Modern Money & Public Purpose 8: Economic Rights
ModernMoneyNetwork
5,593 views
GUARANTEED INCOME OR EMPLOYMENT:
ECONOMIC RIGHTS FOR THE 21ST CENTURY
Speakers:
Pavlina Tcherneva, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Economics at Bard College & Research Scholar at the Levy Economics Institute
Philip T. Harvey, Ph.D. J.D., Professor of Law and Economics at Rutgers School of Law-Camden.
Moderator:
Gertrude Schaffner Goldberg, Professor of Social Policy, Adelphi University of Social Work
This seminar focuses on the social, political and economic justifications for securing a legal right to meaningful work and basic material wellbeing, as well as historical examples of direct public employment programs from various nations including the United States, Argentina and India. Questions to be addressed include:
Should individuals have a legal right to work and/or basic material wellbeing?
Can we afford a job or income guarantee?
What would a job or income guarantee look like?
What can we learn from direct employment programs from the past and abroad?
Further reading: http://www.modernmoneynetwork.org/sem...
9 Comments
Real "Rights" are things you can do on an island by yourself. You can go where you want, say what you want, eat what you want, wear what you want etc. If we expand this a bit we get rights like free association.
Certainly you have a right to work in the sense that a no one can tell you to sit on you back side and do nothing. But that is not at all what this speaker is advocating. You have the right to work or not work. But you don't have a right to work and be paid. That would require harming someone else (an employer or taxpayer) by requiring them to subsidize your labor. And I have not even touched on the fact that it is impossible to guarantee employment since it is by it's very nature a scarce resource.
It concerns me that so many people with such distinguished degrees and academic achievements can be so incredibly foolish.
Remember, labor is a scarce resource. Unemployment exists as a natural and necessary function of a free economy as scarce resources are transferred to their highest and best use.
We have seen the type of system she is advocating tried before in the former Soviet Union. Massive labor shortages caused massive inefficiencies in the economy causing an over production of some goods and a shortage in others.
This woman for all her complex theories about labor and unemployment does not understand the first thing about what economic principals actually create wealth. For all her good intentions, these policies (like most that come from those in power) will hurt the very people she seeks to help.
Modern Money & Public Purpose 8: Economic Rights
ModernMoneyNetwork
5,593 views
GUARANTEED INCOME OR EMPLOYMENT:
ECONOMIC RIGHTS FOR THE 21ST CENTURY
Speakers:
Pavlina Tcherneva, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Economics at Bard College & Research Scholar at the Levy Economics Institute
Philip T. Harvey, Ph.D. J.D., Professor of Law and Economics at Rutgers School of Law-Camden.
Moderator:
Gertrude Schaffner Goldberg, Professor of Social Policy, Adelphi University of Social Work
This seminar focuses on the social, political and economic justifications for securing a legal right to meaningful work and basic material wellbeing, as well as historical examples of direct public employment programs from various nations including the United States, Argentina and India. Questions to be addressed include:
Should individuals have a legal right to work and/or basic material wellbeing?
Can we afford a job or income guarantee?
What would a job or income guarantee look like?
What can we learn from direct employment programs from the past and abroad?
Further reading: http://www.modernmoneynetwork.org/sem...