According to Progressive / neo-Marxist thinking, without government, people would die of starvation, even forget how to breath.
According to this view, from whatever arbitrarily chosen low point was employment in the past, all the increase since then is due to the government. (So was all the employment at that low point, but claiming that would too clearly expose the Progressive / neo-Marxist thinking.)
The contrary position is that a free-market economy tends, over the long run, to generate enough jobs so that we wind up with full employment, approximated as 4 - 6 percent unemployment. This happens through the “spontaneous order” of the marketplace.
Sometimes this is characterized by “Supply creates its own demand,” as said by the French economist Jean-Baptiste Say.
The way this works is as follows: Let’s say a new person slips into the economy from another dimension. The person, a he, she, both or neither, as who knows the sexuality of such persons, takes a job away from a hard-working American or perhaps even creates a job from nothing by opening a business.
This entity earns money and either spends it or saves it (Things get a little more complex if we assume the entity directly consumes the money, taking the money out of the money supply, and I could pursue the consequences of such disappearances of money, but not on this thread.)
To the extent the entity spends it, she / he or it (pronounced “she-he-it”) pumps demand into the marketplace as would support another job.
To the extent the entity saves the money, the financial system invests the money on the entity’s behalf, likewise pumping demand back into the marketplace.
Either way, like I said, supply creates its own demand.
Obviously, there’s the business cycle, and this “supply creating its own demand” thing doesn’t always happen. There are times when production of particular things gets out of kilter with demand for those things. For example, too many people making doo-hickies as compared to the demand for those rascally things, causing people in the doo-hickie industry to lose their jobs and investments.
If there’s a healthy profit motive out there, the existence of unemployed people and capital equipment, along with low interest rates, will spur the entrepreneurs amongst to start new businesses and get the economy back up to full employment.
Only, thanks to Mr. Big Ears in the White House and others like him, profits have been made into an evil thing, and are at the risk of being subject to confiscatory taxation and regulation. Hence, none of those bad entrepreneurs are getting us out of the tough times we’re in.
But not to worry, under Hebert Hoover and FDR, the economy languished in under-employment for twelve years. So, being only four years into this period of depressed economic conditions, we have many more years of this stuff to look forward to. And, the answer to that other extended period of depressed economic conditions was a world war, genocide, and mass bombings culminating in the dropping of two atomic bombs.
Such is the power of government!
Great thoughts come from Great Thinkers. A Salute to a Great Thinker. Preparation was underway twelve years prior to the four years endured. May the preparation have been enough.