[Zzlist-deux] Unemployment: A Report Card for Capitalism

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A new posting -
Unemployment: A Report Card for Capitalism
<http://zzs-blg.blogspot.com/2015/02/unemployment-report-card-for-capitalism.html>
- from Zoltan Zigedy is available at:
http://zzs-blg.blogspot.com/


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 Marx suggests in his articles for the *Neue Rheinische Zeitung* collected
as *Class Struggles in France, 1848-1850* that the first order of business
for the working class is to secure jobs, “but behind the right to work
stands the power over capital; behind the power over capital, the
appropriation of the means of production, their subjection to the
associated working class and, therefore, the abolition of wage labour, of
capital and of their mutual relations." It is through the struggle for a
place in the capitalist system-- however lowly-- that the means for
survival are won and the conditions are met for further challenges to the
dominance of capital and even the very system of capitalism. But in a
system of private appropriation and with labor as a commodity, life for
those without capital begins with securing employment.
 Because labor is a commodity, because labor *must* be a commodity in order
for an economic formation to be capitalist, the right to a job cannot be
enshrined in a capitalist constitution. Only socialist countries have or
can endow everyone with the right to a job. That is why the right to a job
is not included in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. A weak “right
to work” (*participate *in the labor market), a right to “free choice of
employment” (*compete* in the labor market), and a right “to protection
against unemployment” (vague, nonspecific prophylaxes or amelioration) are
there instead (Article 23). Without recognizing the right to a job, the
Universal Declaration effectively turns a blind eye to the ravages of
unemployment and the indignities and injustices of the buying and selling
of human productive effort.
 That is one reason that the USSR and other socialist countries abstained
from ratifying the Declaration in 1948.
 Without unemployment, the capitalist system would suffer persistent
pressure on the rate of profit. When the commodity-- labor power-- becomes
scarce, capitalists must pay more to secure it, as they would for any other
commodity. And since labor remains the largest cost component of most
productive capitalist enterprises, labor-cost inflation erodes capitalist
profits. Capitalism and the system's beneficiaries will not, therefore,
tolerate full employment. This is the nasty little truth that apologists
and media windbags dare not speak.
 Economists hide this truth by euphemistically coining terms like
“marginal” or “frictional” unemployment or inventing obscurantist concepts
like the “Non-Accelerating Inflation Rate of Unemployment” that set an
increasingly low standard for “full” employment. By linguistic
sleight-of-hand, the economics establishment offers cover for capitalist
accumulation by ordaining an “acceptable” level of unemployment.
 At the same time, this same establishment understands that unemployment is
the greatest challenge to the stability of the capitalist system. The
frequent sharp rises in unemployment brought on by dislocations, the
business cycle, or systemic crisis dramatically increase the levels of
social discontent and raise voices that question the system. For those who
hold the reins of power, for those whose job is to contain dissatisfaction
with capitalism, managing unemployment is essential.
 From that perspective, the unemployment rate is arguably the best
barometer of the health and viability of the capitalist system.
Consequently reports of unemployment rates and trends are politically
charged and subject to great differences in interpretation.
 “*The official unemployment rate... amounts to a Big Lie.” *
 Recently, the political manipulation of the unemployment rate came under
attack from an unlikely source. Jim Clifton, chairman and CEO of Gallup,
the polling organization, challenged the notion that the “official” rate of
unemployment bore any relation to the realities of unemployment. Indeed, he
called the rate a “Big Lie.” It's worth examining his argument closely:
*TO READ MORE, GO TO*: http://zzs-blg.blogspot.com/
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