> Mike and SA say that full employment means
> more freedom from the boss, which seems ridiculous even beyond the
> surface level objection that work-is-freedom is a nonsense statement.
On Wed, Oct 26, 2011 at 8:02 AM, Eric Beck <ersatzdog at gmail.com> wrote:
> Three centuries of, e.g., the English Poor Laws had more effect than
> something so mystical as the Protestant ethic, I'm willing to bet. The
> very-long-term continued existence of which is a reminder that full
> employment, and the desire to work that armchair Keynesians assume,
> has to be continually enforced.
This discussion is well past the point of diminishing returns. But despite our having repeated ourselves many times you are still misunderstanding or misrepresenting our argument. It does not depend on the assumption of a 'desire to work' for work's sake, that there is an inherent dignity of work, that work will set you free, or that work is good for anything but producing what people need or want. The fact is that the lower the unemployment rate, the more power workers have over hours, conditions and pay. The mere desire not to work, on the other hand, gets you precisely nothing.
Mike