Is a Job a right or a privilege?

[Franco]

Since I was quoted I will respond.

The only right I think people have is to freedom.  Included in this right is the voluntary obligation to provide shelter and sustenance for themselves and their dependents (someone might choose to lay down and die).  No one is obligated to provide these things for someone else it is up to each person to seek ways to provide for himself and his family (I see people everyday choosing to sleep on the street and beg for food, this is one alternative to having a job).  Of course there is merit in people voluntarily helping others but this is in no way an obligation (although some religions do mandate helping others) other than to fulfill some personal idea of what is moral behavior.

I think people should be free to seek employment without arbitrary barriers, e.g. there have been times when a government prohibited some groups from being allowed jobs (Jews, Blacks).  That is clearly wrong, but the government also shall not mandate any person to hire someone else.  Just as a person is free to seek employment an employer should be free to hire who he finds most suitable for the job in question.

Jobs are an indirect way to acquire food and shelter.  Nothing is stopping someone from going the direct route and growing/hunting their own food and building their own home, along with whatever energy and utilities they wanted to include.

[Gurn Blanston]

Something rather like this happens now. In the UK lots of 'small employers' reclassify the worker as self employed. They don't want all the responsibilities imposed on the role of the employer. So the basic rights of the employee are lost.

In Spain, restrictions on getting rid of employers mean that many take people in on a temporary basis so they can get rid of them easily and replace them without again having to comply with what they see as restrictions to their trading arrangements. Youth unemployment has increased. In each instance, what was socially well meaning has caused lots of problems.

Mike

Yes, this started over here in the late 1990's. Instead of hiring, companies bring in 'temps'. Generally the contract with their company will state that you can keep them up to 90 days. After that you need to either let them go or hire them directly. My present company brings them in whenever we get a significant contract and then lets them go as soon as we are over the hump on production. If we don't like you, your replacement starts tomorrow. If you don't like us, you start a new contract tomorrow. So there are benefits either way. Actually, if I was young yet, I would rather like that setup, since I well recall being bored in jobs after a short while, even ones I liked.



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Now playing:
New York PO \ Boulez  Joanna Meier, Betty Allen, Jerry Jennings, Simon Estes -
Op 125 Symphony #9 in d 4th mvmt - Presto - Allegro assai - Andante maestoso

[DavidRoss]

Something rather like this happens now. In the UK lots of 'small employers' reclassify the worker as self employed. They don't want all the responsibilities imposed on the role of the employer. So the basic rights of the employee are lost.

In Spain, restrictions on getting rid of employers mean that many take people in on a temporary basis so they can get rid of them easily and replace them without again having to comply with what they see as restrictions to their trading arrangements. Youth unemployment has increased. In each instance, what was socially well meaning has caused lots of problems.

Yep, this sort of practice is widespread and growing, hiring temps and contractors, and it's hardly just small businesses but major corporations, public institutions, and even governments as well.

Still, I don't see any way around the continuing decline of wages and living standards as long as the supply of cheap labor continues to increase faster than demand.  This is basic economics, empirical, an understanding of principle derived from analysis of real world events, not pie-in-the-sky "theorizing" attempting to impose wishful thinking on the real world.  Gosh, it would be nice if a job--especially a well-compensated job doing meaningful work--actually were a "right" -- but it would also be nice if everyone had a government-issue Ferrari ("it's a right!), if nutritious and tasty meals appeared magically whenever we're hungry, and if everyone were beautiful and happy and healthy and sane.

[drogulus]

     

     It is an interesting question, since it shows that jobs can't really be either one. Government ought to treat economic success as an aggregate good and then provide employment as needed without establishing a right. The principle would be that government shouldn't over-promise, and maintain room to maneuver so as not to undercut the goal of supporting the private economy. That will do the most good while pissing off the wingers, so it's a win-win.

[DavidRoss]

         It is an interesting question, since it shows that jobs can't really be either one. Government ought to treat economic success as an aggregate good and then provide employment as needed without establishing a right. The principle would be that government shouldn't over-promise, and maintain room to maneuver so as not to undercut the goal of supporting the private economy. That will do the most good while pissing off the wingers, so it's a win-win.

It was good that you modified it, but the idea that jobs are a collective good created and distributed by government is not compatible with economic success.  Keep watching Greece and you'll catch on eventually.

[Bulldog]

I don't consider a job a right so I voted for privilege, although Teresa's characterization of that second option was ridiculous.

[jowcol]

Well, MY interpretation of the artificial fart under the arm is unquestionably  superior to your puny effort, and I am willing to do 2 performances a day for $75,000. So why should they pay you?  Competition, baby!   

Phillistine!  You are degrading your self and this noble art form. 

Also, did I mention that I dress as Elvis when I do MY act?

[knight66]

Sounds like multitasking, which is more difficult than the kernel of your trumpeted act.

Mike

[drogulus]

     Perhaps jobs represents not a right but a goal that any government will undertake to maximize, usually by supporting the private economy to the greatest extent consistent with other goals. Government provided jobs are always a less desirable option, but a necessary one when things get rough. Government employs a large number of people under any non-idiotic theory just to perform necessary functions, even before we get to the question of what emergency powers it must have.

     How is this not seen by theorists? OK, conservatives don't think government should provide employment, right? Where does this leave them in considering what to do about the huge public sector when a crisis arrives, where the countercyclical value of this part of the economy becomes important, even crucial? It seems they are forced to adapt the position that if we didn't have public jobs we wouldn't have deep recessions at all. The evidence suggests the opposite, that a large public sector (large meaning our size) dampens the swings and provides stability.

[False_Dmitry]

But what happens if there are more people than needed for a particular line of work?

Here's a real-life example.  In the USSR era, the accordion (I mean the push-button "concert" instrument, not the piano-accordion) was considered (for a mixture of sociological and musicological reasons) to be a serious instrument, taught in music academies and conservatoires.  Many of those who studied are outstanding musicians.  But there is now little demand for this instrument, and there are vastly too many players for the small number of professional vacancies.

Should "work be found" for all the unemployed, excellent accordionists?  Or should they be expected to take up a different kind of work, in order to find themselves a job?

[Scarpia]

I think that a fair labor market is the best way to maximize productive employment.  That implies competition on both sides, skilled workers competing for the best jobs and companies competing with each other for the best workers.  In the US we've seen both sides subverted at various times--industries conspiring to suppress wages and labor unions abusing legal protections.  A certain amount of government regulation is necessary to prevent abuses, although excessive regulation is certainly damaging.  Spain's labor market was recently profiled in Time magazine, and the bottom line is that excessive protection of the rights of permanent employees resulted in a situation where employers would refuse to hire any permanent employees and would rely largely on temporary workers.  The result is that older people have permanent jobs that they can not be displaced from and younger people have little hope of getting a permanent job.  This is damaging, not just to individual, but to the economy as a whole. 

I also think that some protections for unemployed or unemployable is necessary.  People who are mentally retarded or otherwise disabled need to eat and should have some measure of dignity.  Also, for people to be willing to take risks they have to feel some security that they will survive if things don't initially work out.

[Wendell_E]

Should "work be found" for all the unemployed, excellent accordionists?  Or should they be expected to take up a different kind of work, in order to find themselves a job?

Beats me, but it does remind me of the old joke "A gentleman is a man who can play the accordion but doesn't."

[DavidRoss]

Beats me, but it does remind me of the old joke "A gentleman is a man who can play the accordion but doesn't."

That's a joke?  I always thought it was just good manners! 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VVFu8GQyWw&feature=related

[oabmarcus]

But what happens if there are more people than needed for a particular line of work?

Here's a real-life example.  In the USSR era, the accordion (I mean the push-button "concert" instrument, not the piano-accordion) was considered (for a mixture of sociological and musicological reasons) to be a serious instrument, taught in music academies and conservatoires.  Many of those who studied are outstanding musicians.  But there is now little demand for this instrument, and there are vastly too many players for the small number of professional vacancies.

Should "work be found" for all the unemployed, excellent accordionists?  Or should they be expected to take up a different kind of work, in order to find themselves a job?

well, no one is forcing them to be career accordionists. They have the freedom to pursue another profession if this one doesn't work out.

[False_Dmitry]

well, no one is forcing them to be career accordionists. They have the freedom to pursue another profession if this one doesn't work out.

But they are excellent accordionists.  The "job for life" crew here would argue that they are "entitled to a job as an accordionist" until they reach pensionable age.

[Scarpia]

Beats me, but it does remind me of the old joke "A gentleman is a man who can play the accordion but doesn't."

Accordian is not the worst.  I was once at a party where someone gave a bagpipe recital.  Everyone in the front half of the room had their hands over their ears with an expression on their faces that screamed "please make it stop" but the recital of avant garde bagpipe music went on and on and on.

[DavidRoss]

Accordian is not the worst.  I was once at a party where someone gave a bagpipe recital.  Everyone in the front half of the room had their hands over their ears with an expression on their faces that screamed "please make it stop" but the recital of avant garde bagpipe music went on and on and on.

Why did you stay?  (She must have been hot hot hot!  ...and a bagpipe fan!)

[Scarpia]

Why did you stay?  (She must have been hot hot hot!  ...and a bagpipe fan!)

Alas no hotness involved.  Egress was obstructed.

[Teresa]

....there should be a third option somewhere in between giving jobs away and watching people die.

In the real world there are no other options.  It costs real money to buy food, to buy housing and to pay for health care, without a Job this cannot be done.  It short there is NO ONE who wants to work that does NOT deserve and a job. 

For people who are unable to work we have disability laws, for everyone else the GUARANTEE OF THE JOB, is the most very basic act society can offer. 

The only right I think people have is to freedom.  Included in this right is the voluntary obligation to provide shelter and sustenance for themselves and their dependents (someone might choose to lay down and die). 

Freedom cannot be exercised without income provided by employment.  Thus there is NO RIGHT as basic as the right to a job.  Without a job the other rights have no meaning at all!

No one is obligated to provide these things for someone else it is up to each person to seek ways to provide for himself and his family.

If businesses fail to keep employment at full levels then they have VIOLATED the trust we have put in them.  They MUST provide full employment.  It is not hard, we could have full employment in a very short time without creating a single new job!

At 10% Unemployment all one would need to do is adjust the workweek from 40 hours to 36 hours. 

At 20% Unemployment all one would need to do is adjust the workweek from 40 hours to 32 hours. 

from: An Economic Bill of Rights

"30-Hour Work Week: A 6-hour day with no cut in pay for the bottom 80% of the pay scale."

Of course with a 30 hour work week we would have a labor shortage but that might be good for workers.  With a labor shortage we can gain back the losses given over to past three decades.  In the 1960's a family of four could be supported by one income, now it requires two.

(I see people everyday choosing to sleep on the street and beg for food, this is one alternative to having a job).

Wake up from your dreamworld.  NO ONE chooses to be unemployed, NO ONE chooses to have their homes repossessed, NO ONE chooses to be kicked out of their apartments, NO ONE chooses to live on the STREETS, to die of hunger, to die of exposure to cold and heat, to die of disease, to be venerable to attacks by criminals.  NO ONE EVER CHOOSES SUCH ADVERSE CONDITIONS OF THEIR OWN FREE WILL.   

Of course there is merit in people voluntarily helping others but this is in no way an obligation (although some religions do mandate helping others) other than to fulfill some personal idea of what is moral behavior.

You still do not understand, charity is not what is wanted, no it is PURE AND SIMPLE, the guaranteed right to employment!

Jobs are an indirect way to acquire food and shelter.  Nothing is stopping someone from going the direct route and growing/hunting their own food and building their own home, along with whatever energy and utilities they wanted to include.

This would be rather hard to do in modern society, I think you are still living in fantasyland. 

Lastly I cannot believe the six people who voted that jobs are "A privilege, let the jobless starve and die" are actually human beings, how could such coldhearted people exist?  These people should get to be jobless and homeless for a year, then they will easily change their answer to the only CORRECT answer A job is a right above all others!

[Scarpia]

Lastly I cannot believe the six people who voted that jobs are "A privilege, let the jobless starve and die" are actually human beings, how could such coldhearted people exist?  These people should get to be jobless and homeless for a year, then they will easily change their answer to the only CORRECT answer A job is a right above all others!

Maybe the problem was that the person who defined the pole did not provide a middle ground between fascism and the law of the jungle.