How Mainstream Economists Explain (Or Not) Unemployment?

Abstract

One of the tasks assigned to mainstream economists is to legitimize the significance of unemployment. This paper aims to reconstruct the evolution of their approaches from the theoretical impossibility asserted by Pigou to the recognition of involuntary unemployment by Keynes and eventually to different versions of the natural unemployment rate. The unemployment rate had become an instrument for fine-tuning of the economy, but it no longer fulfills this role. It is then the whole dominant macroeconomics that is shaken to its foundations. But this crisis might help to return to expansionary fiscal policies (a Green New Deal) and to the Job Guarantee, thus echoing Keynes’ question: ‘There is work to do; there are men to do it. Why not bring them together?’

Basic income support in Europe: A cross-national analysis based on the European Social Survey Round 8

“…), as well as economic indicators (purchasing power, rate of economic growth, foreign trade balance, current account deficit, public debt, inflation rate, unemployment rate, public expenditure, investments, etc. ), they are characterized by a long-term transitional crisis of structural type (Husson, 2019).…”

The Sharing Economy: Social Welfare in a Technologically Networked Economy

“…When a task cannot be completed by computer, it is entrusted to an army of reservists, who are paid a penny” (Frank, 2016, p. 23; see also Thomas & Clifford, 2017). In the eyes of the online sales giant, the issue is not about replacing monotonous and/or dangerous work done by people using computer-controlled machines (which would have a positive impact on the social welfare and well-being of hired workers in specific positions) but about generating profit (Husson, 2019). This is why Thomas Frank (2016) said thatit is hard to imagine a better initiation in the sphere of the sharing economy, the “sharing economy”—that is what it is called because an employee uses his own car, his own apartment, or his own computer—for the great benefit of the employer.…”

Własność w ujęciu socjologicznym: zarys problemu

“…Wynik tej konfrontacji w sposób pośredni, gdyż zazwyczaj ograniczony do niereprezentatywnej grupy spółek notowanych na giełdzie, winien dać odpowiedź, czy współczesne rozwiązania mechanizmu corporate governance sprawdzają się w praktyce życia społeczno--gospodarczego (por. Baranowski 2011a; Baranowski & Pluciński 2018;Husson 2019;Toporowski 2019).…”