The softer ranks of the Left think of jobs as privately funded social programs, so they're perpetually surprised that their policies make unemployment worse. In truth, jobs are an exchange of value that cannot be duplicated by any government subsidy program.
(The hardcore Left knows all this and desires both high unemployment and high perpetual welfare spending - those are its true policy goals.)
The soft Left sees paychecks as a form of entitlement that can be subsidized or replaced by government handouts.
The soft Left sees paychecks as a form of entitlement that can be subsidized or replaced by government handouts.
The Left's stimulus and welfare programs revolve around throwing money at people and then watching in stunned amazement as it fails to recreate the prosperity that flows from gainful employment. They don't understand why their fake jobs don't have the value of real jobs.
Real jobs are a complex exchange of value that can't be duplicated by crude government programs managed by a parasitic political class whose leaders rarely have any experience at running a real business, or even working for one. Value increases at every point in this process.
You aren't just "getting paid" by employers, and the government can't just take over as the party that pays you without a tremendous loss of value. Your paycheck reflects that your labor is more valuable to your employer than the money he gave you. It generates profit for him.
Here's the part that might really bake your noodle:
Your labor - the hours you worked and got paid for - are more valuable to your employer than they are to YOU.
Your labor - the hours you worked and got paid for - are more valuable to your employer than they are to YOU.
That's the magic of capitalism. It makes your time more valuable. The value of your capital - your labor - increases dramatically when you find a willing customer to buy it. And the buyer isn't just pointlessly hoarding your labor, as statist welfare programs tend to do.
The client who buys your labor, your employer, must find ways to increase the value of that capital even further so he can turn a profit. If he fails to do that, he'll go out of business. His product is bought by either another capital-seeking business or a consumer.
At every step in this process, there is a tremendous increase in value for ALL parties involved. You have to admit that even a low-paying entry-level job makes your time much more valuable than just hanging around. You AND your employer both gain value in the transaction.
Voluntary transactions of this nature - capitalism - are the best way to find maximum value for all parties. It's not easy to figure out the best possible arrangement for millions of people to generate the greatest mutual value from buying, selling, and investing.
The grand illusion of socialism - the Marxist horror that killed and impoverished millions around the world over the past century - is the absurd lie that a small band of central planners can do a better job of finding maximum value than millions of people acting voluntarily.
The other horrible lie of Marxism is convincing people that the voluntary exchange of capital for profit is THEFT - your employer is "stealing" the excess value of your labor.
The truth is that central planners can't come CLOSE to the ability of free people voluntarily cooperating and competing with each other to find opportunities for value creation. Collectivists spend oceans of other people's money PRETENDING to come close.
Authoritarian regimes have to lie, cheat, steal, and oppress to pretend they can compete with capitalism - and that sham doesn't come close to the creation of value for ALL parties you get with free enterprise. Notice how low the standard of living for their people is.
Paying people to not work is a foolish government intervention that destroys vast amounts of value that might otherwise have been created. It's not just about "disappointing" jobs reports. It's about losing all the value those folks WOULD have created by selling their labor.
Decaying socialist regimes end up forcing people to work and stealing capital from its rightful owners. Those practices also destroy failure, or fail to create nearly as much as voluntary employment would. The lash creates no value for those on the receiving end.
Marxism, in all its toxic and destructive forms, teaches people to hate what they should regard as a wonder: the increase of value - the PROFIT - for everyone that comes from voluntary employment. Everyone walks away from the transaction with more.
We should be encouraging everyone to pursue that wonder instead of falsely assuring them government subsidies are just as good as paychecks. They're not - quite literally not by half. When you teach people to hate profit, they see only money, not value. /end
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