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September 11, 2003
I noticed this CIS response to the problem of long-term unemployment. The public policy proposal is by Peter Saunders and Kayoko Tsumori, and they say it woudl be a good idea to place time limits on unemployment benefits. The limit mentioned is six months duration. After six months full time participation in a work-for-the-dole program would be compulsory for anyone capable of working after the six months expired. This proposal, they argue, could reduce the incidence of long-term unemployment by 50%.
That proposal means the unemployed enter a low skills job market with low wages. They will be trained to work for Coles or Woolworths on the checkout on a casual basis. That means more working poor. That means more disaavantaged workers with low skills and education and little individual bargaining power in the marketplace. It's more of the same.
That is seen to be acceptable. The embrace of economic liberalism over the last two decades has seen greater use of markets and individual choice to achieve social ends. This neo-liberal mode of governance has witnessed the turning away from egalitarianism. Efficiency and competitiveness has replaced egalitarianism.
Redistribution of income by governments is seen to impose rising efficiency costs, and it is held that redistribution is becoming increasingly less affordable. As the media release for the CIS Report states, their proposal would "save up to $2 billion per year." It is an argument presented in terms of costs and benefits. Sitting inside the utilitarian calculus is the promotion of individualist values----indicated by the words 'self-reliance' and their sense of 'self-worth.
Behind the talk of means sits the end of public policy. Self-reliance is their ethical value and they are willing to sacrifice some market efficiency to foster the policy end of individual self-reliance. The CIS is actively promoting particular social goals and values.
And Australia has become a less egalitarian society as a result of a neo-liberal mode of governance. And a quite aceptance of inequality has settled in. John McVey over at The Usurer writes in response to an earlier post of mine on employment and Whyalla:
"The short answer is that regional centres such as Whyalla wont get far precisely because they are only regional centres and will have little to offer beyond whatever geographically-specific benefits are available - hell, even Adelaide's size has been questioned. Whyalla's chronic unemployment problems wont be fixed by any labour market policy whether Coalition or otherwise (not in a manner that maintains the size of the population anyway)... Some place somewhere has to have the worst figures, and at present Whyalla happens to be it."
The short response is reskilling for the new information economy and new green industries that takes advantage of Whyalla's natural advantage (plenty of sunshine for solar power ) and industrial base (manufacturing windmills for renewable energy) That kind of intervention is premised on egalitarianism (equality of jobs, educational opportunities and the wider distribution of the benefits of economic growth) and the sacrifice of some market efficiency.
Hence the disagreement is not about economic relationships or about how the political/economic system works: it is a conflict about values and the ends of public policy (the weight given to different values) in a liberal democracy.
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As opposed to non-working poor?
Having been through the unemployment mill myself, I think you underestimate the value of even a Coles type job in giving people that have been unemployed self respect, and Coles does pay a better wage then the Dole. I know this because I've worked there.
I think you dismiss this too lightly, myself.
We can't all be doing the jobs we'd love to do. I'd much rather be a paid writer then be working in a plastics factory, or a network engineer, but I can't, I'm not talented enough for either. So I accept what work I can get, rather then be unemployed.