The Federal Job Guarantee

14 Feb 2020

As a part of the Green New Deal the idea of a federal job guarantee(FJG) is being debated, especially in contrast to a universal basic income(UBI). While I plan to write further on UBI, this article will focus on FJG and why I think it is an essential part of a program for any socialist party.

Most plans for an FJG have been fairly limited, only being an employer of last resort and being used as a stimulus in times of low growth and cutting back in times of high growth. These are basic Keynesian policies used to boost aggregate demand when the economy is slowing, while controlling inflation. While this is preferable to the much more common, and depraved, use of unemployment as a controller for inflation, a FJG could be so much more for the working class than this.

These public works should strive to show what an industry not concerned with profit, and controlled by it’s community and workers can really be. In selecting projects communities could form citizens juries, drawn at random, to draw up different plans and present them to the public, detailing the costs, benefits, time needed etc. which could then be sent to the public for a vote. It is important that ordinary people control this process, and that it is not handed down to workers by state bureaucrats. This would be a real lesson in social planning for the working class, making clearer the tasks that will be necessary of them in the future.

A job guarantee program shouldn’t restrict itself just to public works projects. A jobs program could compete with private industry in production of raw materials, energy, machinery and other means of production. These could run without the need for a profit, and under direct control by the public and workers. The products could then be directly allocated to state projects, instead of being bought from outside. After this allocation the remaining product could be sold at market rates with worker or community owned co-operatives having first chance to buy. Eventually as a part of public investment, these products could be directly allocated to co-operatives as well. A similar system to the one described above could be used to decide what portion of the surplus should go to reinvestment, and which to wages.

The superiority of these jobs would be immediately recognizable to workers in terms of higher wages and non-money wages, control over the workplace and other benefits like paid time off. Private employers would be forced to compete for workers, putting upward pressure on wages and other benefits. Workers could no longer be forced to accept jobs for meager pay with little control over their work life if they had the option of a public job that would guarantee these things.

Workers would also have more access to job training, gaining valuable skills. An overall rise in skilled productive labor would be a huge boon for productivity. Workers in public industry would be happy to automate the monotonous tasks usually assigned to low skill, low wage workers in private industry since any gains in productivity lessen the amount of time needed to work and increase revenue for workers. For the first time, automation would be seen as freedom for workers, and not the dread of unemployment.

A FJG also removes one of the capitalists most powerful tools, the reserve army of labor. At any one time, there are a group of unemployed people, eager to take a job. Capitalists use this fact against workers to shift the balance of power between labor and capital far towards capital. If you don’t like what your boss is doing, too bad. There are plenty of people out there who need work and would be happy to take your job, so deal with it. Removing threat of unemployment, and the reserve army of labor takes this power away from capital. This would be a massive step towards shifting the balance of power back towards labor and educate workers on the basis of self management and social planning.