowed (or not allowed) to survive, as was done in the “Greece” experiment, and continue the tax cuts in the name of competition and job creation for the 1% that owns most of the wealth. Besides, it is the poor who believe in the welfare state, why should the rich pay for it?"
http://failedevolution.blogspot.gr/2012/09/the-totalitarianism-of-one-dimensional.html
People prefer a living wage to a low wage JG.
Of course we could re-frame the terms and eliminate the stigma associated with the word welfare by eliminating the word in this context, which is pejorative to most.
A BIG would go a long way to remedy the situation. A JG could then be a part of one's choice after the antecedent BIG. Some will live just fine with a BIG minus any need to wage labor. They'll do many other useful things; as there are many useful and fulfilling things to do that don't involve wage labor, contrary to what the left and right thinks.
"Besides, it is the poor who believe in the welfare state, why should the rich pay for it?"
Because the rich have benefited the most from explicit and implicit welfare for the accursed banks.
The ability to repay* stolen purchasing power + interest is morally irrelevant. Therefore there is no such thing as so-called creditworthiness when it comes to government backed banks or even direct government lending UNLESS the general welfare is at stake.
*By, in extremis, the sale of collateral such as land if necessary.
Note that the author claims no personal experience with the Jefe program and instead relies on Pavline's glowing reports. That's like evaluating a new car by listening to the car salesman's sales pitch instead of reading consumer reports and taking a test drive. OF COURSE MMT is going to tell you that their policies are the greatest thing since sliced bread, just as the car salesman is going to tell you that the car he is selling is better than all the rest.
Other reports, like the one at the link below, paint a different picture. It claims that the Jefe barely made a difference in poverty or in the Gini coefficient. It also claims that a quarter of Jefe participants never actually did any work. This is quite a different story than the one Pavline lays out.
Question: if people prefer work over a BIG, as Pavline claims, then why is MMT afraid of a JIG?
Question: if people can self-organize and self-govern and find their own productive work without supervision, then why couldn't people drawing a BIG do all those things without supervision?
The author of the following report seems to have no axe to grind in the JG debate, he merely quantifies the impact of the Jefe program (something that Pavline's article failed to do) and concludes that the Jefe helped a tiny bit but not much.
http://www3.unisi.it/eventi/GiniLorenz05/paper%2026%20may/PAPER_Gertel_Giuliodori_Rodriguez.pdf
Argentina got some trial at keeping the U$D out of the system so that they do not have excessive foreign denominated debt.
Even though their currency will soften as it is recently, there should not be as much U$D borrowing as was in the 90's that came to a balloon in 2001 crisis.
They have had a turn around since 2001. They have tried to keep things in argentine dollar pesos so we will see what MMT like style has done for them as they still have their sovereign currency.
If there is anything I noticed during my stay there last year, the farmers who get rich off their small and medium sized GMO geneticially modified everything farms
are very angry in public at those who get free money or help from the government. They say " those people take my tax money and they do zero work ".
But they do not realize how the economy will fail if they don't have the stimulus from these various programs allowing these people to buy food, clothes, and normal things.
"Progressives themselves will have been reduced to ashes along with the bankers they protect"
Ok, you've definitely lost it, Beard.
Isn't there anyone else you can go and shout the same nonsense and insults at over and over again?
Merijn Knibbe’s idea that JG people will “act as entrepreneurs” and that they won’t “need guidance from the government” to set up JG schemes is nonsense. That may well have been the case under Argentina’s Jefes system because that was during a period of CATASTROPHICALLY high levels of unemployment when there were large numbers of REAL entrepreneurs and intelligent, skilled people amongst the unemployed.
Present day US or UK where unemployment is perhaps 2% higher than it ought to be is a different kettle of fish: reltively few entrepreneurs and skilled people amongst the unemployed.
Moreover, if those currently unemployed in the West are so “entrepreneurial” and skilled and if they “prefer (low wage) work to welfare” to quote Knibbe, then why aren’t they busy setting up simple schemes offering the unemployed part time work? The unemployed already get a “wage” in the form of unemployment insurance or “unemployment benefit” as it used to be called in the UK. What’s to stop them?
Hello People
Unemployment benefits are being pulled just when Obamacare is trying to get started.
The far right is trying to limit it to 23 months maximum. They are succeeding.
This is another tax to the economy they are draining yet another conduit which stimulates the economy.
Maybe they think the unemployed are holding out for better paying jobs ?
Maybe they want that they do not have welfare $$ so that they will work for $8 an hour ?
Isn't there anyone else you can go and shout the same nonsense and insults at over and over again? y
I could give the folks at mises.org or the Daily Bell a good what-for or maybe a fellow more disappointing than you,y, Mish Shedlock, a good lecture on gold-bug hypocrisy. But we'll see.
As for ashes, the banking cartel killed 50-65 million in WWII alone so I have zero to highly negative sympathy for those who wish to perpetuate it.
Maybe they want that they do not have welfare $$ so that they will work for $8 an hour ?
Bingo. Although I would say $8 is generous. I don't think that they have a lower limit. They love deflation.
They love deflation.
Tom Hickey
Deflation is inherent when purchasing power is lent into existence because:
1) People are driven into debt. Otherwise they are priced out of the market by those who do borrow.
2) The repayment of that debt destroys the purchasing power created when it was lent.
3) The interest is transferred to those with a lower propensity to consume.
Otoh, common stock as private money has NO necessary debt associated with it since it is spent, not lent, into existence.
But why share, when government privileged credit creation allows one to legally steal instead?
"the banking cartel killed 50-65 million in WWII alone"
don't you even feel slightly embarrassed about writing such garbage?
don't you even feel slightly embarrassed about writing such garbage? y
1) Ben Bernanke agrees that the Fed caused the Great Depression:
'"Let me end my talk by abusing slightly my status as an official representative of the Federal Reserve System. I would like to say to Milton and Anna: Regarding the Great Depression. You’re right, we did it. We’re very sorry. But thanks to you, we won’t do it again." Remarks by Governor Ben S. Bernanke at the Conference to Honor Milton Friedman, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, federalreserve.gov (2002-11-08)
Commenting to Milton Friedman’s public statement that the Great Depression was caused by the Federal Reserve Bank' from http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Ben_Bernanke
2) The Great Depression was a major cause of WWII:
The main causes of World War II were nationalistic tensions, unresolved issues, and resentments resulting from World War I and the interwar period in Europe, in addition to the effects of the Great Depression in the 1930s. from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Causes_of_World_War_II *
Note also that the Fed financed US entry into WWI which led to an unjust Armistice which was another major cause of WWII (“and resentments resulting from World War I and the interwar period in Europe”).
I've long suspected you're not operating in good faith,y, so if I no longer respond to you it's because I refuse to be worn out by your pigheaded refusal to learn.
*The bank supporters have edited the wiki article to make it Hitler centric but luckily I used the original article in a comment I made that still exists. I guess the truth was too embarrassing to some people.
'The unemployed already get a “wage” in the form of unemployment insurance or “unemployment benefit” as it used to be called in the UK'
They get about £70 a week, How many entrepreneurs have started businesses in the modern western world with £70 a week for food, clothing, utility bills and travel expenses? and that's before you factor in the hoops people have to jump through just to get that money, which includes workfare, or more precisely the state demanding the poor must make themselves available for corporations and charities to use for free labour, and if they refuse they will be sanctioned, which means they'll have the access to benefits removed for 3 years, that's quite a choice people have, do as we say or starve.
£70 a week is not a wage, it's an insult, it's also one of the reasons why I have a problem with the term "basic" income, if it was left to people like you Ralph I'm sure the "basic" income would be set at a similar rate to the dole, and that's the problem, who gets to decide how "basic" that income should be. People who are inclined to believe unemployment is all the fault of the unemployed will no doubt want it set so low that those receiving it will be left close to destitution, that way they'll be willing to take low paying jobs.
Any income should be set at a living wage, if the government or businesses want to hire people then they have to bid above that, or innovate so they don't need the employees. No state or government should be in the business of lowering the living standards of its people. If businesses can't afford the employees and they can't innovate then they should do the good capitalist thing and die, at least the person who created the business would have an living wage safety net to fall back on and start again.
Any income should be set at a living wage, if the government or businesses want to hire people then they have to bid above that, or innovate so they don't need the employees. No state or government should be in the business of lowering the living standards of its people. If businesses can't afford the employees and they can't innovate then they should do the good capitalist thing and die, at least the person who created the business would have an living wage safety net to fall back on and start again. James
Bravo! For the Win!
PS: Don't be hard on Ralph, he seems to be on your side.
PSS: I shall use living wage too now instead of BIG.
F.,
Right and everybody knows what a genius Bernanke is....
F,
Versailles was a screw deal... And metal-love/subjection was still running rampant..... Your 'cartel' so called had nothing to do with it....
Banks are glorified accountants...
Actually, banks are glorified embezzlers/counterfeiters/thieves/liars.
They are hypocrites too who pretend that real assets can be balanced by virtual liabilities.
"Any income should be set at a living wage, if the government or businesses want to hire people then they have to bid above that, or innovate so they don't need the employees."
In 1964 the US minimum wage was $1.25/hr, or the equivalent of 5 silver quarters. Meanwhile, McDonald's employees have been protesting recently for a minimum wage of $15/hr, but maybe they are selling themselves short. Turns out that the same silver content today of five of those 1964 quarters is worth around $20. So, maybe the currency needs to be fixed and just the minimum wage.
Oh, so a shiny metal is the measure of everything? Chapter and verse, please?
But here's a verse for you:
For Tyre built herself a fortress
And piled up silver like dust,
And gold like the mire of the streets.
Behold, the Lord will dispossess her
And cast her wealth into the sea;
And she will be consumed with fire. Zechariah 9:3-4
New American Standard Bible (NASB)
And another:
They will fling their silver into the streets and their gold will become an abhorrent thing; their silver and their gold will not be able to deliver them in the day of the wrath of the Lord. They cannot satisfy their appetite nor can they fill their stomachs, for their iniquity has become an occasion of stumbling. Ezekiel 7:19
God is not impressed with shiny metals but with justice and mercy.
I suggest you run, not walk away, from the shiny metal worshipping Austrians.
So, maybe the currency needs to be fixed and just the minimum wage. TRR
Deflation lover are you? Like the metal-loving Austrians?
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