Employment as a human right

As I indicated earlier this week, I will progressively add notes to the body of work that will become the manuscript for my next book (with long-time co-author Joan Muysken) on the – Future of Work. As I write bits and pieces, I will post them here for comments and feedback. The book will be published sometime in 2018. At present, I am working on the philosophical considerations that we will deploy to underpin the more prescriptive elements (policy proposals) that we will produce. Today, I have been writing about the ethical basis for work. This is derived from work I did at the turn of the century. Part of the text today was written in collaboration with a former colleague John Burgess and the body of work we produced was subsequently published in several periodicals and book chapters around that time. However, the ideas sketched here were taken from parts of the papers that I mostly wrote although trying to decipher the exact division of labour is impossible. In that sense, I acknowledge the fruitful nature of my interaction with John at that time and the body of work we produced together.

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When Austrians ate dogs

You will notice a new ‘category’ on the right-side menu – Future of Work. It will collect all the blogs I write as part of the production of my next book (with long-time co-author Joan Muysken) on that topic. We aim to present a philosophical, theoretical and empirical analysis of a plethora of issues surrounding the role, meaning and future of work in a capitalist society. As I complete aspects of the research process I will produce the notes via blogs. Eventually, these notes, plus the input from Joan will be edited to produce a tight manuscript suitable for final publication. Today, I am discussing an important case study that needs to receive wider attention. Its lack of presence is in some part due to the fact that it was written up in German in 1930 and escaped attention of the English-speaking audience until it was translated in 1971. In selected social science circles this study provides classic principles that transcend the historical divide. The relevance of the study is that it provides a coherent case for those, like me, who argue that work has importance to societies well beyond its income-generating function. Humans need more than just income and in a society where work is considered normal time-use and frames the time we spend not working, it is an essential human right. Progressives who think that only income should be guaranteed by the state rather than work miss many essential aspects of the issue. The case study is important in that respect.

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The Weekend Quiz – June 24-25, 2017 – answers and discussion

Here are the answers with discussion for this Weekend’s Quiz. The information provided should help you work out why you missed a question or three! If you haven’t already done the Quiz from yesterday then have a go at it before you read the answers. I hope this helps you develop an understanding of modern monetary theory (MMT) and its application to macroeconomic thinking. Comments as usual welcome, especially if I have made an error.

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Latest Greek bailout – a recipe designed to fail

I have been looking at the latest Greek bailout deal between the Greek government and the European Commission/IMF), which was concluded last week (June 16, 2017) and released a further 8.5 billion euros in new loans to the Greek government which means it can make bond payments due in July. Despite all the statements from the European Commission and the IMF to the contrary, the terms of the deal with the Greek government confirms that these institutions have abandoned any pretence to being interested in serious economic policy. For the European Commission, the desired irrevocable status of the euro, as a political statement, is all it seems interested in when it comes to Greece. They just don’t want to admit that Greece cannot reasonably function in this monetary union. Just like the previous bailout agreements, this deal will fail. It actually only stalls the reality for yet another day and the only goal it serves is to keep Greece using a currency it cannot afford to use – afford in both monetary and real terms.

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If Africa is rich – why is it so poor?

When I was a student, that is, formally studying for degrees rather than the constant-learning approach which makes us permanent students, I was very interested in development economics and have carried that into the career phase of my work, including doing commissioned work for international agencies in Africa and Asia. One of the things I have come up against in that work has been the question of why are the nations in Africa, for example, so poor, when it is obvious to all and sundry that they possess massive resource wealth. My student days introduced me to dependency theory, which provided a solid framework for understanding the nature of underdevelopment. It stood in contrast to the mainstream development theory that was presented in most textbooks and which we would now call the neo-liberal approach. That approach is publicly enunciated by the IMF and the World Bank as if it is reality. In fact, it is a chimera! The framework of development aid and oversight put in place by the richer nations and mediated through the likes of the IMF and the World Bank can be seen more as a giant vacuum cleaner designed to suck resource and financial wealth out of the poorer nations either through legal or illegal means, whichever generates the largest flows. So while Africa is wealthy, its interaction with the world monetary and trade systems, leaves millions of its citizens in extreme poverty – unable to even purchase sufficient nutrition to live. It is a scandal of massive proportions and should become the target of all progressive governments (as they emerge).

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The Weekend Quiz – June 17-18, 2017 – answers and discussion

Here are the answers with discussion for this Weekend’s Quiz. The information provided should help you work out why you missed a question or three! If you haven’t already done the Quiz from yesterday then have a go at it before you read the answers. I hope this helps you develop an understanding of modern monetary theory (MMT) and its application to macroeconomic thinking. Comments as usual welcome, especially if I have made an error.

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When economists ignore the elephant called reality and applicability

I have sat through many economic seminars in my time where there is a sense of suspended reality necessary so the presenter can run through the exercise of bringing their latest research idea to the academic community. This suspended reality normally relates to the a priori assumptions made to condition the exercise and the framework within with the exercise is conducted. It typically involves ignoring the elephant in the room called reality and applicability. The ruse goes like this – assume a, b and c (where none of these assumptions capture the most important aspect of the object of study); then use these analytical tools (none of which reflect how the actual mechanisms being studied operate); and QED we show this. I no longer go to seminars like this – life is too short. An example of this sort of exercise appeared recently in summary form on VoxEu site (June 6, 2017) – Japanese frugality versus Italian profligacy? – written by an MIT academic. Perhaps the salient aspect is that the author was previously a Central Bank governor in Cyprus (2007-12) and a member of the Governing Council of the European Central Bank (2008-12). That experience may have led to his clouded judgement. But more so is the fact that he is a Friedmanite! One of them! That explains everything. The blindness. The failure to see the obvious. The neo-liberal ideology.

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Stuart Chase – a visionary ahead of his time

I recently re-read several books (well books), the first of which was published in 1932, and, the others published in the early 1940s, which were written by a relatively unknown American economist Stuart Chase. He not only wrote about economics but also ventured in the area of semantics (which is one reason I wanted to re-read the collection). As a economist and a social theorist, he was way ahead of his times. Much of his insights and ideas still have currency today, especially as it appears that an oppositional Left is finally starting to emerge from the wreckage of the conventional social democratic political parties and is in no small way due to the engagement of young voters in the political process who know that neo-liberalism is not the way of the future. Stuart Chase understood that the limits of the government’s spending capacity was defined by the available real productive resources and he also understood that the natural environment had to be accessed in a sustainable way. Very modern insights – 75 odd years ago.

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US labour market – poor results – not close to full employment

On June 6, 2017, the US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released their latest labour market data – Employment Situation Summary – May 2017 – which showed that total non-farm employment from the payroll survey rose by just 138,000 in May. While the payroll data confirms an on-going deterioration in job creation, an examination of the Labour Force Survey data presents an even worse picture. The official unemployment rate fell from 4.4 per cent to 4.3 per cent, the lowest rate since May 2001. But the fall in unemployment of some 195 thousand persons was not a sign of strength. Total employment fell by 233 thousand but was a smaller decline than experienced by the labour force (down 429 thousand) on the back of a fall in the participation rate (0.2 percentage points). In other words, hidden unemployment rose while official unemployment fell as workers gave up looking for work in the face of declining employment growth. The estimate of employment change from the Labour Force Survey was also positive (156 thousand net jobs added). There is still a large jobs deficit remaining and other indicators suggest the labour market is still below where it was prior to the crisis. Which makes the claims by a number of analysts that the US jobs market is so strong that inflation is about to accelerate on the back of wages growth (which at present is largely non-existent). In other words, there are many assessments that the unemployment rate has reached the so-called NAIRU (Non-Accelerating Inflation Rate of Unemployment) below which accelerating inflation becomes inevitable. I doubt that assessment.

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The Weekend Quiz – June 10-11, 2017 – answers and discussion

Here are the answers with discussion for this Weekend’s Quiz. The information provided should help you work out why you missed a question or three! If you haven’t already done the Quiz from yesterday then have a go at it before you read the answers. I hope this helps you develop an understanding of modern monetary theory (MMT) and its application to macroeconomic thinking. Comments as usual welcome, especially if I have made an error.

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Income shifts towards profits – a repeating destructive phenomenon

This is an extension of yesterday’s blog on the Australian national accounts release (Australian economy was slowing fast in March-quarter 2017 and outlook negative and delves further into the income side of the results, which are, frankly, stunning. They also accord with general global trends which I have written about in the past, which are creating further income inequality and damaging stable damaging growth prospects. Yesterday’s data confirmed that over the last two quarters (at least) almost all of the income growth has been captured by profits, with real wages and salaries actually falling in the March-quarter 2017. No wonder the growth in consumption spending fell away in the first part of 2017. Does that matter? Well, a rise in the profit share undermines consumption spending. If consumption spending is weak, the opportunities for profitable investment in new productive capital decline. Economies that are growing strongly provide a fertile environment for private investment. Austerity-ridden economies undermine private investment. Economies where consumption is falling due to real wage suppression also do not provide a buoyant investment climate. Flat wages growth in Australia has seen the saving ratio fall back towards zero and households take on ever more debt burdens. The Household debt to disposable income ratio is now at record levels. The declining wage share and the resulting credit binge in many nations were clearly causal in creating the global financial crisis. The mainstream economists believed that the markets were efficient and that there would be no problems with placing an increasing proportion of real income into the hands of the Casino economy. They were wrong. And with the same trends now repeating – they will be wrong again.

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Australia’s minimum wage rises – but not sufficient to end working poverty

Today, the Australian Fair Work Commission (FWC), which is a judicial institution charged with setting minimum wages and conditions announced the outcome of their – Annual Wage Review – 2016-17. The FWC decided to lift the National Minimum wage by 3.3 per cent over the next year at a time when the inflation rate is running around 2.1 per cent. In other words, the lowest-paid workers are finally get a a much-needed real wage increase when other workers (on higher wages) are experiencing record low wages growth and real wage cuts. For years, the relatively between those on minimum wages and those on average earnings has been increasing as the low-paid have been forced to endure regular real wage cuts. In the last year or so that position has reversed as the non-minimum wage workers have been forced to endure record low wage increases and in recent quarters real wage cuts and the FWC has awarded modest real wage increases to the minimum wage workers. However, while today’s decision provides for some real wage growth for the lowest paid workers it is hardly anything to write homeabout, and, in the words of the FWC itself, not sufficient to lift the minimum wage workers who are experiencing working poverty out of that state. Life for low-wage workers in Australia is tough and would be much tougher if there were not enforced regulations to stop the capitalists from taking more and dishing out capricious treatment to the workers.

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Being lectured about the problem by those who created the problem

There are many examples of high profile players in the political arena trying to revise history and reinvent themselves to suit the new climate they are operating in. Tony Blair is a notable example in recent months where he sought to influence the upcoming British election by casting aspersions on the current Labour Party leadership. His past record is so abysmal that anyone in their right mind would just go away and stay silent. But this sort of person – the revisionist reinventers – have a thick hide and a sense of entitlement that most of us couldn’t imagine. I read an article in the American Prospect Magazine last week (June 1, 2017) – The Democrats’ ‘Working-Class Problem’ – written by Stanley B. Greenberg, an American pollster who “works with center-left political parties in the United States and abroad” and so claims to have insights into why people vote the way they do. This was a classic example of being lectured about a problem when the lecturer is himself part of the problem but, seemingly, fails to see that.

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The Weekend Quiz – June 3-4, 2017 – answers and discussion

Here are the answers with discussion for this Weekend’s Quiz. The information provided should help you work out why you missed a question or three! If you haven’t already done the Quiz from yesterday then have a go at it before you read the answers. I hope this helps you develop an understanding of modern monetary theory (MMT) and its application to macroeconomic thinking. Comments as usual welcome, especially if I have made an error.

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A Basic Income Guarantee does not reduce poverty

Poverty arises for a number of reasons but a lack of income has to be a central characteristic of someone who is poor. And notwithstanding the increasing tendency for people who work full-time to be found earning wages that place them below the poverty line, the major reason for people having a lack of income is unemployment. That typically makes poverty a systemic event rather than an individual failure because mass unemployment is easy to understand – it occurs when the system fails to produce enough jobs to meet the desires for work by the available labour force. Then, to understand why the system fails in that way, we know that once the spending and saving decisions of the non-government sector are made, if there is still a spending shortfall in the economy, which generates the mass unemployment, then it has to be because the net spending position of the national government is short. That is, either the fiscal surplus is too large or (usually) the deficit is too small. In that sense, the introduction of a Job Guarantee would eliminate poverty arising from unemployment and the working poor because the Government could condition the minimum wage by where it set the Job Guarantee wage. If it truly desired to end poverty among those in employment then it would set the Job Guarantee accordingly. Others argue that a more direct way of dealing with poverty and lack of income is to just provide the income via a Basic Income Guarantee (BIG). The BIG idea has captured the progressive side of politics and many on the Right. It is another one of those sneaky neo-liberal ideas that look good on the surface but are rotten not far below. Supporters of BIG are really absolving currency-issuing governments of their responsibility to use their fiscal capacities to ensure there are sufficient jobs created – whether in the non-government or government sector. They are thus going along with the neo-liberal attack on the right to work. Moreover, closer analysis reveals that the introduction of the BIG would not, under current institutional arrangements reduce poverty at all.

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The Weekend Quiz – May 20-21, 2017 – answers and discussion

Here are the answers with discussion for this Weekend’s Quiz. The information provided should help you work out why you missed a question or three! If you haven’t already done the Quiz from yesterday then have a go at it before you read the answers. I hope this helps you develop an understanding of modern monetary theory (MMT) and its application to macroeconomic thinking. Comments as usual welcome, especially if I have made an error.

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Real wages now falling in Australia – failing economy and failed policy

In the most recent – Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings: 2016 provisional results – published by the British Office of National Statistics on October 26, 2016, we learn what we had suspected for some time – the purchasing power of workers’ wages are now lower than before the GFC. Neo-liberalism at work in Britain. Today (May 17, 2017), the Australian Bureau of Statistics released its latest – Wage Price Index, Australia – for the March-quarter 2017. For the fifth consecutive quarter, annual growth in wages has recorded its lowest level since the data series began in the December-quarter 1997. Nominal wages growth in Australia was just 1.9 per cent in annual terms below the annual inflation rate for March of 2.1 per cent. So real wages declined even though productivity growth remains positive – which means that the profit share in national income rose again as real unit labour costs plunged. But employment growth also remains flat. This represents a major rip-off for workers. The flat wages trend is also intensifying the pre-crisis dynamics, which saw private sector credit rather than real wages drive growth in consumption spending. As I also noted in last week’s commentary on the 2017 Fiscal Statement – Australian government in contractionary bias when stimulus is needed – the forward estimates for fiscal outcomes provided by the Australian government are already under threat as a result of the cuts in real wages. There is no way the tax receipts will rise in line with the projections, which assumed much stronger wages and employment growth than will occur under current austerity-type fiscal settings

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Why Britain should not worry about Brexit-motivated bank relocations

On April 26, 2017, some smarta*!se journalists wrote a Bloomberg piece – The Brexit Banker Exodus Gains Momentum – with some not-so fancy graphics purporting to show where the “U.K. banking jobs might be headed” allegedly because Britain is to leave the European Union. On May 9, 2017, the increasingly terrible UK Guardian bought in on the frenzy with its article – City banks could move at least 9,000 jobs from UK due to Brexit . And so it goes. Apparently, Deutsche Bank is “leading the threatened exodus”, followed by JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs. All exemplars of virtue, not! While the threat of the ‘City’ leaving London is now used to frighten British people about Brexit, the reality is, in my view, quite different. I would be celebrating the cleaning out this infestation of unproductive enterprises, which remain one of the destructive legacies of Margaret Thatcher and, later, New Labour and its so called ‘light touch regulation’.

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Australia’s Overseas Aid cuts reveal a nation that has lost its spirit

In last week’s fiscal statement (aka ‘the budget’), the Australian government decided to make the poorest citizens in the world, including those living in close proximity to our shores, the target of its austerity mania. It decided to increase Overseas Development Aid (ODA) to match the inflation rate until 2018 and then freeze that contribution for the next two years after that. Effectively cutting real aid over the next four years at a time it forecasts strong growth in total national income. The Government claimed it was just a “pause” and follow several years of cuts in absolute levels of aid. The austerity is not only hampering growth in Australia and maintaining elevated levels of labour underutilisation, but, it is also revealing how mean we are as a nation. As one of the wealthiest nations in the world (currently we are ranked 2nd behind Switzerland for per capita wealth), we are now cutting into the resources we extend to poorer nations in our region as part of a mindless quest for surplus. The problem is not only the economic idiocy that underpins these cuts. The other, perhaps larger problem, of which the first is a symptom is that, as a nation, Australia is losing its moral compass. In this neo-liberal era, we have become an increasingly ugly nation – lacking in generosity to each other and to outsiders. We engage in criminal behaviour (indefinitely detaining refugees in prisons on remote islands; engaging in illegal invasions of foreign nations, etc) and punish poverty rather than do everything we can to reduce it and provide the equal opportunities to all that we so often congratulate ourselves as being champions of. We are a mean-spirited nation these days and an international pariah. There is no pride in holding an Australian passport. It is easy to live here if you have money. The climate is good, the beaches great, plenty of open terrain, great sport – but our national spirit is disappearing.

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The Weekend Quiz – May 13-14, 2017 – answers and discussion

Here are the answers with discussion for this Weekend’s Quiz. The information provided should help you work out why you missed a question or three! If you haven’t already done the Quiz from yesterday then have a go at it before you read the answers. I hope this helps you develop an understanding of modern monetary theory (MMT) and its application to macroeconomic thinking. Comments as usual welcome, especially if I have made an error.

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