Is a wealthy state one with full employment? No, and here’s why: capitalism. The concept of a state holding full employment isn’t bad in-and-of-itself, assuming that everyone holds the jobs which they are best at doing. However, that would not be the case, given the means by which a state would bring about that full employment. To bring about full employment, industries would have to be more heavily regulated. Heavily regulated economy != laissez-faire economy. When the economy still has some elements of laissez-faire economics within it, social forces will ideally automatically realign towards maximal efficiency. When there is too much government intervention, this capacity for maximal efficiency is diminished or destroyed.
Note: I do not advocate laissez-faire economics; I am simply arguing that policies resulting in full employment would necessarily incorporate an excessively high rate of government interference in the economy that would have deleterious effects.
Is a wealthy individual one who has a job? Not always, and here’s why: individual wealth is defined by those individuals, and them alone. To someone, material wealth might be of the utmost importance, and for them, yes, a wealthy individual is one who has a job. For me, however, material wealth is far from the top on the list of things I desire. First and foremost, for me, is the effort to have a positive net effect in terms of humanity’s happiness. So, for me, one who is wealthy is one who has made positive change away from chaos, and towards love.
P.S.: Yes, I know that I sound like a hippie. Deal.
2 comments:
I feel like you're embracing a kind of "market theology" in assuming that deregulation always increases efficiency. Markets are often an effective way of producing efficiency, but they don't do so universally. Consider deregulation of cable television (http://www.uspirg.org/uploads/qZ/PE/qZPECxJiK5daxX6nCmUS8g/failureofcabledereg.pdf) and electricity (http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/23/business/23utility.html?pagewanted=print), which have driven up prices for these products. In both cases, competitive markets are effectively unachievable and supply curves drift towards oligopoly. Competing in the utilities market requires such an immense amount of capital that the number of potential producers is severely restricted and producers have no incentive not to coordinate with one another.
Regardless of market efficiency, the greatest problem in the argument lies in insinuations of government intervention. Theoretically, full employment can be achieved by lowering interest rates. Most schools of economics that treat full employment as its end tend to advocate this as the extent of government intervention.
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