Belligerent Savant wrote:But what would be the criteria for such a proposal?
The criteria is the unemployment rate—the number of people seeking paid work but not finding it in the private sector. The only way to really know how many willing workers are seeking jobs it to offer a job to all takers capable of working at a job. When nobody shows up at the local Employment Office looking for work—that's full employment.
Belligerent Savant wrote:Would it be mandated/'imposed' on ALL the jobless[...]? Any 'forced' or 'mandated' labor imposed on the population raises numerous ethical considerations.
Completely false concerns. The only thing imposed, involuntary, and mandated is
unemployment. It's official US policy to at all times keep a portion of willing workers out of jobs—ostensibly to avert or fight inflation. This is a facet of neoclassical "trickle-down" economic theory.
The job guarantee
offers a job to laid-off workers who are looking for work but can't find a private sector job, or to anyone who wants or needs employment (say e.g., after quitting an abusive employer) at a living wage.
Belligerent Savant wrote: I presume this only applies to American citizens or legal aliens, correct?
The vast majority of job guarantee workers would be people who were working at a job last week, but were laid off (likely in some private equity "efficiency" measure). The idea is to end involuntary unemployment, and keep workers in fit working shape so that when the business sector is hiring again they have a large pool of
employed workers to hire from. Business does not like to hire anyone who hasn't been working (source of the long-term underclass of permanently unemployed); it's risky, and they will always prefer to hire somone who's
currently working.
Belligerent Savant wrote:what would be the catch of a 'job guarantee'? i.e., for those that will need a job in order to feed themselves/their families, what may they need to give up in exchange (their privacy, autonomy, etc)?
It would be like any other job. It's a job program, managed by local non-profits organizations who are already doing valuable work. Your neighbors. The catch is, if you fuck up, don't show up, don't do the work, get into fights, etc.—you get fired. The leading proposals suggest a three-strikes-and you're out (banned from the program) rule.
The job guarantee program is not a panacea—it does not solve all the problems associated with employment. What it does solve is the systemic problem of forced unemployment for people willing and able to perform a job, and all of the manifold social and economic ills that come with a policy of involuntary unemployment.
Belligerent Savant wrote:ANY "federal" involvement in a System that's currently Deeply Compromised is a dangerous proposition.
This is a preposterous notion with regard to guaranteeing the right to employment. Society is compromised by a collection of bogus economic theories that impose austerity on the population, not least by forcing some given percentage of willing workers out of jobs. The personal, social and economic costs of this policy are enormous.
Current Fed policy is to try to lower inflation by putting more people out of work. They raise their interest rate in an attempt to increase unemployment. It's a kind of national insanity—and not least because it doesn't work unless rates are set stupidly high (ala Volcker); the Fed's recent rate hikes did
not lower employment or "bring wages down"—Powell's explictly stated goals.
Belligerent Savant wrote: a Highly Corrupt, Deeply Compromised & Captured System
Exactly—and forced levels of involuntary unemployment are a key aspect of the corrupt, captured system of control. Involuntary unemployment is a tool of control. There's no rational justification for it.
Belligerent Savant wrote:most if not all core Leftist principles proposed for practical application within current structures are in almost all respects Pure Fantasy, now and in the foreseeable future.
That's because the current structures are rightwing, neoclassical "trickle-down" structures that keep working people in debt and afraid of losing their jobs. Americans have lost the ability to imagine anything better. Margaret Thatcher famously told us that "There Is No Alternative" to austerity economics, and even that "there is no such thing as society"—how are these beliefs panning out? Have a look around.
Belligerent Savant wrote: any "Leftist" ideals, as presented and applied within this current System, will practically & functionally operate as highly repressive, regressive, & totalitarian.
This is just kneejerk reactionary talk, slapping on the "Leftist" slur and shutting down any possibility of a more beneficial economy. This current System is what perpetuates the use of unemployment as a system of control. "Necessitous men are not free."
Belligerent Savant wrote:ostensibly "good intentions" causing immense harms and violations of ethics/human rights.
LOL. Offering laid-off workers a local job does not cause "immense harms and violations of ethics/human rights"!
It's exactly the opposite—the policy of maintaining levels of involuntary employment causes immense harms, it's a clearly unethical political choice, and it amounts to a violation of human right per the UN charter. In the vast industrial market economy, there must be an employer of last resort, and only the national government can provide it.
Comparing the US Covid response to an employer of last resort program is like saying that Social Security can never work because the economic system is corrupt. There's no analogy—except that Social Security is being corrupted, step by step, by the billionaire funders of the far right.
