Mosler Seminar: A Union Wage at the Bottom

[John Gelles <jjgelles@xxxxxxxx>]

	   WHEN ALL IS SAID AND DONE, IT IS A UNION WAGE
	           OR NOTHING AT ALL HAS CHANGED

	The issue of fiat money, and whether or not our
	grandchildren are impoverished by us when we
	use it, (because interest burdens on their income
	may persist after our death), is certainly part
	of PKT and Soft Currency Economics (SCE).

	The matter is resolved by noting that along with
	the interest obligation go homes, factories,
	long term bonds transferred to grandchildren by
	their parents, etc., and whatever is left of
	the culture after the internet chews it up and
	spits it out.

	The grandchildren are even advised they can
	remove the burden of interest by paying it in
	very cheap money, if they chose a higher rate of
	inflation that better fits their economy then
	the one we live with in hard times.

	But the real issue raised by SCE when the big
	picture of economics is examined is how the
	wage at the bottom is set for persons employed
	by resort to government subsidy to keep them
	from dying or killing for a living.

	PKT is a response to the choice between
	totalitarian economics and laissez faire. There
	may be many responses in between these extremes
	that qualify as a mixed economy; but PKT is the
	big one that would modify the jungle in which
	finance capital evolved to force its institutions
	to recognize and solve the economic problems of
	labor whose price is below where it morally
	belongs.
	
 	And the major question in the task above is what
	must be put in place to compute the moral price
	for labor, for the last man looking for work.

	In laissez faire theory, nature supplies the
	price. If the last man looking for work is as
	capable as all others, he takes an equal share
	by force of personality and arms. If less
	adapt at war or business, he takes less.

	In totalitarian theory, a dictator or clique
	assign someone to do the calculation, and its
	done.

	In PKT and SCE the answer so far has not included
	a union of the unemployed and an arbitration
	procedure if its negotiations with government
	reach impasse.

	In real life, on the outside, this question is
	being argued today because of welfare reform.
	It is said these unemployed persons, even after
	employment, will not have the take home pay
	necessary to pay union dues.

	Naturally, SCE does not have to address every
	detail today that tomorrow will solve. But,
	from the left, the charge is made that SCE
	is an invitation to workfare, i.e., underpaid
	work that may even cause the loss of jobs
	among government workers.

	Only independent unions can cure this error.
	Government, as we know it, is more an extension
	of business than of labor -- more apt to
	support laissez faire than a bonafide mixed
	economy.  Attention must be paid to the way
	the wage is set for labor that does not fit
	well the needs of profitable enterprise.

	John Gelles   afraid to post his 10 point
	program -- new readers may ask for it.