Re: Full Employment is what?

["J. Barkley Rosser, Jr." <rosserjb@xxxxxxx>]

Bill and Mat,
      Was the Soviet government "an infinite life unit"?
Barkley Rosser
----- Original Message -----
From: "Forstater, Mathew" <ForstaterM@xxxxxxxx>
To: "Bill Mitchell" <ecwfm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>; <pkt@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Wednesday, May 30, 2001 6:12 PM
Subject: Re: Full Employment is what?


> Bill Mitchell wrote:
>
> >we can also truly see the government as an infinite life unit.
>
> If I understand this correctly, this is an extremely important point.  It
> relates to what Bill wrote in his paper "The Job Guarantee in a Small Open
> Economy" in E. Carlson and W. F. Mitchell (eds.): THE PATH TO FULL
EMPLOYMENT
> AND EQUITY, The Economic and Labour Relations Review, Vol. 11, supplement,
2000:
>
> "Even if it were possible to expand demand enough to promote growth
sufficient
> to keep pace with labour force growth and productivity growth and mop up
the
> huge stocks of long-term unemployment, how could the natural ecosystems,
already
> under great strain, cope? There is a need to change the composition of
final
> output toward environmentally sustainable activities.  It is not increased
> demand per se that is necessary, but increased demand in certain areas of
> activity." (Mitchell, 2000, p. 113 n8)
>
> This also relates, if I may say so, to some of what I was trying to get at
in my
> paper in the same volume, "Full Employment and Economic Flexibility" (as
well as
> in "Flexible Full Employment" JEI, June 1998, and Levy Public Policy Brief
No.
> 50 and Levy Public Policy Brief Highlight No. 50A at
http://www.levy.org ):
>
> "Since the government is not in business to make a profit, it can base its
> decisions about products, production methods, and hiring not on cost
> minimization, but on broader macroeconomic goals or social values...
>
> ...Whereas private firms are compelled by competitive pressures to choose
the
> method of production that will maximize profits, government is not so
> constrained. For any given activity, choice of technique can be based not
on
> cost minimization but on impact on the system as a whole. For example,
more
> labor-intensive methods may be chosen even where more capital-intensive
methods
> are available and might be chosen under different conditions, and
alternative
> technical means may be utilized to ease pressures on natural resources or
the
> assimilative capacity of the environment."
>
> In this sense, activities peopled by the Job Guarantee provide a full
employment
> that is more sustainable than a fully employed private sector capitalism,
even
> if the latter were possible, and further, may provide services without
which the
> private sector itself would be unsustainable, fully employed or not.
>
> Bill: if you read this far, in the "Small Open Economy" paper you refer to
a
> paper where you discuss the job guarantee and environmental
> sustainability--Watts and Mitchell 2000, on the genuine progress
indicator. Is
> that paper available on the web?
>