Interesting article on the ABC site today, especially given the imminent rise in interest rates:
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-07...e-expected-to-increase-unemployment/101192934
An excerpt:
So, people are sacrificed to the great god that is the economy. On top of that they are harassed and paid a pittance.
If the policy is to deliberately keep a reserve of labour to inhibit wage rises and control inflation, and to do this they need to ensure there are more unemployed than jobs available, then all the BS such as work for the dole, all the punitive surveillance of the unemployed etc, is not justified.
Interest rate rises are a blunt bludgeon to try and control inflation and do not address the underlying causes of inflation.
People should never be sacrificed for "the economy", it is the economy which should serve the people not the other way around.
DS
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-07...e-expected-to-increase-unemployment/101192934
An excerpt:
Because after suffering through stagflation in the 1970s, policymakers wanted to prevent stubbornly high inflation ever becoming a problem again, so they abandoned the post-war policy of "full employment".
In its place, they started trying to keep just enough "slack" in the economy to prevent serious price pressures returning.
And they decided to maintain that slack by having more unemployed people in the economy than jobs available.
It was a radical departure from the previous way of thinking.
As historian Frank Crowley put it: "The ideal of full employment was lost, possibly forever; and politicians became accustomed to a notion which would once have appalled them — an 'acceptable level' of unemployment."
However, there was clearly a moral problem with the policy.
If the unemployed were going to be used as inflation shock absorbers for the economy, shouldn't their role have been officially recognised and appropriately compensated?
So, people are sacrificed to the great god that is the economy. On top of that they are harassed and paid a pittance.
If the policy is to deliberately keep a reserve of labour to inhibit wage rises and control inflation, and to do this they need to ensure there are more unemployed than jobs available, then all the BS such as work for the dole, all the punitive surveillance of the unemployed etc, is not justified.
Interest rate rises are a blunt bludgeon to try and control inflation and do not address the underlying causes of inflation.
People should never be sacrificed for "the economy", it is the economy which should serve the people not the other way around.
DS