People are made unemployed by taxation, which also drives acceptance of the currency, so it is reasonable to ask that the policy of their government support full employment. A goal of full employment at a livable wage should be assumed to be the target of our representative government, and is certainly not “socialism” by any stretch of the definition of that term. It is well past time that our government abandon its failed attempt to facilitate full employment by means of appealing to the whims of its capitalists.
Socialism is defined by the “people” owning the means of production, which is assumed to mean a democratically elected government in full control of the resources and production of goods and services. I don’t believe we are within sight of such conditions, or even moving in that direction, when we ask that the nation’s currency of trade be used to the benefit of the common welfare. If that were the case, then America would be deemed a socialist society by virtue of the Constitution (Article 1: Section 8) and its description of the creation and mandated purpose of that currency.
America, via a basic misunderstanding of its own currency, has assumed that the economy is a separate entity from government and that the government is a competing “user” of the currency, as are any entities that are not the federal government. This assumption that the people’s government must “find” currency to spend, either by taxing or borrowing it from those who already have it, is at the root of most of our economic problems, but also greatly benefits capitalists and their banks, so is widely perpetuated by those who should, and probably do, know better. The truth is, especially since America left the gold standard, that the government can afford anything that is for sale denominated in the dollars that it can create by fiat, including the excess labor that the private sector rejects.
There is ample potential in the economy to more than support a federally funded job guarantee that would be administered at the local level to utilize the effort and time of anyone who is willing and able to perform labor to gain social capital and benefit people at the most basic level. Such a program would set the floor for wages and benefits for the private sector without necessitating Congressional approval and would be counter cyclical to the business cycle, acting as automatic stabilization of the economy.
It is my belief that, in a post-global, technology driven economy, we cannot afford to “not” use available labor and resources to give a base value to labor as the pinning of our economy and to mitigate the damage realized from our multi-generational obsession with capitalism as the answer to all questions. Only a federal job guarantee available to anyone capable and willing to work can provide this sorely needed stabilization and fulfill the mandate to create currency for the “common welfare” in our Constitution.
