Your Government Owes You a Job

[xchrom]

http://www.alternet.org/hard-times-usa/your-government-owes-you-job



Involuntary unemployment is barbaric. In the wealthiest country in history, almost 30 million people wish they had full-time work. But, as always, there aren’t enough jobs. And because economic security requires decent work, it’s unsurprising that 50 million people are poverty-stricken and 16 million children are hungry.

This is a disgrace and an economic error: The US government can easily afford a Job Guarantee (JG) program, becoming our employer of last resort.

A right to a job may sound outlandish, but it’s common sense . You need dollars to eat, and unless you steal the dollars, you generally have to earn them. If the government wants to protect property with cops, courts, and prisons, issue a single, common currency, and tax and fine us in it, it should at least guarantee we can work for our own dollars. Politicians ramble about equality of opportunity and the dignity of work, but to pull ourselves up by our bootstraps, we need boots. And lest our boots stomp each other’s necks in senseless competition for too few jobs, we need a Job Guarantee.

A Job Guarantee isn’t that radical. Thomas Paine proposed one in 1791. In 1944, FDR included the right to a living wage job in his Second Bill of Rights and his Republican opponent promised state-ensured employment. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights enshrined the right to work and philosophers Rawls and Dewey advocated government provide enough work. LBJ deliberated a JG and Martin Luther King, Jr., demanded one.

[reformist2]

1. Actually, we have a right to a basic income, no need to make up busywork for everyone to do!

[xchrom]

4. i think you have an odd definition of 'free stuff'. nt

[Skidmore]

8. Did you break an axle falling

into a pothole on one of those socialist built roads that rabid capitalists think repair themselves for free and without workers? That will age a Jepp quickly.

[seveneyes]

3. There is a lot of work needing done that isn't getting done

The spattered and ugly graffiti and tagging that smothers our cities needs cleaned up for instance. Trash everywhere, clogged ditches, elderly needing help etc. Call it a jobs program and get the unemployed earning income and doing something productive.

[reformist2]

13. True, but as a poster below points out, a government jobs program could be taken too far.

[Codeine]

7. I consider "From each according to his abilities" to be as important as

"to each according to his needs."

[JoeyT]

9. Agreed.

If we could ever get something like that passed, the idea that we need to make up busywork for people to do will be used to suppress wages. The way prisoners are now, but on a much larger scale.

[Skrups]

11. Glad to know that others feel this way

Hoping that a positive Swiss vote will help spread the idea of basic income. Jobs are being automated so there are less jobs available. You're right, no need for busywork jobs or worse jobs that hurt others, hurt the environment, etc. just so a few can make big profits. Maybe change a typical work week to 20 or 30 hours so others can contribute. Lots of possibilities.

[Cooley Hurd]

5. I'm very-much in favor of a new CCC...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilian_Conservation_Corps

Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) was a public work relief program that operated from 1933 to 1942 in the United States for unemployed, unmarried men from relief families, ages 18–25 as part of the New Deal. Robert Fechner was the head of the agency. It was a major part of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal that provided unskilled manual labor jobs related to the conservation and development of natural resources in rural lands owned by federal, state and local governments. The CCC was designed to provide jobs for young men, to relieve families who had difficulty finding jobs during the Great Depression in the United States while at the same time implementing a general natural resource conservation program in every state and territory. Maximum enrollment at any one time was 300,000; in nine years 3 million young men participated in the CCC, which provided them with shelter, clothing, and food, together with a small wage of $30 a month ($25 of which had to be sent home to their families).

The American public made the CCC the most popular of all the New Deal programs. Principal benefits of an individual's enrollment in the CCC included improved physical condition, heightened morale, and increased employability. Implicitly, the CCC also led to a greater public awareness and appreciation of the outdoors and the nation's natural resources; and the continued need for a carefully planned, comprehensive national program for the protection and development of natural resources.

During the time of the CCC, volunteers planted nearly 3 billion trees to help reforest America, constructed more than 800 parks nationwide and upgraded most state parks, updated forest fire fighting methods, and built a network of service buildings and public roadways in remote areas.

The CCC operated separate programs for veterans and Native Americans.

Despite its popular support, the CCC was never a permanent agency. It depended on emergency and temporary Congressional legislation for its existence. By 1942, with World War II and the draft in operation, need for work relief declined and Congress voted to close the program.

[malaise]

6. But but but

Private prisons have to be filled

[rhett o rick]

10. Duck, the Capitalist Gods will strike you with a lightening bolt. In my mind the whole idea of

wealth is to have more than your neighbor. If I were to feed my neighbor (share my wealth) and end up with the same amount of resources, then neither would have any relative wealth. And wealth is the goal of capitalism. If our goal is to feed hungry children then we will have to put some restrictions on rampant wealth accumulation. There, I said it w/o using the "S" word.

[marmar]

12. k/r

[nashville_brook]

14. k and r

[bvar22]

15. There was a time when the Democratic Party considered that a Fundamental Human Right,

and Made SURE that it was implemented.

In our day these economic truths have become accepted as self-evident. We have accepted, so to speak, a second Bill of Rights under which a new basis of security and prosperity can be[font size=3] established for all—regardless of station, race, or creed.[/font]

Among these are:

*The right to a useful and remunerative job in the industries or shops or farms or mines of the nation;

*The right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation;

*The right of every farmer to raise and sell his products at a return which will give him and his family a decent living;

*The right of every businessman, large and small, to trade in an atmosphere of freedom from unfair competition and domination by monopolies at home or abroad;

*The right of every family to a decent home;

*The right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health;

*The right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accident, and unemployment;

*The right to a good education.

All of these rights spell security. And after this war is won we must be prepared to move forward, in the implementation of these rights, to new goals of human happiness and well-being.

[font size=3]America's own rightful place in the world depends in large part upon how fully these and similar rights have been carried into practice for all our citizens.[/font]
---FDR, State of the Union, 1944

Please note that the above are stipulated as Basic Human RIGHTS to be protected by our government,
and NOT as COMMODITIES to be SOLD to Americans by For Profit Corporations.

There was a time in MY living memory when voting FOR The Democrats
was voting FOR the above Human Rights.
Sadly, this is no longer true.