The sheer immorality of mass unemployment

Mass unemployment is not essentially an economic problem. It is a moral matter. Ability to work is fundamental to self-respect and that makes it 'a good'. The denial of the right to work is a denial of self-respect and therefore 'a bad'. Moral objection is thus the foundation of the case against mass unemployment. Economic factors are important but secondary.

Further, mass unemployment is political before it is economic. The calculated political imposition of unemployment since 1979, to reduce demand and undermine the unions in the cause of reducing inflation, is an offence against society. There were other ways to solve those problems, as the Germans and the Japanese have shown.

Any phenomenon needs to be judged by its consequences. Chronic large scale unemployment increases the stress factor that in turn worsens the sickness and death among its victims. It has a devastating effect upon the young. It becomes the prime single cause of crime. Large numbers of the able-bodied are forced to lead largely useless lives, so breeding cynicism, nihilism and despair. The wealth and health they might have produced is lost to us all as well as to the people directly concerned.

Resources, especially those of North Sea oil, that could have been invested in training and manufacture have been turned into the dole. Millions of people whose spending power might have been an asset to the State as a source of tax-revenue, have been turned into a liability. It is all wrong.

Work, in the deeper sense, means the net expenditure of energy to some useful and satisfying purpose. It is not necessarily paid, but so long as we live in a money and market economy the connection between work and paid employment is fundamental for most people most of the time. Many pensioners, like housewives, work very hard for love, and there are unemployed people who put their free time to good use, unpaid. And there are also those who deliberately misuse and exploit the system. But none of this affects the central issue: enforced mass unemployment is a personal and social disaster on a huge scale. It has to be abolished.

The background

We re-invented full employment during World War II; and after the war, in a seller's market, we went on enjoying full employment for nearly 30 years (ie until the oil price hike overtook us in 1974). The price of oil quadrupled and it quadrupled again in 1979. This vastly increased prices and pay demands. We headed into massive inflation and all our present troubles. Public sector borrowing, that began on a new scale in 1961, escalated. It is now running at £50 billion a year.

The Government is telling us (early summer 1993) that the recession is over. This is not so. Will Hutton writes: 'What looks like a recovery now is only an upward oscillation round a declining rate of economic growth in Britain. In Britain economic growth was 3% a year, now it is just over 2% and will fall again to 1.5% if policies do not change.' (New Times, 15th May 1993). There is no sign of change.

'It is useless to wait upon Government action. We need to look to individuals, cooperatives, local communities'

Unemployment is everyone's responsibility. It calls for new thinking and inventive action at every level of society. It is useless to wait upon Government action. We need to look to individuals, entrepreneurs, cooperatives, local communities and regions, banks and financial agencies of all kinds, investors, social inventors, science and technology, the media, the Churches, all educational institutions, the arts - and the EC. What the Government needs to do is to be marginally helpful when called for, and for the rest to get out of the way. It has done enough damage. Full employment has now to be invented as a package of imaginative acts. Government, as catalyst, is part of that.

Identifying particular steps

(l) That the building trade is working constructively is a measure of economic health. This means taking the brakes off local authorities so that they are fully able to use the money they already have, from selling Council houses and flats, to rectify the big issue, i.e. homelessness and inadequate housing, by providing flats and houses for rent.

(2) Encourage private finance to emulate the remarkable example of Ernest Hall in Halifax whose 'Dean Clough' has been created in ten years, starting from Crossley's derelict mill wherein today some 3000 people work in over 150 enterprises - without any help from the Government. Or the example of Vincent Bollore, in France, who in the same ten years has transformed a family company about to go broke into a massive diversified group employing tens of thousands of people. Mere industrial parks are not enough. A new complex of values is called for: high quality work, mutual respect, small management teams, autonomy, instant access to the boss, his concern for staff, good training, above average pay, lifestyle and the arts. And learning from the Japanese.

(3) Set up an investment bank (or create investment sections in existing banks) exclusively concerned with providing seed-money for new small and medium enterprises. And doing it with the support of private investors.

(4) Find ways to provide tax, rates and rent concessions for short periods for new enterprises.

(5) Encourage young people who want to go back to the land, full-time or part-time, to do so. Take whatever steps might be necessary to make that possible.

(6) Take whatever drastic steps may be called for to deal with the absurd price of land. Land is a gift of nature and has no 'value'. It is a gift that should be vested in the community.

(7) Promote regional production for regional consumption. Cut out masses of unnecessary transport that only puts prices up.

(9) Encourage the local media - press, radio and TV - to promote a sustained debate over how local people can, and are, taking on the problem of unemployment.

'The unemployed are told that once they are on the dole it is criminal to work'

(11) At present the unemployed are told, in effect, that once they are on the dole it is criminal to work. What they could be told is that 'unemployed pay will in future approximate to half-pay and you are fully entitled and positively encouraged to find part-time work yielding as much again, without any loss of benefit'.

(12) Conduct a make-Britain-beautiful campaign with funding from all possible sources except that of central government and with special reference to the voluntary sector.

(13) Look for niches in the little known markets of the world, especially in Africa and the East - negotiating specially tailored deals.

(14) Drop Trident, the New European Fighter and the arms trade - appreciating that this will mean a considerable loss of work. Proceed to conversion. If our basic imperative is moral, as it has to be, there is no way that we can go on with the killing trade after the end of the Cold War - no matter what it costs.

(15) Look to the EC and the future Europe of the Regions for extra help. Proceed immediately to start work on an England of the regions and the autonomy of Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales.

(16) To underpin all this and to provide a new non-party political structure for the country as a whole - create a new complex of single-figure house-groups everywhere and leave party-politics behind - thus making it possible for every interested person to get actively involved. Groups will then create their own networks to serve every imaginable purpose.

'Dispatch the horrendous idea that life, politics and reality itself are primarily economic. Life is about joy and sorrow'

(17) Finally, dispatch the horrendous idea that life, politics and reality itself are primarily economic. This is, or was, a gross notion invented by Jeremy Bentham and re-incarnated by Mrs Thatcher. Life is about joy and sorrow, and everything material needs to be subordinated accordingly. We have to put money back in its place and that requires original thinking and the best possible management.

Peter Cadogan, Values and Visions, 3 Hinchinbrook House, Greville Road, London NW6 5UP (tel 020 7 328 3709).

'The unemployed are told that once they are on the dole it is criminal to work'

Uh-huh...riiiiiight.

Note: this is one of many idiocies in this article, though I imagine it's also probably the most severe.

'The unemployed are told that once they are on the dole it is criminal to work'

Note: this is one of many idiocies in this article, though I imagine it's also probably the most severe.

Actually, in Britain, it's probably close to the mark. Let me do a quick re-write:

'The victims are told that once they are attacked it is criminal to defend themselves'

That's the way the British think - and why Monty Python was a documentary series, not humor...

"Mass unemployment is not essentially an economic problem. It is a moral matter."

How can unemployment be generalized as a moral issue? Unless you view unemployment from a strictly communist point of reference, it's impossible to objectively judge it as immoral.

The author of this article is an idiot. People have a right to work, but they don't have a right to force other people to hire them. Unemployment is not political, it is economic. Maybe if our govt would stop imposing rules on employers that hamper productivity (minimum wage laws, ADA, OHSA laws, Family Medical Leave Act) they fewer would be unemployed.

it's impossible to objectively judge it as immoral.
If you objectively view employment and working for a goal as being better than sitting on your duff and collecting unemployment, or in this case "The Dole" which means more of a forced welfare system, then it is a moral issue.

The author of this article is an idiot. People have a right to work, but they don't have a right to force other people to hire them
Did you even read the article? In bold here's one of the points:
'It is useless to wait upon Government action. We need to look to individuals, cooperatives, local communities'
Encourage private finance to emulate the remarkable example of Ernest Hall
...with funding from all possible sources except that of central government

"Take whatever drastic steps may be called for to deal with the absurd price of land. Land is a gift of nature and has no 'value'. It is a gift that should be vested in the community."

Here is another 'idiocy'. Private property rights are fundamental to creating jobs and an economy. The other idiocy is that there is no reference as to who will be doing the 'vesting' of property. Paradoxically, if land is 'vested' in a community then there is still 'ownership' of some form as an end result - but 'land is a gift'!

Ability to work is fundamental to self-respect

Might be a survival value, too. Doesn't have to be paid employment, like in a factory, although that has been an easier way than farming in the wilderness for many people. Could be just toiling in the grain and cabbage field all day long all your life. What are jobs but an invention of the industrial revolution. Used to be job openings at the local castle guard, or at the monostery, or with the Crusades. Could be a merchant, who knows.

The article says: "The denial of the right to work is a denial of self-respect and therefore 'a bad'."

No one is denied a right to work. Each of us has the right to work. We just can't force someone else to hire us.

Of course we need to encourage private finance. We can do that best by getting out of the business of regulating businesses to death with an alphabet soup of agencies designed to make going into business ever more difficult.

I'm not sure what part of my post you are arguing with...

How about this as prime example of his idocies in this article:

The calculated political imposition of unemployment since 1979, to reduce demand and undermine the unions in the cause of reducing inflation, is an offence against society. There were other ways to solve those problems, as the Germans and the Japanese have shown.

Anyone over 21 who says that the Japanese and Germans have solved the problem of unemployment has to be on drugs, flunked current history, and lives in a dream world. Japan's full employment at any costs has tanked its economy for close to a decade. The German Socialists are bankrupting their country and heading towards massive unemployment and some really tough times when one of their best customers, Uncle Soddomite takes the dirt bath headed his way.

There are some parallels with America. Alsn Greenspan for years decided that unemployment at a rate of 6% was "natural" and would keep inflation down. Just a cooked up theory to suppress the labor market and increse short term profits to employers.

It was a ruse. The new one is tacitly encouraged mass immigration of illegals, "because we need labor", to suppress Americans' wages. Globalists double up the pressure on Americans by pushing the state to hasten the export of jobs. Greenspan and his ilk obsess about the stock market and denigrate the labor market, and adulate bubble economies.

I predict inflation will return, or a big fall of the dollar, with the new massive deficit spending in a new world where we can't export our dollars as easily as before. The Euro is gaining a growing share of the world currency market. The dollar is declining as a currency in Russia. Maybe a plan is to dump the dollars in Iraq or someplace else. Brave new markets!

"Mass unemployment is not essentially an economic problem. It is a moral matter. Ability to work is fundamental to self-respect"

"From each according to his ability, to each according to his need."

Just about sums it up, eh?

--Boris

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