[lbo-talk] Towards a New WPA, was Re: Roubini/labor market stats

[SA]

Carrol Cox wrote:
> Doug Henwood wrote:
>   
>> On Dec 13, 2008, at 2:37 PM, MICHAEL YATES wrote:
>>
>>     
>>> You can find almost anything labor market related at the BLS site (www.bls.gov
>>> ) and many good articles
>>> in Monthly Labor Review (online through the BLS site).
>>>       
>> You probably won't find anything about "underemployment" though. I
>> once asked a BLS guy why they didn't collect that sort of data. His
>> answer: say someone who thinks he's a violinist is working as a cab
>> driver. Maybe he's not a very good violinist. Is he underemployed?
>>     
>
> I would say he was definitely unemployed, and that a New WPA would
> rigorously carry out the implicit but imperfectly implemented policy of
> the originla WPA: Craft the job to fit the applicant, not the applicant
> to fit the job. I.E., a really good government program would pay a bad
> violinist to practice his craft. There is probably some limit to this,
> but that limit would be _well beyond_ the point at which only good
> violinists got to earn the ir living as violinists. In a decent society
> some pretty so-so violinists would be able to exist as such, 'full time"
> whatever that might be.
>   

Okay, I'll take the bait.

The WPA existed to give people jobs who otherwise couldn't have gotten 
any jobs at all and who thus would have been unable to make a living. It 
was created to address the problem of vast unemployment, not vast under- 
or mal-employment. By contrast, in an economy where most people who want 
a job can get one, starting a WPA to allow the cab-driving mediocre 
violinist to stop driving cabs and start playing the violin would merely 
reallocate labor from an activity that society values (cab-driving) to 
one it doesn't value (mediocre violin-playing). Which raises the next 
question: Would the violinist be employed to play the violin alone in an 
empty room or would some means be devised to "encourage" people to go to 
his concerts?

Don't get me wrong, I'm completely in sympathy with the underlying 
sentiment here. The so-so violinist's ability to practice and explore 
his craft, irrespective of its market market, is part of what makes a 
society a decent society. But that's why Marx was right about the value 
of technical progress that increases productivity and thus can reduce 
labor time, freeing up time for things that don't directly contribute to 
the animal needs. It's also why ideas like a guaranteed income are 
interesting. But I don't think this idea makes a lot of sense.

SA