Speaking about the controversial political issue on employment or jobs, I’d like to share my experience.
Technically I am jobless; that’s because I don’t have an employer who pays me in salary. I also don’t run a formal business or enterprise, so I am not a business person.
Yet to survive, my livelihood depends on a mishmash of several accrued tasks; particularly free lance sales agent work for clients who trades the Philippine equity market, my own personal investments or trades, provides consultancy work for a broker firm via newsletters and doing this blog (where I earn a smidgen from sponsored ads).
In other words, while I am technically unemployed (if measured in wages), I have many jobs.
So the issue isn’t the lack of jobs- that’s because basically everyone can find something to do (like me)-but one of income or the willingness of someone to pay for service rendered and whose payment is acceptable to those providing the labor.
And here we find GMU's Professor Don Boudreaux arguments fundamentally valid and applicable, (bold highlights mine)
``The reason you refuse my offer of a (full-time!) job is because what you really want is not the opportunity to toil for someone else but, rather, the income that you can earn by toiling.
``No matter how prestigious the job, few of us are willing to toil unless we're paid to do so.
``The reverse, of course, isn't true. Nearly all of us are willing to be paid without having to toil for it.
``Only a moment of reflection is necessary to make clear that no society can survive if significant numbers of its denizens try living without working -- without producing. So the reverse course of action -- being paid without working -- is impossible to generalize. It's impossible to establish such a course of action as a general policy open to all.”
My comment:
Put differently, the politically colored issue of unemployment or the lack of jobs is essentially a diversion to promote entitlement "free lunch" privileges by means of interventionism.
Yet, interventionism precludes the elementary societal function that requires that we have to provide or produce what the markets needs or wants for us to be able to consume and survive.
Again Professor Boudreaux,(bold highlights mine)
``By speaking incessantly about "jobs" we lose sight of the above realities. What each person ultimately wants is not a job. What each person wants is income -- the ability to consume -- that enables ready access to a rich, and hopefully growing, array of goods and services.
``And in a society that affords widespread prosperity, income is attainable for each willing worker not by merely producing, but by producing goods and services that other people value.
``Rather than speak of "jobs," therefore, I wish that people who discuss economics would speak instead of "value-producing opportunities."
``Such a term is unquestionably awkward. But the clarity of thought that would be promoted by replacing "job" with "value-producing opportunity" would more than offset the cumbersome terminology.
``This change in word usage would make clearer that what people seek are not opportunities to toil. It would indicate more directly that what people want is maximum possible opportunities to produce value, for only by producing something that other people value will those other people pay a worker handsomely for his or her toiling.
``Substituting "value-producing opportunity" would also help expose the flaws in policies such as protectionism and government make-work programs. Such policies can indeed transfer wealth from society at large to people whose jobs exist only because government relieves them of the need to participate fairly in the market process. But such "jobs" clearly are not "value-producing opportunities" -- for the amount of value that such workers produce is less than they are paid.
``And no society can long survive by institutionalizing such unproductive policies on a widespread scale.”
My comment
As a final thought, interventionism via inflationism that essentially redirects resources from what is required by the market aimed at promoting the interest of a politically vested few leads NOT to more “value producing opportunity” or job based INCOME but LESS. That's because governments essentially don't create wealth, they can only tax and redistribute.
Yet we can’t expect an economy to become wealthy by simply having everyone to dig holes and fill them. Unfortunately, politicians, academic dogmatists and mainstream media tells us otherwise.
It's odd how deception can be construed and imbued as the truth.
Technically I am jobless; that’s because I don’t have an employer who pays me in salary. I also don’t run a formal business or enterprise, so I am not a business person.
Yet to survive, my livelihood depends on a mishmash of several accrued tasks; particularly free lance sales agent work for clients who trades the Philippine equity market, my own personal investments or trades, provides consultancy work for a broker firm via newsletters and doing this blog (where I earn a smidgen from sponsored ads).
In other words, while I am technically unemployed (if measured in wages), I have many jobs.
So the issue isn’t the lack of jobs- that’s because basically everyone can find something to do (like me)-but one of income or the willingness of someone to pay for service rendered and whose payment is acceptable to those providing the labor.
And here we find GMU's Professor Don Boudreaux arguments fundamentally valid and applicable, (bold highlights mine)
``The reason you refuse my offer of a (full-time!) job is because what you really want is not the opportunity to toil for someone else but, rather, the income that you can earn by toiling.
``No matter how prestigious the job, few of us are willing to toil unless we're paid to do so.
``The reverse, of course, isn't true. Nearly all of us are willing to be paid without having to toil for it.
``Only a moment of reflection is necessary to make clear that no society can survive if significant numbers of its denizens try living without working -- without producing. So the reverse course of action -- being paid without working -- is impossible to generalize. It's impossible to establish such a course of action as a general policy open to all.”
My comment:
Put differently, the politically colored issue of unemployment or the lack of jobs is essentially a diversion to promote entitlement "free lunch" privileges by means of interventionism.
Yet, interventionism precludes the elementary societal function that requires that we have to provide or produce what the markets needs or wants for us to be able to consume and survive.
Again Professor Boudreaux,(bold highlights mine)
``By speaking incessantly about "jobs" we lose sight of the above realities. What each person ultimately wants is not a job. What each person wants is income -- the ability to consume -- that enables ready access to a rich, and hopefully growing, array of goods and services.
``And in a society that affords widespread prosperity, income is attainable for each willing worker not by merely producing, but by producing goods and services that other people value.
``Rather than speak of "jobs," therefore, I wish that people who discuss economics would speak instead of "value-producing opportunities."
``Such a term is unquestionably awkward. But the clarity of thought that would be promoted by replacing "job" with "value-producing opportunity" would more than offset the cumbersome terminology.
``This change in word usage would make clearer that what people seek are not opportunities to toil. It would indicate more directly that what people want is maximum possible opportunities to produce value, for only by producing something that other people value will those other people pay a worker handsomely for his or her toiling.
``Substituting "value-producing opportunity" would also help expose the flaws in policies such as protectionism and government make-work programs. Such policies can indeed transfer wealth from society at large to people whose jobs exist only because government relieves them of the need to participate fairly in the market process. But such "jobs" clearly are not "value-producing opportunities" -- for the amount of value that such workers produce is less than they are paid.
``And no society can long survive by institutionalizing such unproductive policies on a widespread scale.”
My comment
As a final thought, interventionism via inflationism that essentially redirects resources from what is required by the market aimed at promoting the interest of a politically vested few leads NOT to more “value producing opportunity” or job based INCOME but LESS. That's because governments essentially don't create wealth, they can only tax and redistribute.
Yet we can’t expect an economy to become wealthy by simply having everyone to dig holes and fill them. Unfortunately, politicians, academic dogmatists and mainstream media tells us otherwise.
It's odd how deception can be construed and imbued as the truth.
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