Wageless Work As Solution To Unemployment!
The high unemployment rate in the United States is a problem which cannot be easily solved. There are many factors involved, many which people do not want to accept, such as the fact that businesses are finding they can do with less labor to continue to make profits, and so they see no reason to have an excess number of workers whose labor will not improve the money being made. However, some people have tried to come up with solutions. One is Michele Bachmann. Her solution is simple: remove the minimum wage, so people can get jobs:
Literally, if we took away the minimum wage—if conceivably it was gone—we could potentially virtually wipe out unemployment completely because we would be able to offer jobs at whatever level. (source)
Yes, that’s right. One should not expect to make money while working a job (see the increasing number of unpaid internships). If we remove the idea that a job leads to the making of money, then we can make sure everyone is employed. We can make the jobless rate 0. No one needs to be paid, just work. Unemployment will be a thing of the past! Everyone will be expected to work – for no money.
People are made for jobs, instead of jobs being made for people.
Isn’t that also known as slavery? Belloc and Chesterton were right when they showed how capitalism leads to the servile state. The whole point of work is misconstrued so that one can ignore the dignity of the worker and the value of their labor.
Now, it is interesting to see the same people who talk about how bad government is because it reduces your liberty to be the same people promoting the servile state. It demonstrates the underlying deception involved (be it self-deception or outright dishonest, I do not know). Now, before you say we must reject the servile state, just remember, if remove payment from jobs, people won’t have money for abortions. That’s right, when people are not being paid, they won’t be able to afford abortions.
Does this mean we must end up supporting the servile state if one doesn’t want to be shown as supporting abortion?
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The dangers of Econ 101. That labor markets are complex and don’t completely follow supply and demand is a whole other issue.
In one respect we are already implementing this solution. The government has significantly increased liquidity, and that has allowed companies, particularly in finance, to stay in business that otherwise wouldn’t. While making their nickel for every dollar of liquidity added, the gap between CEO pay and the lowest paid worker has continued to increase.
“businesses are finding they can do with less labor to continue to make profits, and so they see no reason to have an excess number of workers whose labor will not improve the money being made.”
And that’s perfectly sensible. Employment-for-employment’s sake is ridiculous. The whole point of technology was to gradually make it so that people have to work less and less, or fewer and fewer people have to work.
If someone’s job can be just as easily done by a robot, say, there is no reason not to replace that person with a robot. Doing so should “liberate” them! The only problem is that we’ve tied distribution to participation in production (an outmoded system) and so the share of production this person would have formerly gotten as a wage-earner goes now to the capitalist who owns the robot.
However, it need not be that way.
As the Crediteers say:
“To speak of full employment, that is of universal employment, is to make a contradiction with the pursuit of progress in the techniques and processes of production. New and more perfect machines are not introduced to tie man to employment, nor are new sources of energy tapped for this end, but rather they are brought into production for the purpose of liberating man from work.
But, alas, we seem to have lost sight of ends. We are confusing means and ends, we mistake the former for the latter. This is a perversion, which infects our whole economic life and which makes it impossible for men to enjoy the logical rewards of progress to the full.
Industry does not exist to give employment, but to furnish products, goods. If it succeeds in furnishing such goods, then it has accomplished its purpose, met its end. And the more completely it meets this end with the minimum of time and the minimum employment of human hands, the more perfect it is.
Mr. Jones, for example, buys his wife an automatic washing machine. Now the weekly wash will take only a quarter of the day instead of a full day. When Mrs. Jones puts the clothing in the washing machine along with the soap, when she turns on the taps bringing in the proper mixture of hot and cold water, she has nothing more to do except to turn on the machine. The machine washes the clothes, rinses them, and then stops automatically when the clothes are ready to come out.
Is Mrs. Jones going to bemoan the fact that she now has more time to do what she pleases? Or is Mr. Jones going to search for another type of work to replace that from which his wife has been freed? Certainly not. Neither one is that stupid.
But we do find such stupidity running rampant in our social and economic life, for the system makes progress penalize the individual, instead of bringing him relief, in that it persists in tying purchasing power, the distribution of money, to employment and employment alone — employment in production. Money comes only as a recompense for effort and labour in production.
It is true that production distributes money to those who are employed in the work of producing. But this is as a means, and not as an end. The purpose of production is not to supply money, but to furnish goods and services. And if production is able to replace twenty salaried individuals by the introduction of one machine, it has not in any way thwarted its true purpose. And if it could furnish all the production necessary for humans, and not distribute one cent of money, it would still be meeting the end for which it exists: to furnish goods and services.”
http://www.michaeljournal.org/10lessons.htm
This seems like a complaint without a solution. If income is not to be tied to production, then what?
Dan
When there are no need for jobs, how will we see the universal distribution of goods? One of the things, which A Sinner and many of us see, is that the universal distribution of goods, though it might have at one time had a place in the system we have, certainly is finding itself cut off when there is little or no need for labor. While many people ridiculed President Obama about machines and how they are taking over jobs, he is correct.
Certainly, for the time being, we could do things like limit work weeks and increase the value of said work, so people only worked 20 hour weeks with full benefits. However, I think we will have to see that the kind of future which even Philip K Dick predicted, where there will be little work and massive populations, needs to be addressed — and the distribution of goods needs to go beyond the individualistic ideologies we have running things now.
Income will always result from participation in production; the worker deserves his wage. But that does not mean that participation in production should be necessary for income especially as labor has less and less to do with production.
Indeed, look how many of these “capitalists” get an income off other people’s (or, more and more, machines’) production without laboring themselves.
As Henry points out, what happens when we reach the day that all our needs (and even wants) are met largely by robots? Where only really 2-3% of the population needs to labor to supply for the whole population??
That day is nearer than you might think:
Some Leftists of the Vox Nova variety might suggest something crazy like letting that 2-3% earn ALL the money accruing to production in the “usual” (ie, status quo) way and then simply taxing their income at 90% or something and redistributing it to everyone else.
But that’s silly. There should never be any need to REdistribute wealth if the system is designed to distribute it properly in the first place.
Look into Social Credit, and what it proposes, namely:
“all members of society are co-capitalists of a real and immensely productive capital.
We said above, and we could never repeat it enough, that financial credit is, at birth, the property of all of society. It is so because it is based on real credit, on the country’s production capacity. This production capacity is made up partially of work, and the competence of those who also take part in production. But it is mainly made up of other elements which are the property of all.
There are, first of all, natural resources, which are not the production of any man; they are a gift from God, a free gift that must be at the service of all. There are also all the inventions made, developed, and transmitted from one generation to the next. It is the biggest production factor today. No man can claim to be the only owner of progress, which is the fruit of many generations.
No doubt that one needs men of our present times to make use of this progress — and they are entitled to a reward: they get it in remuneration: wages, salaries, etc. But a capitalist who does not personally take part in the industry where he invested his capital is entitled to a share of the result just the same, because of his capital.
The largest real capital of modern production is, in fact, the sum total of the progressive inventions, i.e. discoveries, which today give us more goods with less work. And since all human beings are, on an equal basis, coheirs of this immense capital that is always increasing, all are entitled to a share in the fruits of production.
The employee is entitled to this dividend and to his wage or salary. The unemployed person has no wage or salary, but is entitled to this dividend, which we call social, because it is the income from a social capital.”
This dividend would not be paid out by letting money be created and distributed the way it is now and then “re-distributing” it, but rather by removing money-creation from the hands of private financiers who created it as a debt each year (to represent the new production financially), but they money supply could be increased proportionate to new production each year debt-free by a public organ and then equally distributed to all the “co-capitalists” in the enormous public capital. Production would still be private, and the producers would still get paid in a free market as now. But the new production (which is really the dividend owed all of us as co-heirs of the collective capital) would be covered by free money rather than usurious credit.
That’s the solution to the complaint, Dan.
This is just another example of the hopeless polarization of the secular state, and of the hope offered by a return to the Catholic religious state. Religious congregations were this tool. And it is a tool, an economic tool. It’s like Free Shipping but not. Free labor. In addition to the gentle swell provided by natural population growth, it accounts for steady real growth in an economy (as opposed to speculative growth). Free land will provide the same boost.
The Reformation began the attacks on the wonderful religious orders that built Europe and opened the world. They turned them out, seized the land, looted the treasure. You can still visit the ruins.
But we can’t have the equi\valent, in the secular state. You can give to God but you cannot give to either side in the class system that replaced the theocracy. You have, in the setup to this post, everything you need to know that neither side is okay–the old choice between a kick in the head and a kick in the stomach. Bachman is so wrong–we can still fall lower, just change the standard and see where more free fall lands the so-called middle class. And yet we need it, we need the tool of unpaid labor.
Religious orders–reinvigorated, reignited, which is so do-able when the theology is traditional rather than liberal– would solve the health care question. The same religious orders would give us back a dream in going into space, which we have lost.
I believe this topic could be examined also from the point of view that the unpaid labor of motherhood and wifehood gave to society, and then turn the question to restoring that in the bargain! Love–I’m talking the mixing of genes that accompanies the act of sex– is so close to God; in my particular cerebellum, that it’s just another name for the file and hardly bears examination as a separate feature. Lifelong monogamous fertile love is *so* much a religious vocation. But it would be argued as a separate point by most people.
We can’t settle. Neither side of this argument as enunciated in the secular state serves humanity. It is the nature of the state that must be changed–back. Restore the Restoration, please, and then we shall have also the tool of unpaid labor. Without that? That is, under the present rules of the imperialist game? In its secular states? Sorry, can’t.
Sounds great.
So when are you joining the novitiate?
Industry does not exist to give employment, but to furnish products, goods….
That is true. And that is why the practice of the Republican leadership and the the Chamber of Commerce of referring to corporations as “job creators” (“Taxing job creators…”) is false. In fact, it is illegal. If a boss took an action for the purpose of job creation, he would be violating his fiduciary duty to the shareholders under law.
On the other hand, words have meaning. A “job” and “work” are not the same thing. An hour of work might be performed for an hour’s worth of wages but that does not make it a job. A job is what a man does in exchange for the necessities of life. If an employer does not give a worker a living wage, then he has not provided nor created a job.
It should be noted that, under laws other than US law, it would not be a violation of fiduciary duty, because corporations have duties to labor and community in addition to capital under many non-US legal systems. But Americans have a tendency to think our legal system is somehow a pure form of natural law.
Bachman is wrong here in that generally speaking a job paying less than the current minimum wage would not solve the problems of someone currently out of work, and so that person wouldn’t take the job. (Also, given that only a tiny fraction of jobs are even at the minimum wage level, removing the minimum wage would not have much effect on the current workforce profile. At most, it would create additional low value jobs for teenagers and unskilled immigrants, while leaving the main job pool alone.)
An odd thing about all this is that your satiric suggestion “If we remove the idea that a job leads to the making of money, then we can make sure everyone is employed. We can make the jobless rate 0. No one needs to be paid, just work.” is something which is fairly popular with a certain left leaning segment of the population — they just use others terms instead of work. For instance, it’s often suggested that instead of being allowed to work, if they want or need to, people in their teens should be doing more school or volunteer activities. In other words, it’s suggested that instead of working for pay, they should work for free.
One of the very concerning things about the kind of persistent unemployment we’re seeing at the moment is that it’s industry and region specific. Many companies are reporting that they’re having trouble finding qualified candidates for jobs they do have open, and at the same time many people looking for jobs can’t find any opportunities that fit their experience and skills. (Some discussion here and links here.) This means that the problem is not essentially a wages problem (and Econ 101 suggestions such as Bachman’s which are based on the idea that everyone works in factories producing lumps of GDP are particularly off base.) Of course, the difficulty is, this means that most progressive suggestions (we need more unions!, etc.) aren’t going to help a lot either. When the problem is that the nature of the job market has changed there’s likely to be a long, slow process during which people readjust, regions develop new industries to replace dying ones, etc.
I appreciate Darwin’s thoughts and welcome hearing once again from him a presentation of sensible conservatism. Finding sensible commentators for various positions is becoming more and more difficult. Liberals and conservatives need to stop finding some outsider and setting such a person up as a straw man. Of course, the media does not help. Yesterday I saw CNN interview Margaret Cho as a spokesperson on gay marriage. I almost puked.
I have a pretty good idea among my fellow liberals who is an authentic spokesperson and who is not. With conservatives, one rule I generally apply is have they been given some responsibility such as elective office. However, Bachmann does meet that test so I don’t know what to make of her odd comments quoted.
Two quibbles with Darwin. I think he misunderstand the nature of work if he thinks teenage academic study or charitable activities are just another name for unpaid work (in fact, among the school sponsored voluntary activity encouraged by my parish school is Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament. I just can’t accept this as unpaid work under a different name).
As for unions and our usefulness in changes in the job market, I think he discounts the significant role of trade unions in worker training and re-training, our service on Private Industry Councils (PICs) and related activities.
Thanks for publishing my first post.
I agree with Darwin that the minimum wage is not an accurate gauge of income. Michele Bachmann’s statement on the minimum wage betrays a much deeper issue that is not often articulated by talking-heads or academics: the question of “false election”.
For many, Max Weber’s “Protestant work ethic” brings to mind a self-centered “false election”: the notion that labor itself marks an individual as elect and virtuous. In this case, the willingness to work even in indenture shows a pious dedication. Some might contend that this so-called virtue will be rewarded with good wages. Many forget the second half of Weber’s title: “the Spirit of Capitalism”. As Weber consistently emphasizes in his work, the Dutch Reformed did not merely preach the value of labor as an individual virtue. Rather, the creation of capital was also a sign of God’s providence for the entire community. I would agree with Weber that the creation of wealth, and the virtue of wealth, is necessarily inclusive of all who labor. Those who have risen to positions of power and large salaries are not individually favored by God.
Bachmann’s call to abolish minimum wage resembles “false election”. Wageless (or nearly wageless) labor alone will not get someone right with God. Rather, God’s favor is shown in community through the opportunity for quality work at a just and living wage. Sadly, even those who belong to a nominally Calvinist background subscribe to “false election” even to the point of an economic pelagianism.
Every day that goes by makes it clearer that the problems we are experiencing right now are structural. It’s been a long time coming, probably three or four decades in the making. We don’t have a match between the positions that waiting to be filled and the skills available in the labor force. That’s what happens when you have rapid technological change accompanied by low investment in the quality of the education. Example: a mechanic who knows how to work on an engine but can’t fix the on-board computer that now controls most of the vehicle. Our technology increased in sophistication much faster than the people did.