Some folks would rather see folks starve than challenge the illusion that we do not have just as managed an economy as the Soviet Union ever did.
They are, of course, the folks who have no need to concern themselves with work.
New York Times on full employment:
...does globalization mean that for full employment to exist, there must be legislation that mandates it? A great majority of economists and politicians — liberals and conservatives, Democrats and Republicans — resist this view. They count on the markets to bring back full employment, with a smattering of tax breaks, subsidies and low interest rates to help the process. But not government as the employer of last resort.
That faith in markets, on the other hand, has not yet produced full employment. A famous British economist, William Beveridge, argued in the 1930's that full employment exists when the number of job vacancies exceeds the number of people seeking them. Only then is everyone who wants a job likely to land one, at a good wage.
The number of unfilled jobs in the United States is certainly smaller than the number of people seeking work. A survey from the Bureau of Labor Statistics showed, for example, 4.1 million job openings in December. That was well short of the 7.4 million unemployed people seeking work that month, not to mention the roughly 10 million others who say they would look for work if they thought that their hunt would be successful.
Recognizing the shortfall in the demand for workers, the federal government generated public-sector jobs in the 70's under the Comprehensive Employment and Training Act, a program that the Reagan administration ended in 1983. Mr. Darity argues that something like CETA should be revived, not to supply make-work jobs, but to satisfy pressing social needs with projects like public school construction or a national teachers corps or high-speed rail lines.
"Certainly there are areas that the private sector does not find profitable," Mr. Darity said, "but the public needs and the private sector would find useful."
