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An experimental program in Austria that creates work for the unemployed

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Re: An experimental program in Austria that creates work for the unemployed

#91

Post by lordnacho »

pfisherman wrote: post #29
cocacola1 wrote: post #3

These two paragraphs in particular stuck out to me: > Critics of labor-market programs such as the Job Guarantee argue that they enable precisely this sort of choice—they make it easier to decline work that one doesn’t like. One program participant in his thirties told me that, while on unemployment benefits, he’d been offered a job cleaning toilets at a gas station; he’d decided that he didn’t want “that sort of job…

> Austrian employers, like those in America, are currently having difficulty hiring people to take hard, poorly paid jobs Sounds like a signal from the market that they are not paying enough. One might argue about how social welfare programs and / or importing cheap labor distort the labor market; but it doesn’t change the fact that jobs are the dregs of the labor market.

What does distort mean?

Penicillin distorts the growth of bacteria.

This will sound like a crazy commie rant to some people, but the trick that the powerful have played on is all is to think there's some natural market condition that is had for us to influence.

Re: An experimental program in Austria that creates work for the unemployed

#92

Post by hef19898 »

unity1001 wrote: post #33
cocacola1 wrote: post #3

These two paragraphs in particular stuck out to me: > Critics of labor-market programs such as the Job Guarantee argue that they enable precisely this sort of choice—they make it easier to decline work that one doesn’t like. One program participant in his thirties told me that, while on unemployment benefits, he’d been offered a job cleaning toilets at a gas station; he’d decided that he didn’t want “that sort of job…

> who would do the grungy, difficult work Robots.

Nah, too expensive as long as there are poor and desperate people that can be abused.

Re: An experimental program in Austria that creates work for the unemployed

#93

Post by almost_usual »

unity1001 wrote: post #33
cocacola1 wrote: post #3

These two paragraphs in particular stuck out to me: > Critics of labor-market programs such as the Job Guarantee argue that they enable precisely this sort of choice—they make it easier to decline work that one doesn’t like. One program participant in his thirties told me that, while on unemployment benefits, he’d been offered a job cleaning toilets at a gas station; he’d decided that he didn’t want “that sort of job…

> who would do the grungy, difficult work Robots.

At that point Robots will do all the work.

Re: An experimental program in Austria that creates work for the unemployed

#94

Post by pastacacioepepe »

mgrthrow wrote: post #10
thriftwy wrote: post #6

In Soviet Union, they were. Among other things, universal employment shown to do the same as no employment: a lot of people binge drinking and not caring to do anything useful with their life. Work ethic problems surfaced in a bad way.

The soviets also had the problem that they were an autocracy who had little regard for the conditions of their people. They were also huge . Community level programs like this can be much more functionally democratic and uplifting.

> The soviets also had the problem that they were an autocracy who had little regard for the conditions of their people.

This is just false.

In the USSR life expectancy went from 30 years in 1925 to 69 years in 1990[0]. On the other hand, in the US it started declining in 2015 without having recovered yet[1].

In the USSR, "In 1926, the literacy rate was 56.6 percent of the population. By 1937, according to census data, the literacy rate was 86% for men and 65% for women, making a total literacy rate of 75%"[2].

The USSR was also the first country in the world to legalize abortion, and it championed gender equality. In the meantime the US is going in the direction of banning abortion once again.

I have yo ask you, what you do mean by "conditions of the people"?

- [0]: https://www.statista.com/statistics/1041395/life-expectancy-...

- [1]: https://www.statista.com/statistics/1040079/life-expectancy-...

- [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education_in_the_Soviet_Union

Re: An experimental program in Austria that creates work for the unemployed

#95

Post by [deleted] »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #12
maerF0x0 wrote: post #11

One idea I've toyed with is that unemployment is actually a societal refusal to help eachother. Yes we all need sustenance, but consider something like this If I'm laid off I can choose to still program. If I don't my time might simply be wasted (eg on videogames, netflix, or even job applications). But I can also choose to continue to program. Maybe by helping local businesses, contributing to FOSS etc. While I unde…

How do they pay for food, housing, and healthcare in this model? A family member who is retired performs volunteer work (adjacent industry to what they did while employed) because their Social Security comfortably covers all of their expenses (and Medicare covers their healthcare). Without these age tested basic income and benefits (and me providing no cost housing), this would not be an option. They would be toiling…

[deleted]

Re: An experimental program in Austria that creates work for the unemployed

#96

Post by JoeyBananas »

pengaru wrote: post #65
pjmorris wrote: post #56

Job guarantees make more sense to me than UBI; the government only has to pay for those who aren't employed elsewhere while it still sets a floor for the entire economy about how bad a job can be, squeezing out jobs that are worse than the JG jobs. But I'm still collecting facts and quite open to being wrong. On my list to read: 'The case for a job guarantee', Tcherneva. [0] ' http://pavlina-tcherneva.net/the-case-fo…

It seems like a no-brainer to me for Social Security to include Guaranteed Employment of a full-time federal minimum-wage income position. Just add a debit card to the social security card citizens receive. They can use the debit card to withdraw up to a full-time minimum-wage amt of money per month. If they take the income, it's assumed they did some kind of proportional work. I don't think there's even any need to…

What you are suggesting would not be guaranteed employment, it would be UBI wrapped in a lie. Ignoring problems with the system (i.e., fraud) would not address any of the reasons why there is not already UBI in the United States. Your idea is crazy beyond the Overton window.

Re: An experimental program in Austria that creates work for the unemployed

#97

Post by Barrin92 »

Hizonner wrote: post #57
Barrin92 wrote: post #35

I think these programs are very positive. One thing that worries me today is the reductive way we talk about work often. On the one hand there's the "just give them cash, let the market figure it out" aspect that just reduces work to a commodity, on the other there's the 'all work is terrible' mentality. Oddly enough both have a sort of similar disregard for work in a way. There's really a lack of discussion about th…

If you don't want work to be treated as a commodity, then you need to stop coupling it tightly to how you make your living (the problem being that we're not yet quite technologically ready to do that...). If work is so "meaning-giving and social", then people will presumably do it even if they don't have to do it to eat, and even if the boss isn't breathing down their necks.

I sort of disagree with that. Work can provide meaning if its entirely voluntary, but for many people the fact that it's necessary, sustaining and vital is part of what makes work meaningful. An important aspect of the value of work is that if you didn't do your work, there's real consequences to that. Otherwise very quickly you go from work to something that is more like a game or a hobby in nature. And while games and hobbies are great, they don't really fulfill the same need. On the boss part I agree of course, but that's an orthogonal issue.

Re: An experimental program in Austria that creates work for the unemployed

#98

Post by visarga »

maerF0x0 wrote: post #11

One idea I've toyed with is that unemployment is actually a societal refusal to help eachother. Yes we all need sustenance, but consider something like this If I'm laid off I can choose to still program. If I don't my time might simply be wasted (eg on videogames, netflix, or even job applications). But I can also choose to continue to program. Maybe by helping local businesses, contributing to FOSS etc. While I unde…

> creating small communes of collusion amongst your social circle. You collude together to ensure that eachother gets what they need, at least amongst the valuable skills in the circle

Exactly. What are a bunch of unemployed, skilled people with unmet needs to do? Sit on their hands and be content to get their UBI? No, you help yourself, and try to be part of a community that does the same. People can build, fix, teach, heal, transport, cultivate, we just need resources to do that, with a little help we can do most of it on our own. Probably we will benefit from smart materials, better batteries, robots and AIs that can help us be self reliant faster. It will be easier for the state to have a self reliant population. But some things will still need to remain, like chip factories, large industries and training the AI models.

Re: An experimental program in Austria that creates work for the unemployed

#99

Post by pastacacioepepe »

VictorPath wrote: post #42

Karl Marx said unemployment was a foundational necessity of capitalism (although not the feudalism that preceded capitalism), so I don't see this program lasting long ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reserve_army_of_labour ).

No need to bother Marx, plenty of economists will tell you that the market needs unemployment or "bad things will happen".

I think unemployment simply can't be solved in a capitalist society, as it would expose a major contradiction of liberist economies.

We tell people they have to work or they're parasites and don't deserve to have their basic needs covered, but at the same time we need a mass of them to be out of work, in order to be able to exploit the rest.

So much of our lifestyle is built on exploitation of the working class, be it local or foreign.

Re: An experimental program in Austria that creates work for the unemployed

#100

Post by protoman3000 »

Wait a second,

if somebody asks an overinflated way-over productivity wage for cleaning toilets because of a supply shortage, this is considered being unethical and "unwilling to do the dirty work, while receiving benefits",

but asking a way way overinflated price for housing because of a supply shortage is considered good and healthy for the market and drives investment without shaming the investors for receiving undue housing benefits?

Why do we yell at people artificially shortening toilet cleaner supply, while at the same time not yelling at developers for artificially shortening housing supply?

Don't people need to live AND shit?

Looks like it is not about an economic argument after all. Seems like it’s again a pattern of abusing less privileged, weaker, less defensible people. Shaming them for what they naturally and humanly want - and which is the same what the privileged naturally want: To be able to say no, when they want to say no.

Where do these schemes of maliciously founded shame on false grounds come from? How did we start to listen to the voice of the psychopaths which want to divide us?

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