georgephillip
Diamond Member
- Thread starter
- #21
Do you have a shortage of holes in your streets?Sounds outlandish, doesn't it?
"A right to a job may sound outlandish, but its 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 others necks in senseless competition for too few jobs, we need a job guarantee.
"A job guarantee isnt 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."
Your Government Owes You a Job | The Nation
Since US Capitalism prefers extracting wealth as opposed to producing wealth leading to a situation where median household income today, adjusted for inflation, is lower than it was in 1989, it becomes clear that US capitalism no longer delivers the goods for a majority of its citizens.
The democratic solution calls for government to provide what the private sector is no longer capable of providing.
Well, we could take every unemployed US citizen and give them jobs.
Pay half of them to dig holes and pay the other half to fill the holes. 100% employment achieved.
Unfortunately, digging useless holes, then filling said useless holes contributes nothing to society even though it provides 100% employment.
"The employment corps could address a host of national human and physical infrastructure needs including the building and restoration of roads, highways, dams, museums, parks, the postal service, child care centers, health clinics and schools.
"It could serve as a pilot site for the implementation of innovative green technologies that would enhance our environmental health. And the jobs could offer decent pay and benefits.
"We propose that the minimum salary for jobs in the employment corps would be $23,000 and provide a benefits package that would include the health insurance options offered to all federal employees. We estimate that the average cost per job directly created by the employment corps would be $50,000 including..."
Federal Law Requires Job Creation - NYTimes.com