Backgrounder:
Question: Do an individual have the right to a job? And who provides it?
Ok, I am off on another one of my individual rights rants, but think about it for a little while.
My contention is that you have a right to your own labor. You own your own labor, and no one else does. You should be free to sell that labor to the highest bidder or to whomever you choose to sell it to, high bidder or not.
So, unless you created the job, government, business or society does not “owe” you a job.
Ok, that is my position. Now, according the story on the latest news of labor statistics for June, it seems that not enough jobs were created to offset the number of new workers entering the workplace. Whose fault is this? Is it the individual’s? Small and big business? The Government’s?
Well, it seems in the past four years, or so, the number of people working in the private sector has gone down rather dramatically, while the number of people employed by the federal government has gone up substantially, and the number city, county and state employees is taking a header because tax revenues are forcing those entities to cut workforces in order to balance budgets.
I really don’t want to go into the man behind the screen (stage left), but suffice it to say that the figures we are seeing now, for the most part as reported by major news disseminating organizations, really don’t tell half the tale. Mainly because of a statistical trick used by the Bureau of Labor Statistics that “adjusts” the size of the labor force to exclude those people who for various and sundry purposes have left the labor force. (I guess I qualify because I am retired) This is so that people like me don’t throw off the numbers, since I am not looking. It also is a good way to cook the books.
There are a lot more people out there who could, if necessary, be working (including myself, I suppose, although I suspect with my health I would probably kick over in my traces relatively quickly, but that is irrelevant to this commentary). In fact, if you look at the number of people now working, versus let’s say 2007, there are fewer people in jobs. If you add the fact that the US population has increased since then, it would seem that unemployment is far larger than the BLS figures are showing us. That is bad news.
What makes it bad news, more than just the tragedy that people are not working, is that there is a culture that has been bred in the US that individuals are entitled to a job … and if there is none, then it is the responsibility of the government to provide that job … somehow “create” one where there wasn’t one before. Since government jobs rarely produce “wealth” and merely consume wealth of a civilization, this really is bad news.
Of course, if circumstances were different and, let’s say, there was less government involvement in entrepreneurship, then maybe more people would try it. Granted, no one would be guaranteed success, and maybe many would fail, but it probably would work out better than what we are doing now.
One of the reasons the US is as big as it is today is because in the past government got out of the way of people trying to pioneer new lives. Government helped in that it offered land at very low cost to aspiring farmers (since back then the vast majority of people were farmers) and it caused a boom in settlements and development. Granted, a large number of them failed, but enough survived to make life better here in the good old US of A.
I don’t have a magic wand or anything, but I think those who suggest that less government involvement is better than more government involvement are on to something.
I won’t go into the problems of expectations and what people think they are entitled to, which in the secular sphere, in my humble opinion, is nothing but your God-given rights (which are not material) and those things due you from the contracts you have negotiated during your life. Simplistic? Yes. Realistic? In today’s mindset … you have got to be kidding me.
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