A JG is really a populist program that favors people, and firms will oppose it. For, as Carney points out, employers depend on disciplining labor power to control the wage bill.
Breitbart News
Carney: The Problem with the ‘Job Guarantee’ Is Not That It’s Too Expensive. It’s That the Left Hates Us
John Carney
See also
Breitbart News
Carney: The Problem with the ‘Job Guarantee’ Is Not That It’s Too Expensive. It’s That the Left Hates Us
John Carney
See also
It's complicated....More pertinent questions.
None of this means we should reject a job guarantee out of hand.Daily Beast — Opinion
Dems’ Job Guarantee Isn’t Nearly as Easy as It Sounds
Dean Baker | Co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington, D.C
Human beings are meant for work. It’s built into the very fabric of our beings, knotted into our DNA just like walking and eating. Without work we wither. Joblessness creates hopelessness, drug addiction, even early death. Even school shootings are connected to unemployment, according to a recent study. Idle hands are the Devil’s playthings and his game is soul-destroying. from"Carney: The Problem with the ‘Job Guarantee’ Is Not That It’s Too Expensive. It’s That the Left Hates Us"
ReplyDeleteNote the conflation of work with having a job. I suppose a wife and mother doesn't work if she has no job? Try telling one that!
The Hebrews had jobs in Egypt, well-fed jobs as slaves. God had a better plan for them as the owners of farms, vineyards, orchards and cities in Canaan.
I also note that quite a few of those who advocate a JG have a great deal of autonomy in their own work. Perhaps they should try a bit of wage slavery themselves before recommending it for others?
Excellent, Andrew.
Delete“Can we employ people of the Job Guarantee to Build the Wall?“
ReplyDeleteBetter yet get Mexico and Chyina to pay for the whole JG.... #winning...
JG is workfare. $15 / hr. is a slave wage. If this is implemented at all it will be used to eliminate social programs.
ReplyDeletePeople need to be "gainfully employed" in productive activity. That includes raising children, maintaining a home, growing vegetables in a garden, etc. Humans are tribal and are rewarded by participation in productive social activity that supports the tribe. Humans need purpose. This is genetic, not a Puritan work ethic.
I also take issue with categorizations such as 'the left'. Aside from the fact that such categorization is simple minded, denigrated by opposing 'sides', more effectively used to divide (rather than unite a which is what scares the power structure the most), it falsely implies that there exists a political party that has a larger measure of concern for citizens than another.
ReplyDelete“Left”: It’s a figure of speech like any other... it trades off efficiency for precision...
ReplyDelete"more effectively used to divide (rather than unite"
ReplyDeleteDivision like this is how we figure out who is qualified/competent .. it creates an inequality ... its important.. its TRAINED in hard science or applied mathematics disciplines...
"You will know them by their fruits..." Mat 7
"For there must be also factions among you, that they that are approved may be made manifest among you." 1 Cor 11
this is the way systems are best approached... and further more, how the systems disciplines are taught ... systems are broken down into relevant mathematical inequalities...
You dont get that in an Arts major...
Like the poor, who are unqualified and incompetent because they are poor.
ReplyDeleteThis issue has probably turned more people away from MMT than anything else associated with it. Those pushing it are like zealots.
ReplyDeleteAmazingly, like those on the right who want to push their agenda, everything suddenly becomes "human nature" when it's their desires they want met, "human nature" is a meaningless term if ever their was one. The only thing certain about "human nature", is something is right until we decide it's wrong. There is nothing etched in stone, our adaptability is what's made us thrive. Slavery was part of "human nature", until we came to our senses.
Personally, I think the academics behind MMT are basically conseervatives, living in the past. Joblessness doesn't create hopelessness, lack of income in a market economy does that all by itself. The workfare with a smile that MMT is trying to sell, views the poor in the same manner that any right wing think tank would, they're not shareholders in the society, or its wealth, they're a seperate lower caste, to be handled. Both treat them as prisoners of the decisions of their betters, the right want them as desperate as possible, so they will be forced into cheap labour, and the caring progressive wants them to be wards of the state, to be put to work where it sees fit.
The choice they're to offered is simple, a private, or public saddle, either way we're not getting off your backs.
Right, the problems are structural and that can only be addressed by changing the system.
ReplyDeleteThe job guarantee is an ad hoc fix to a dysfunctional system, and it will never be implemented in the way that its proponents envision, since it is designed to undermine the system from within. The people in charge know this, of course, and won't permit it.
The problem with capitalism is capital.
"poor, who are unqualified and incompetent because they are poor"
ReplyDeleteThe way we run things currently the materially unqualified/incompetent are often made or left poor... there is an over emphasis on rewarding material contribution when in fact we are in permanent surplus conditions... eg all the backslapping by all the "job creators!" blah blah when we dont even have to do probably half the shit we are doing...
There are at least four socio-economic views of that address this issue — Institutionalism in the tradition of Veblen, Marxism, Catholic social teaching, and Islamic economics. They all make contributions.
ReplyDeleteAmazingly, like those on the right who want to push their agenda, everything suddenly becomes "human nature" when it's their desires they want met, "human nature" is a meaningless term if ever their was one.
ReplyDeleteHuman nature is usually specified in terms of a generalization of one's own biases and those of one's in-group. It's a BS term for the most part in the way that it is usually used.
"probably turned more people away from MMT than anything else associated with it."
ReplyDeleteWell it at least demonstrates that there is a cohort among us that will directly attack UE head on as opposed to the current weak sub-human beta libertarian paradigm and will get people thinking differently.. ie maybe there is a different way to go about it... paradigm shift..
Like Kanye supporting Trump etc... same type thing...
Like Kanye supporting Trump etc... same type thing...
ReplyDeleteThis is a good thing for the Democratic Party. It is sending a signal not to take the non-white vote for granted.
The reason that the New Democrats tack right ("triangulate) to capture the center is because they think they can take the base for granted since they have nowhere else to go.
The New Democrats also aim at marginalizing the progressive wing of the party to accumulate power for itself.
This is a dumb strategy, but they are still in charge because they raise the money through corruption, which everyone now realizes if they didn't before.
"This is a good thing for the Democratic Party."
ReplyDeleteNo, lol its a good thing for the GOP...
btw fyi Warren and Neil in the comments over at Breitbart fending off the libertarian psychos....
Well it at least demonstrates that there is a cohort among us that will directly attack UE head on Franko
ReplyDeleteSo frontal assault is now the best strategy?
But the stubborn insistence on a JG as opposed to economic justice and genuine fiat and credit reform is not only extremely short-sighted given the pace of automation but also appears to be pathological given that most people with jobs dream of retirement when they can do genuinely meaningful work as they see fit and not be under the thumb of a boss. And there it is, some people can't stand for others to be free. Perhaps because their own lives will pale in comparison to those of unoppressed people?
lol its a good thing for the GOP..
ReplyDeleteThe GOP is a racist party. Black people are never going to switch to it en masse and if they did the GOP base would head for the hills.
James, excellent comment!
ReplyDeleteI don't mean to suggest that the entire GOP or GOP leadership is racist.
ReplyDeleteRacism has been a key piece in GOP strategy since Nixon's Southern strategy and continued since then.
It is fashioned by GOP strategists and approved by the GOP leadership and assented to by GOP candidates, none of whom may be cared-carrying racists, but they cynically go along with success if they aren't overt racists themselves.
The tactic of choice has been code words and other types of code, eg., symbolism like the welfare queen in her Cadillac, presumably to attack Democrats on welfare provision and the "queen" just happens to be black.
I think Tom put an article here about how the CIA put drugs and guns into black neighbourhoods so to ensure they never inspired to the middleclass and with the violence frightened the white electorate to vote republican.
Delete"welfare queen"
ReplyDeleteSpoken probably what? 40 years ago? 10 years out of Nixon?
Things change Tom... time flies c'mon...
GOP is starting to attract black middle class (voters) in earnest on the border and jobs issues..
Trump would NEVER say "welfare queen" ... in fact he abused Romney on his whole "47%!" statement from last election...
The job guarantee has to be pursued in conjunction with a real universal living minimum wage
ReplyDeleteWithout it, it is meaningless, and all the arguments of the JG critics hold.
Richard Troxell's thought process is that
We must index the federal minimum wage to the local cost of housing.
The concept is based on the premise that a person working 40 hours a week should be able to afford basic housing. We use two existing federal guidelines to determine what the Universal Living Wage should be.
The first guideline is a Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) standard that is also used by banking institutions across America. This HUD standard dictates that no more than 30 percent of a person's gross monthly income should be spent on housing.
The second guideline is also a HUD standard. HUD establishes the Fair Market Rents (FMRs) each year throughout the country for each municipality and all other areas. The fair market rent of varies from are to area, therefore, the Universal Living Wage varies in each area, in accordance with the FMRs.
These two government guidelines let us to use existing government formulas to easily justify specific Universal Living Wage figures that are appropriate to each municipality and its outlying areas.
We must index the federal minimum wage to the local cost of housing.
ReplyDeleteThe major flaw in a one-shoe-fits-all JG compensation package is that in a large and diversified country like the US, the cost of living varies greatly regionally and locally.
If this is not taken into account a JG is likely to fail. It also obviate the significance of pilot studies that are local or regional.
Housing may be good proxy for cost of living by area, but even here, housing cost varies by neighborhood.
This is a challenge and needs further study if it has not been approached satisfactorily as yet.
In fact, getting this right is the major challenge I see.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteTom, As Carlos Mucha says in his tweet
ReplyDeleteIt really is a genius idea, using the minimum wage law to provide a countervailing power to NIMBY lobby. It’d give every local business community a vested interest in the provision of affordable housing (otherwise they have to pay higher wages).
Yes, and as Dean Baker points out, it's complicated and the devil is in the details.
ReplyDeleteOne has to imagine what a bill would look like.
Or series of bill that establishes the principles of MMT in national policy and states' policies. There will be a tendency to confuse or conflate these, even though the federal government and state governments are related as currency issuer to users. Most have no clue about this crucial distinction.
The so-called right doesn't like federal programs for a variety of reasons, but for the policy to work the issuer must be the principal funder and backer. That will involve regulation and oversight.
Re Matt Franco's idea to get JG to build the wall, there's a slight problem there: most of the wall is in sparsely populated areas. JG people cannot travel to remote locations because they're supposed to be available at short notice for regular jobs when suitable regular jobs appear.
ReplyDeleteThe wall might just be one option... but in any construction project there are skills required...
ReplyDeleteSame as PT’s ‘rails to trails’ you need civil and environmental engineering skills for projects like that ... it’s not done with ditch diggers these days...
Don't put anything beyond the CIA.
ReplyDeleteVice
How the CIA Infiltrated the World's Literature
Mary von Aue
The Atlantic
How the CIA Hoodwinked Hollywood
Nicholas Schou
The Digital Voice
Crack, The CIA And Media – All Complicit In Destroying Black Communities
Brianna Grant
The Intercept
Managing A Nightmare — How The Cia Watched Over The Destruction Of Gary Webb
Ryan Devereaux
Jezebel
Nixon Policy Advisor Admits He Invented War On Drugs to Suppress 'Anti-War Left and Black People'
Julianne Escobedo Shepherd
The list goes on and on. It's often difficult to tell the influence of the CIA (and MI6, as well as the FBI and MI5) since they are known to have close ties with the media but it is often not possible to trace this in specific cases.
BTW, read the post on by Caitlin Johnstone that I just put up a link to.
Here is a clickable link
Gee! I have plenty to read there, Tom. Thanks. It looks really interesting.
DeleteFrom this zealot to James:
ReplyDeleteWell, what do you think does better than the JG by your standards - income guarantees?
Do you refer to the famous - but not famous enough - quote from Tolstoy in your last sentence?
I contend that if one reasons with the level of care, thought and rigor of say a high school geometry class, one sees that a JG does far better than anything else, is logically necessary, by the standards you appear to hold or that Tolstoy held. (You appear to reject slavery, as not "natural", for instance.)
Andrew Anderson: I also note that quite a few of those who advocate a JG have a great deal of autonomy in their own work. Perhaps they should try a bit of wage slavery themselves before recommending it for others?
? With the exception of Warren Mosler, who was one once, like most people, they are all wage-slaves right now. The JG is a proposal for "autonomy in work".
Again, the JG is absolutely essential to justice in a monetary economy. This observation is centuries old - people in the 18th century argued in a clearer way about it than the modern MMTers usually do. Opposition to a JG like yours is opposition to justice. I am sure you "mean well", but that does not excuse you for incoherent and capricious thought and objections to clear and rigorous ideas and arguments, would not excuse you from guilt for the multitude of victims of your half-baked ideas if they ever were put into practice, which thankfully has negligible probability.
The JG is a proposal for "autonomy in work". Calgacus
ReplyDeleteIf that were the case, every JG worker might own some land to work on and work with plus receive some funds for the purchase of necessary tools. In other words, a JG program would approximate the situation that existed before the government-enabled counterfeiting cartel, the banks, stole the commons and family farms and businesses in the guise of "private enterprise."
BTW, I no longer support a UBI but I do support a Citizen's Dividend funded by negative interest/yields on the inherently risk-free debt of the monetary sovereign PLUS any new fiat creation
deemed necessary beyond normal deficit spending to preclude price deflation.
Adding that individual citizens would have inherently risk-free checking accounts at the cb that were negative-interest-free for balances up to, say, $250,000, while larger citizen balances and all other private sector accounts (i.e. the banks) would be charged the highest negative interest given that account balances at the cb have the shortest maturity wait (0) of any debt of a monetary sovereign.
ReplyDeleteBreitbart?? Really?
ReplyDeleteBreitbart comment is as near to alt-right as weve seen so far on the JG...
ReplyDeleteNothing on the JG from Richard Spencer & Co that Ive seen as of yet... my guess is that they would be supportive of it too like alt-light Breitbart is here via Carney...
John Carney is MMT friendly. Although he is a proponent of Austrian economics, he understands and accepts the basic MMT view about the difference between the currency issuer and users and what this implies about fiscal space.
ReplyDeleteBreitbart is a populist site, and Carney seems to accept the MMT idea of achieving full employment with a buffer stock of employed.
He is correct in saying that the MMT view is value-neutral policy-wise, even though it can be given a bias through policy formulation.
He is saying that the proposals from most of the MMT economists are left-oriented but they need not be. For success politically, this bias should be removed and a broader policy recommended. This could unite populists and progressives behind it.
He's got a point that should be considered carefully.
BTW, John Carney has been recommending for a broader approach to MMT policy formulation in order to integrate left and right for a long time. Back when he was still at CNBC, IIRC.
ReplyDeleteHe is saying that the proposals from most of the MMT economists are left-oriented but they need not be. For success politically, this bias should be removed and a broader policy recommended. This could unite populists and progressives behind it. Tom Hickey
ReplyDeleteHere, hear!