23:13~ 14-01
1:01:00~ 51-48
1:11:58~ 1-02-44
1:17:06~ (1:18:24★)~1:22:58
1-07-53 1-09-10 1-13-41
1:28:01~ 1-18-50
1:38:08~ 1-28-55
1：42：24~ 1-33-10 Bill
New Time stamps
14:01~
51:48~
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1:07:53~ (1:09:10★)~1:13:41
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1:33:10~ Bill
Time stamps:
00:00:00 Anne Maxwell: Intro
00:02:18 Jayne Flanagan: Opening Remarks & Bill Mitchell Intro
00:13:43 Bill Mitchell: Opening Remarks
00:31:59 Jayne Flanagan: Opening Question to Pavlina Tcherneva
00:34:18 Pavlina Tcherneva: Opening Remarks & Reply
00:48:00 Panelists & Presenters Q&A
01:01:15 Attendees Q&A
01:39:57 End
1:33:00
1:28:01~
1:38:08~
1:42:24~ bill
23:13~
1:01:00~
1:11:58~ (1:18:24)~1:22:58
1:28:01~
1:38:08~
1:42:24~ bill
okay we're now
streaming live for the modern money
australia webinar
this is the webinar on mmt and the new
social contract
so we're just giving everyone time to
arrive
we've got a full house today
uh so just sit tight and we'll be
beginning shortly
so what you're seeing on the screen at
the moment
uh some of the webinars that mma has
uh hosted in the last year or so
uh we began with live webinars in
melbourne and sydney and now we've moved
mostly online like today and all of our
past webinars are available
on our youtube channel and you can find
our
youtube channel by typing modern money
australia
into the youtube search box
and there you can play all our webinars
as videos
so modern money australia
you you can find us on all the social
media channels
or at least on facebook and on twitter
and on youtube
so we're just waiting for everyone to
arrive for
the webinar hosted by modern money
australia
the webinar is mmt and the new social
contract
so if you're just joining us you'll see
on your screen an animation where we're
just featuring
some of the past webinars by modern
money australia
and those webinars are available on our
youtube channel
and you can find us on youtube just by
typing in modern money australia
so we're looking forward to a great
webinar today a great session we're very
fortunate to have
two renowned speakers today so i'm sure
everyone's uh
going to be in for a treat
so we've nearly reached our start time
i think just while we're waiting for the
last
people to come in we do have a full
house today we have a sold out event
so today you'll be joining either
through the zoom link
or people can also watch this event
live streaming on youtube
and if you want that youtube link
one place to find it is to go to our
website modern money australia
click on the webinar button and you'll
get that link
so if you know anyone who wants to be
watching and couldn't get a zoom ticket
just direct them to the youtube
streaming
and i might just start now i think with
a little bit of housekeeping before we
actually
move into the official start of today's
event
so my name is ann maxwell and i am part
of the committee
with modern money australia
who are hosting today's event
which is a webinar featuring professor
bill mitchell
and associate professor pablina geneva
before we begin the actual event i'll
just do a little bit of housekeeping
and to start with i would like to pay my
respects to
the traditional custodians of the land
where i am today which is
the lands of the kulin nation and i pay
my respect to the elders past and
present
myself and marcus champ who is also with
modern money australia
marcus will be moderating most of the
q a today and i'll be assisting him
so the aim of today was to make this
event as
interactive as we can with a webinar
so we have uh given over the majority of
time to a q a
section we hope it'll be about an hour
so don't be shy about asking your
questions i'm sure if you've got it in
your head somebody else is wondering
about it too
so it helps everyone to learn when you
can ask whatever's on your mind
so i just wanted to let people know
to ask your questions we we would like
you to type them
into the q a section of the zoom
here so you can find the q a at the
bottom of your screen
probably there'll be an icon there and
if you just click on that
icon that should bring up a text box
and in that text box you can type your
questions
uh at the bottom of the screen you'll
also see the chat
icon that's a different section we ask
you
not to put your questions into the chat
box because we might miss them
so anyone with a question please type it
into the q a box
and marcus will be collating those
questions
and so you might find that your the
questions are not answered in the order
that we're receiving them
uh because marcus will be collating them
according to topic
in the chat box just keep an eye on it
because as
throughout this webinar we will be
putting in
links and other resources that might get
mentioned on the way
so keep your eye on the chat box as well
as
typing into that q a area
and also if you would like to ask your
question
of the speakers directly
if you could put your zoom hand up to
let us know that's what you would like
to do
so you can do that just by clicking on
the participants icon down at the bottom
of your screen
and then clicking on the little blue
hand and that will let us know
that you would like to appear on screen
or in audio
just be aware if you do that you will be
part of the final recording of this
event
i think that's all i need to say
regarding the housekeeping
i'm just wondering marcus do you have
anything to add at all
thanks sudan not in particular other
than just to reinforce
uh really helpful if you put questions
in the q a area
uh and as we said earlier we won't
necessarily answer questions in order
that they're posted
uh it will depend on how the
conversation is going and so on just so
everyone's got
clear expectations on that but we will
obviously try to get to everyone's
questions
uh depending on time thank you
great well at this point i might hand
over
to jane who did a lot of
work to put this event together today
and she'll make some introductory
remarks
okay hi everyone so i'm jane flanagan
and i'm
currently um president of our little
association which is incorporated and
we um became we came into existence
about it
18 months ago and um it was
josh who really started josh in
melbourne who's one of
who's our secretary started things off
in victoria and we joined
soon after in new south wales um and
so we've been running uh education
events
since about august or may
uh 2019 and since covert we've been
online and have had about 16 i think
this is our 16th
event since covert hit and
so i think yeah pushed on through
despite the challenges
and because of the challenges i think
so modern money australia we our main
purpose is to
um provide sort of an
independent media i suppose education
um about modern monetary theory uh we
um uh a group of volunteers
and we so are working
unpaid to bring you these uh events
uh we um
we have received significant donations
that have contributed towards our
subscription to zoom for the next
two webinars and so we really appreciate
people who have donated
and if you are able to um
donate for future events um we can then
cover about the minimal costs which are
zoom costs mostly
um so we can continue to provide these
some mobile webinars
uh and it really is a matter of maybe
one or two dollars
so if you can um afford that that would
be amazing
so in terms of um what we're up to this
year
we have a significant program coming up
starting with this
is our first program of the year um we
also have
five other um events planned
up until june which includes uh
next month we have stuart medina from
red enmity in spain
we have robert hockett in march who will
be
in conversation with um louise connors
louisa connors
in april we have um
now i've forgotten who's in april in may
we have
actually that's in april in may we have
um
surya dalamoth who is um
an indonesian activist and who has
translated
bill's textbook into um
the main i guess into for the indonesian
audience
and we'll have a panel with his
colleagues and fidel caboob
uh and we'll be talking about um
monetary sovereignty and developing
nations and
trade policy between nations and
various other mmt informed
um policy discussions uh and
that last one for the program will be in
june with phil lawn
so um then after that we'll
get organized and have another
monthly webinars until the end of the
year um
i also want to acknowledge that we have
sort of worked in partnership with
various other organizations and so
we today's uh recording will be used by
the mmt podcast with christian
reilly and patricia depino so look
out for that next week when it's i think
we'll probably be released next week
um and potentially our future webinars
will also be used
for their podcast series
so um uh
other we i mean we
happy to collaborate and work in
partnership with other organizations and
we know that there's
a lot of you out there in the community
so um
please contact us uh and i think
um that's about mma really um
in terms of just today's webinar i
really
sort of took um inspiration from the
second chapter of pavelina's book and
really wanted to do a little bit of it
well i went into a little bit of a
rabbit hole around the social contract
and trying to understand how that
um yeah the the
social contract theory and mmt really
and so i think
um first of all i wanted to put it in
perspective
in terms of what we've all been
experiencing over the last year
and um just to say that
it was on the 29th of february 2020
so not quite one year ago that the
united states reported
what was first thought to be the first
death of the u.s citizen so
in one year one year ago which is seems
much longer
but um in actual fact there was two
deaths in um
that were attributed to covert
today the united states has reached a
devastating
covert 19 toll with um 508
000 deaths with a total number of cases
reaching 28.4 million
and so to put that in perspective i
heard
this was heard on the radio the other
day there have been more u.s citizens
die from covert 19 in the last
year then died in world war one world
war ii
and then more combined
and deaths in the us
account for approximately 20 percent of
the total number of deaths worldwide
which um the total worldwide stands at
2.5 million deaths and
no actually 113 million cases
no sorry 2.5 million deaths
so and the total number of cases
is now at 113 million
with um approximately 300 380
000 new cases in the world every day
and it's just i think those figures
every time i read them i found them
astounding and just takes my breath away
and um i guess
reminding people of where we're at
because in australia we
have had nearly a month in new south
wales at least the longest
duration without community transmission
since the beginning of the
pandemic and so we kind of feel a little
bit removed from
the nightmare that people are living in
other countries
and but we feel
a sense of solidarity i suppose
especially across
the mmt community because particularly
because um we understand that it could
have been avoided
it could have been totally avoided this
um catastrophe
and um
and i this the figures really do sort of
illustrate
how we're not into this together
and how the politics of our
um of the pandemic has
divided us across
national boundaries and across regional
boundaries across
you know between individuals that has
divided us
so um i
am so i'm very conscious of the fact
when we're talking about lessons learnt
from covert that
um everyone joining us today has had
vastly different experiences
and traumas associated with that this
pandemic
in australia.
8-50 um our figures
are you know probably
minuscule in comparison so we have had
only
909 deaths and so we've been
we've done magnitudes better than for
example the us
the uk and europe us and the uk
sort of having comparable political
economies
um but i you know i think that the the
lesson also here is that we can't
get caught in the intellect intellectual
trap of anchoring against the
extreme horrific figures that we see
in the us um and letting it
corrupt our reasoning and um stop us
from
understanding that we could have
prevented even what number of cases that
we've had in australia
because we could quite frankly have done
better in australia
and we could have achieved zero covert a
year ago
we could have achieved zero coverage in
all of the countries a year ago
and i suppose something i read um a
tweet by bill bo
bautel who's quite a prominent um
person figure in public health in
australia who said
that nature creates viruses bad
politicians
or more so bad politics create pandemics
and i i guess that's you know one of the
particular lessons that we had can learn
from the cover 19 crisis
so um i discussed
uh the angle that we're going to take
yes
a few days ago with bill and we talked
about
um really emphasizing the brutal nature
of
capitalism and the the very fact that
capitalism by its very nature
cannot guarantee full employment and in
that way
um many people are excluded from
the economy and condemned really to
a life of disadvantage and deprivation
i won't actually go into too much more
detail about that because bill wrote a
brilliant
blog a couple of days ago that really
does
go into um argue the case of
how particularly the job guarantee
and the issues of
um instability in capitalism
are moderated by
um that automatic stabilizing function
of the job guarantee system but
you know we'll go into more detail about
that with our discussions with pavlina
and bill
i sort of in terms of the social
contract wanted to say really that we've
sort of suffered under another sort of
virulent strain
a plague called neoliberalism and it
really has
um skewed our social contract in favor
of a very small minority and they've
really captured our um democracy
and in the process also have
um duped us a lot of us
into um a bogus sort of sense of liberty
and freedom where we um are more focused
on
sort of the freedom from government and
freedom from
um government in our lives and really
have
sort of missed the the true the bigger
problem of
being free from the market which has
really intervened in
a lot of aspects of our public policy
and caused
significant problems so i um
i suppose in in that
sort of framing i
want to say really that m t really does
clarify who um
holds genuine power or sovereignty
within our society and at the moment
the people that hold the the genuine
power
and who have the ability or using the
monetary
money system to serve their interests
are really the market
and um in
in educating people about modern
monetary theory we're educating them to
really have that sense that we need to
reclaim as bill would have said
the um
yeah sorry sort of reclaim what was it
bill reclaim
our um productive
um production of the the currency i
think it's
anyway sorry i'm bumbling along i'll
hand it over now
to bill who will um
speak for about 10 minutes and after
that we'll
hand it to uh pavlina who again will
speak to
for 10 minutes so bill .
14-00
well thanks very much jane and thanks to
anne and marcus
and and all the team at mma it's
and it's great to see pavlina in
australia
um even though she's not here but
we can be anywhere this this in this age
and so
fantastic to see you again papalina
yeah i mean this is a really vexed issue
and
i grew up in post-war australia
at a time when in material terms we were
considerably less well-off than we are
now
we had a
growing economy but it was a fairly
primitive economy we were exporting
commodities primary commodities and we
had a burgeoning manufacturing sector
protected by
tariff walls but what we did have
and you know i mean people often
criticize that era
and there's a lot to criticize in terms
of our approach to our indigenous
australians our approach male approach
to women
their cons you know the exclusion of
women from a lot of things and
they were things that over time have
evolved a bit and they're still not
satisfactory but
what we did have in that era was a
concept of collective will
and a concept of society
and a concept of each one of us being a
member of that society
and giving to it and you
you grew up in that society realizing
that
you expected something from it
and if it didn't come from the kindness
of your neighbors or your parents
then it came from the state and
and i personally benefited significantly
growing up in a very low income
working class family from
state welfare and that state welfare
included both
trans cash transfers and all sorts of
things like that scholarships and
help in in cash terms but also
it was crucial
that the you know and that was the men
in those days
because of the sort of stratification of
the labor market
it would it was crucial that the men
could have work
and the poorest men the lowest income
men
and a lot of these men were people who'd
come back from the second world war
who had grown up and survived the great
depression
and came back from the second world war
with nothing
uh they'd just gone to war on a dream
you know
of of serving their nation and what all
those sort of
sentiments uh
we can contest those sentiments and i i
have all my life
about the you know the emphasis on
celebrating war and all of that but
those men
would did what they thought was best and
they came back with nothing a lot of
them
and the the unskilled men in the context
of labor market skills
and uh the state looked after them
through pro making sure that the state
used its
policy power its capacity
to ensure there was always jobs now
there weren't always jobs in the
private sector or in the korea public
sector
but there was another sector in the
australian economy which was replicated
in almost every other economy
in this period and that was you could
conceive it as a job guarantee sector it
wasn't called that then but you could
always
get a job on any day of the week
during this period by going to the
railway yards the ports
the local government depots
you could get jobs in in in the housing
utilities that were
within government not privatized within
the transport utilities
and that was the difference between full
employment and not
it wasn't that everybody had jobs in
the other sectors it was because there
was a buffer stock an absorption
sector that meant that for whatever
reason you didn't have an
income you could get a job
and with the events of the 70s and the
and the shift in mentality as we started
to lose our
sense of and it wasn't that it just
happened by accident
we were the the narrative changed as
you know for people who who are old
enough will remember all the debates in
the early 70s about profit squeeze and
you know in america there was the power
memorandum which really
lay the blueprint for for for what was
to come how
how capital was going to come back and
um
that changed the narrative and the big
difference now between now and then
was that we had collective will then we
thought as a collective
and we've been now manipulated
to think as individuals and a lot of our
thinking
about public policy and how we
understand the logic of government etc
is because we we think as individuals
now
and we somehow been being duped into
believing that if we just look after
ourselves
and
it'll all be okay.
20-00
and and this concept
of society has elapsed a bit
now what the pandemic taught us in
australia
is that there still was a very much as a
society and and what was heartening
you know in a travesty for me
was what gave me some hope in the last
year
was that the embers of society
the embers of collective will are still
there
it was quite clear that we adopted in
this country
a very explicit pressure on governments
that we weren't going to let our parents
and our grandparents die
that we were going to protect everybody
no matter what
now there were lapses because of
quarantine leaks but not many
and we as a society stood by our state
governments
even though the neoliberal federal
government was berating them
to open borders and do all that sort of
stuff and open shops and the business
communities were
the people of australia
stood by forced our state governments
and this was a peculiarity of our
constitution which
net we all now understand that the
federal government isn't
necessarily in charge of a whole lot of
things so these uh
things that we hadn't actually thought
about unless you're a constitutional
lawyer
came to came to fruition that the state
governments had a lot of power that they
did that we didn't think they had
but we forced our state governments to
uh
look after all of us and uh we were
prepared to
you know melbourne 111 days of lockdown
no
not moving five kilometers from your
house only once a day
unbelievable and and so
that that's that's why we're in the
state we are but
that taught me that the the idea of
collective will hasn't been
eliminated from our psyche our
our the way we think about each other
and the way we think about the
responsibilities of government
now to talk more explicitly about
employment guarantees
there's a lot of noise out there all the
time about this and i'll summarize
the points very quickly because we all
want to hear from pavlina and
the points are this that when i came up
with the idea of the job guarantee in
1978
the buffer stock mechanism i was a young
student and and going into postgraduate
studies
and the big issue of the day was
inflation
australia had inflation up around 19
and it was that came from the oil shocks
and the
massive increase in the price of oil and
all these or our oil dependent nations
suffered massive price shocks
and if you were alive then you'll know
that the very next council throw out
there were all these big tanks and out
on the nature strips and they were oil
heaters people would get they couldn't
afford to heat their homes anymore
and and there was a dramatic
substitution to gas and small cars and
all the rest of it that took time
so the area that i grew up in was the
beginning of monitors
as a student was as a postgraduate
student the beginning
at that time was high inflation and the
academy had been taken over by
monetarists
the the i all the keynesians had
disappeared
and the monetarists were ruling the
russo i mean i i started
i was in universities where monetarism
was right
and their their
construction of the net inflation
problem was it was excessive deficits
was it was too much money and
the government had to run go quickly as
possible into surplus and cut
the public sector dramatically and of
course you know
in the light in the light of increased
knowledge we know that that was a
political strategy an ideological
strategy
because the the uh the principles of
monetarism don't stack up in any
knowledge sense it was an ideological
agenda
even if some of the adherents and
proponents didn't
appreciate that and they were just being
used as well but the point is
that this was an era where unemployment
had previously been
less than two percent for four decades
nearly
three and a half decades and governments
in australia lost
federal elections if unemployment went
above two percent
and suddenly in this late seventies
we're having
unemployment rising to three percent
four percent five percent
and then it never went back down
and so as a young progressive student
wanting to build a postgraduate career
and
is wanting to then go on and try to
become an academic
my main agenda was how the hell am i
going
how the hell does a progressive young
person
who wants to do research and and
understand stuff and
influence the public debate through
research how the hell does that person
deal with what we're facing if you've
got the whole academy in economics
twisting the argument that you've got to
have unemployment abandoning the whole
concept of a trade-off between inflation
and unemployment.
25-57
and because a lot of my early
reading and study had been in with
koleski and marx and
and those great classical economists
i also came my ideological persuasion
was that capitalism was conflictual
and that one of the it was prone to
and also my keynesian thinking influence
was that it was prone to underemployment
and steady states and
with high unemployment but also as the
social democratic era evolved it was
also
prone to inflationary biases because of
the distributional struggles the
conflict over the distribution of income
and that was because you had two big
price setting powers in the labor market
the unions and the
and the more concentrated firms that
could battle it out through
price adjustments and wage demands
and so as a young academy young aspiring
academic who
wanted a research career i wanted
desperately to work out a way
that i could come up with a plan that
would
cut through that accepted wisdom and
come up with an alternative that was
progressive
and the progressiveness was that you
didn't create unemployment
that you gave people jobs and it came
out of my studies as
people who've read my work in
agricultural economics
where australia was successfully more or
less at the time running a wool price
stabilization scheme
and that that was a price stability
scheme that gave
sheep farmers full employment
effectively
of their clip and that's where job
guarantee came from
it's an anti-inflation device that that
that
that prevents society from
building unemployment and instead offers
people jobs
for the for the time that's needed
to mediate and and and cut back into
that conflictual
uh distributional conflict and attenuate
the inflationary pressures
i never saw it as a job creation scheme
i never saw
it as i as as a very nice scheme
i've never saw it as something we should
aspire to
i just saw it as being a whole lot
better than than the travesty of
unemployment
and and it gave us some room
to breathe without creating that
unemployment
and then as i studied a little bit more
and i'll be another minute
as i studied more i realized that that
buffer stock of jobs also was
were really that that had existed in the
post-war period
were really permanent jobs for some
people
some people that had mental mental
illnesses episodic illnesses people
who were in and out of the prison
criminal justice system
a young students young musicians young
artists
a whole range of people used that buffer
stock capacity to their own advantage to
get give them income
and give them a chance to participate
and contribute
where they couldn't get that opportunity
in the standard
employment sector so i realized that it
couldn't just be a temporary
anti-inflation buffer it had to be a
permanent system
we and we should aspire to make that as
small as possible at all times
now in a non-inflationary period like
we've got now
a job guarantee wouldn't be the first
priority of government
the the job guarantee should be there as
a piece of institutional
mechanics that the system has always
but the aims of government should always
be to minimize it by creating high paid
high productivity secure dignified
decent jobs that's not to say that job
guarantee jobs would be undignified
but the infl anti-inflationary capacity
of the scheme
has to be that they are at the bottom of
the wage distribution and fixed price
that's that's the realities of that
and as a society we shouldn't aspire to
to
relying on that type of structure for
advance of well-being but it's an
essential piece of the machinery
in a capitalist system that's
conflictual
and any other plans that like ubi and
basic
income that you want to propose
can't address that conflict without
unemployment
unless you have a buffer stock of jobs
so i'll leave it there but that's that's
that's the sort of context in which this
which i came up with this proposal and
later when i ran into it
met up with warren which has been a
really rewarding
uh relationship for me personally and uh
i hope others uh he he came from it
in a different way but ex exactly the
same sort of sentiment
that it was to be minimized it was an
essential piece of
institutional economic policy structure
but it should be minimized
and it can be minimized in a
non-inflationary environment by
government creating
high quality jobs thanks very much
okay thank you bill and i actually
neglected to
um formally introduce you and most
people would know your credentials
i did want to give you a plug to your
mooc which is starting next week and
i think most of um the panelists
including myself ann and marcus are
enrolled
so i really want to encourage people to
um enroll it's free and
there is a certificate level um
uh course as well which is a minimal
cost
um and i'll put the link in
the chat box so you can go straight
there and enroll
um bill um
so i'll hand over to pavlina and i
really
i suppose um and have been um
very interested in the how pavlina talks
about
the unemployment crisis as a silent
epidemic and
and some of the mmt informed
um policies really being about
prevention and preparedness and it is
quite um sort of
it's i think pertinent that this was
being
you've been writing about this prior to
the pandemic and
so that language we're all familiar with
now but in
um in terms of um uh
what's happening in society at the
moment when we look at
that a lot of the problems of inequality
and problems of
um associated with the wicked problems
of public health
the causes of the causes of the causes
we need we need to look
really deep into what the root of those
causes are and
and i i have to say doing a masters of
public health
um i think they always neglect to look
at the macro
and look at how the scarcity
economics is hamstringing
our public policy and so i
am interested in you speaking about that
and
and also i suppose also considering
how bill has discussed the um small part
that the job guarantee would play
as in terms of the labor market policy
and addressing these issues
or the issues of capitalism inherent to
capitalism
um would you say that
in acknowledging that would you say that
the job guarantee the power of
its um transformative um
well sorry the power of the job
guarantee to transform
the prevailing neoliberal contract um is
in its function as an automatic
stabilizer and a price anchor
and and what would you
would a new social contract founded on
this new macroeconomic models
look how would that look for workers so
i've
a lot to work with there but um yeah i'd
love to hear what you have to say about
that
thank you no thank you jane
and thank you to ann and marcus for
inviting me and it's always a pleasure
to be with
bill i was just thinking that maybe the
last and i'm gonna date myself but i
think the last time i was in australia
was maybe about 20 years ago
or maybe 19 when bill was organizing
the coffee conferences so i think
long overdue for a visit hopefully soon
um so thank you for bringing the public
health
um angle because you know when
i was reading bill's work on the buffer
stock that people are now familiar with
um you know one of the things that you
know struck me and everyone that reads
that narrative
is that how we have wonderfully managed
to figure out a price stabilization
scheme for wool and for other
commodities and there are other
examples where we could you know just
stabilize the price of corn and soybeans
and gold
we sell them and we buy them
but you know to be able to stabilize the
price of a commodity you actually have
to employ
the commodity you can't just fix the
price
you have to also have an employment
program
so it got me thinking you know that
bill's
argument um that we are not doing that
for labor is you know probably the most
egregious
kind of example of us having a perfectly
good policy
but not applying it to the most valuable
resource
that we have and so you know often
people talk about let's increase the
minimum wage is very important of course
uh it's critical to increase the minimum
wage but that is not a complete policy
you also have to have an employer at
that minimum wage policy of last resorts
to ensure that anyone
can find that employment opportunity
so you know when you think about it wool
doesn't care if it's employed or not
right wool can you know go and rot and
go
unsold and corn can waste away and
all of these commodities they don't care
if gold is buried in the ground but
people care
people experience the mental
physical all the other costs that come
with unemployment
which makes this macroeconomic paradigm
even more pernicious we have tools we're
not
deploying them and we are willingly um
bearing these social and economic costs
so what i do in my work is that i
connect
the macroeconomic features of the
program
with the public health
findings and there are many you know the
literature on public health is not new
but it really has not been brought into
the macro framework
that um the costs of unemployment
are there are many and they're mostly
non-monetary
okay and um so when you think about you
know bi or ubi programs like they will
not be
you know a solution to the problem of
unemployment
but also for the very reasons that you
mentioned jane in the introduction you
know i i look at unemployment not just
as a macro phenomena that goes up and
down throughout time but i also look at
it spatially
very often in my presentations i show a
map of unemployment how
unemployment behaves in a geographical
sense it really ripples through a
community and
very much mimics the behavior of viruses
and epidemics and so
that that metaphor that you know i i
came up with before the pandemic wasn't
really a metaphor it was a description
of
the way unemployment actually dissipates
through a community
and so when you start thinking about the
social costs
the mechanism through which unemployment
ripples through
um and the fact that this is
a highly destabilizing process
right an economy that tolerates mass
unemployment is much more
unstable than one that aims at full
employment
um then you start thinking about
different policy responses from the
outset
and in macro we usually respond too
little too late
as you know we see the crisis that's
upon us and then we try to tackle it and
of course it never works
but when you connect the the employment
program
with this epidemiology epidemiological
view
you actually start thinking about
preparedness you start thinking about
prevention you start thinking about
putting in place
structures that are permanent that exist
on ongoing basis that
tackle the problem of unemployment and
thus prevent
all of the other macroeconomic social
political you name it costs
so these are the two pieces that you
know i think probably worth
um highlighting that's just like bill is
saying
we're not just talking just another job
that's not really what we're talking
about we're talking about
just deeper structural changes in the
way the economy
is working and in a way that it's
working in a healthy
in a healthier manner right so
um i then when i was thinking about your
question you know how does this forge a
new social contract
i jotted down just a few um
a few points and i agree with bill
uh we have always aspired to
having a well-run economy that provides
good employment opportunities for all by
whatever means possible
whether they're in the public sector
whether it is requiring the private
sector to do better
whether it is enhancing social services
that are neglected
but the public option for job
has been missing right that is another
mechanism that is missing
and so in in a way we would like a well
um oil you know well-run economy
that provides economic opportunity
climbing you know
ladders if you will but we have to start
somewhere
there has to be a basic standard
and so when i think about the social
contract i think of it this way
um number one a new social contract is
one that says we will not inflict the
injury of unemployment on people
as a policy commitment we
will guarantee employment opportunities
basic living wage employment
opportunities
so our macro thinking then becomes from
the bottom up
it happens from through direct
employment um
at base wage you know the price anchor
for all wages and prices in the economy
that's the macro commitment.
but it is a
kind of a new a new
social contract responding to ups and
downs of economic
fluctuations number two um
this would be familiar to those who have
studied mmt.
41-27
the social contract says that we will
remedy
the problem that we have created in the
monetary system
the tax and non-reciprocal obligations
create the inevitable unemployment
somebody seeking work
in the monetary unit and it is only
the issuer of that unit that can remedy
that condition
and so if we have um this kind of injury
the original sin of our monetary system
is unemployment
then the social contract says that it is
the public sector that will
remedy that that problem it creates so
it's really a right
to me actually the rights framework is
very important because
it is the right of the people to demand
the employment
of the of the source that creates the
unemployment
okay number three no working person
shall fall below
um basic dignified wage benefit package
so
while we would not want the job
guarantee to do
and i always say you know there are far
too great expectations of the job
guarantee you shouldn't expect the job
community to solve all your social
problems
um you know it should be small it should
be there but
it has to be the standard that says this
will be the dignified wage benefit for
this is what every other um uh firm
must match and thus it becomes the labor
standard so that's a new component to
the social contract
um number four the government safety net
it's maybe a subset we always have
income support and various training
opportunities for jobs that are not
there but the
safety net will be will have the missing
piece of the direct employment
um number five you know we often talk
about the job guarantee fitting the job
to the worker
right that there are um we want to
enable
people to be successful to be able to
transition into employment to transition
to better paid employment
to provide these opportunities so you
see the paradigm is flipped
where in you know in the traditional
sense people are fitted to particular
jobs here
we're creating employment opportunities
where they can you know get on-the-job
training to be successful etc so it
flips
we value people not jobs
right number six um the jobs in the
public sector
don't yield these are public service
jobs right they don't they're not
created for commercial return they're
not created for profit they created for
all of the reasons that we just
articulated
that does not mean that they cannot
deliver social value and indeed they
must
right you know we are also talking about
doing things that they are just not
traditionally done
and i think this is why the link between
the job guarantee and the environmental
concerns is just
so strong because they're often the last
ones on the ladder
neglected and they cannot be remedied
with a job guarantee i want to be very
clear about this that the environmental
concerns
require multi-pronged strategy but when
you talk about
a job that would be for
basic maintenance of our natural
environment
that is almost the most basic form of
labor that we can do
um to to sustain you know our
uh our world if you will so we value
what is typically undervalued
a few more a few more angles um that i
want to highlight number seven
going back to the macro we reject the
necessity
of unemployment right all these things
that bill was referring to that
you know the trade-off that was
formalized in the 50s and the 60s now
it's called the nairo
this constant refrain that we need
unemployment for price stability
that is a new social contract we reject
that we argue
that unemployment or poorly paid
employment
will not be used as inflation will work
we will find other mechanism of
addressing inflation job guarantee is
one
of course there are other sources of
inflation you know there are other
policies but it's not going to be people
and poverty
number eight um you know once we reject
the threat of unemployment
that has ripple effects for people who
are not unemployed
right it improves their own well-being
um
that you may have a job but you're
constantly afraid you know you tolerate
discrimination you tolerate other things
and
those things happen at the lower end of
the income distribution
a lot more and so having the out having
the option
is a new social contract um
finally we we now we don't have to talk
about the inevitable trade-offs between
jobs
and environment jobs and technology jobs
and you name it jobs are always the
trade-off of anything right
so we reject that narrative so that's
another component
of the of the job guarantee and
finally as i argued
this this has to do with design
like you know taking into account all
the macro features once you think about
how you put it in place on the ground
you know my um emphasis has always been
on the bottom up
participatory design where you involve
the people in the community in the
design of the projects
which means that we enhance
participatory democracy
we enhance input of the very people
whose livelihoods are being impacted
about communities
and so we now try to mobilize all
corners of civil society
for this new social contract and this
new way
of of being and living and working and
the very very last point that i'm going
to say that i'm going to point out is
that this is not a nation-specific
policy you know the the the ideal
commitment would be to have a global
commitment
to full employment where now you know
globe we we foster global labor
solidarity right people you know jobs
are not again
fitted against each other in the in the
competition for trade
and thus we then articulate and we
um uh we uh meet the
challenge that was laid out very early
the turn of last century right that
you know from the ilo to the ito to the
u.n
um that there has been an international
articulation for the importance
of guaranteeing the right you know
employment and full employment
and so um the job unit can be that tool
for social macroeconomic and global
uh integration okay
thank you thank you and
um uh i actually also didn't formally
introduce you pavlina but i think you're
very well known to our um
audience and i just wanted to um prompt
you to look into the chat box
um and i've put in a link to pavlina's
book
and that has her website which has is i
mean other than the book which i've read
um is a great resource for understanding
the job guarantee and mmt
and so i highly recommend going there so
and i might um hand it over to you
and we have a series of questions we're
seeing
quickly running out of time and we have
a lot of questions coming through q
a so we may not get through all of our
questions
as hosts so we can let the um
attendees ask their questions okay and
over to you thank you jane and thank you
to bill and pavlina for your comments
that have got everyone thinking
um so while marcus is just collating
those questions
um maybe i'll get the ball rolling with
just a first one
to both of you maybe beginning with bill
just in this in this idea that we're
talking now about
the job guarantee .
so maybe we could be a
little bit more
explicit about how we talk about the job
guarantee
um you know the way i've started to
think about it myself is this idea that
the job guarantee is like
this um necessary but not
sufficient sort of aspect of
you know if we're calling it renewing
the social contract
um and bill you even uh got me thinking
with your blog post relating today's
to today's discussion where you said
that
um paulie pouring all our activists and
political energy into getting a job
guarantee up
is not a sensible strategy so of course
that makes the
activist in me sit back and think
well um we seem to be in this conundrum
i think which is
where the job guarantee
on the surface it seems like a very
simple concept
you know it's obviously a job creation
program but it gets a little bit more
complex when we think about the
macroeconomics and
the way uh you know you describe it as a
price stability framework
and i think that's the harder thing for
people to get their heads around
and i've even heard proponents
of the job guarantee as well as the
detractors you know just say well
all this talk about price stability
that's just economic tech no babel
so i was just wondering if um perhaps
you could talk
more about what is the significance of
the job
uh in its function as a price stability
framework um
and even if you would like to unpack
some of those more
uh difficult to understand concepts like
automatic stabilizing and price
anchoring
um because i think our audience is
probably already very sympathetic to the
idea
but i feel like we need ways of getting
this
over to people without um
making the job guarantee also like the
the center point for if we are looking
for
a new social contract or if we are
looking at
um being active around moving the
economy
out of say a fossil fuel driven economy
and looking at what the
just transition or the green transition
might look like
so if you either of you have any
comments about how to talk about the job
guarantee but might start with you bill
well look i thought i thought pavlin's
10-point plan
or 10-point definition was very elegant
and i think that you know
when i grew up we
had a right to public education we knew
that
everybody had a right to state delivered
public education we knew that every
citizen we grew up as children knowing
that everybody could
have public health care if they were
sick and very sick they'd go to a
hospital without
and they wouldn't become poor as a
consequence
we we
knew that we had lots of protections
under rule of law
as principles of a civil society
and the other thing that when i was
young because it was a full employment
era
we knew that we could always have a
right to a job
as a young person through school you
knew
that there was always a job
even at the minimal at the lowest level
of pay you could always get a job so you
didn't think about that
i always knew that i could get a job
when i wanted one
and so my thoughts were on well
what am i going to do with myself and
what am i going to
you know do i want to pursue a trade and
become a carpenter or
a plumber or do i want to go in
pursue higher education whether do i
want to go to tech school and become a
drafts person or something or do i want
to go to university and become
something else these were the ways we
thought
because we knew we could always get a
job no matter what so
so there was no issue worrying the angst
of whether i was going to be unemployed
or not
so your life's dreams become what am i
going to do with myself
what opportunities can can i pursue
according to my preferences
and my assessment of what i can do
and that way of thinking
was driven by the full employment
guarantee that we had when in the full
employment era
and it's a fundamental shift in in
in in in a young person's dreaming about
their future
than we have now and so the way i think
of a job guarantee is that
it's it's like having a right to an
education or a right to public health
or a right to to being respected under
the law
it's just one of the rights of a
sophisticated
civilized society that then frees you
from the anxieties
in this case of unemployment and and
poverty
so if we all grow up thinking there's
there's
at least a job there that i can do and i
can select my hours i can get trained
within it
it's going to give me a socially
inclusive wage that
means that i can go to the football on a
saturday or go to the
go to a restaurant or have a bit of a
holiday
so i can be included in society it's the
minimum conditions required for that
inclusiveness
it will give me four weeks holiday pain
the australian settings if i get sick it
will give me whatever
14 days sick pay a year it will
contribute to my superannuation fund so
that i can expect
a a moderate return material retirement
but at least to secure
retirement then
then i'm freed i can think big
knowing that at least i've got security
in society that's the way i think of a
job guarantee
that's a very inspiring way i think to
talk about it
and um so what you're talking about is
how if you frame it in the rights
framework that actually translates
into the way individuals can dream big
and i think it help really helps to have
an historical
memory about how things used to be
different and
therefore taking the best of the past
and projecting it into the future
so i'm wondering if you had any comments
about that
yeah thank you i want to talk maybe a
little bit about um
the question of how do we you know get
over
to you know having people recognize the
benefits
of the job guarantee and i think at
least
at least in the recent
years we have polled the program
and it does pull very well it it really
and actually
we haven't we've been polling it since
the late 80s in the united states there
are various surveys but in
like the it has entered the popular
discourse at least in the united states
and the uk
was polled and so um
people do like it it is quite possible
that people don't
fully appreciate what it is that it may
be
that they like it for the job creation
aspect that there is
so much anxiety and the loss of jobs but
nevertheless
it is overwhelmingly popular
and it is it does garner bipartisan
support i mean the us it's upwards of 70
similar survey in the uk etc um
and so i think uh this is a good thing
it's it's a it's a good thing and all
aspects of the job guarantee need to be
highlighted i think that if we are to
have an enduring
success i think we need to appreciate
the macroeconomic
aspects of it okay because um
it is it's these sorts of wranglings
that um that were
you know problematic during the new deal
you know well which is a real job and
which is not a real job you know will
unions support it or not support it you
know what's considered low skill versus
high skilled work
you know what on which premises is the
job offer
made right what is the program supposed
to do and support to serve if the
program is supposed to serve
all of the neglected areas in public
sector life
as i said it's a sicifian task we
shouldn't ask so much of the job
guarantee
what we need to do is fortify our public
services
whichever way we need them on ongoing
permanent basis and still
recognize that people are the collateral
damage of an economy that has a
heartbeat
and we just have to reject that and we
need to say very firmly
that that will not be an acceptable
condition that we will provide the
dignified basic job offer
so we think it is important to
articulate the macroeconomic benefits
but we should also embrace
very much the democratizing potential of
it and the
other aspirational aspects that it is
possible that our community will have
community gardens
and they will be yes staffed by job
guarantee workers
but they will be there as permanent
infrastructure and job guarantee workers
will come and go
but we will have those um public
services that might be missing
that we will have an ongoing army
of tree planters or people that will be
doing
remediation that's invisible but it has
to be done
and so that's why i highlight that green
jobs are very
um really good for this kind of work
because they
certainly can be expanded very quickly
they can certainly be delayed
they are permanent there's a permanent
need for there for their work so the way
you think of it
is you think of the permanent programs
not
necessarily permanent employment and
some of the employment will be permanent
but some of it will come and go right on
the job training young people will need
apprenticeships etc so
so um we are trying i think what we're
to articulate is a permanent
fiscal infrastructure as a macroeconomic
response .
and then on the ground um sites
locations of job offers
that will be able to deal with either
larger influx
or lower influx but i do want to say
this there's a huge misconception about
the job guarantee
that somehow it will have to fluctuate
in these dramatic
ways as unemployment fluctuates
once you have a full employment economy
all matter of employment is
more stabilized it's private sector it's
public sector
the and we've seen this historically in
the data full employment
economies do not go through the yoyo
avalanche effect of unemployment so
the task is so much easier
that's really useful actually to help
people
start imagining what a full employment
world would look like
because if you haven't lived through it
it's very hard to imagine therefore how
would a job guarantee look like or how
would a fully functioning public service
look like
and i really liked your comment earlier
about rejecting that
narrative about the trade-off between
jobs and environment or
um you know jobs and something else and
i think
it's that whole reframing that we're all
doing
as we talk about the job guarantee so
unless you either of you have any more
comments i might
throw over to marcus who
will have some questions from our
audience today
brilliant thanks ann so the first one
we've actually had two questions coming
in
around steady state so can australia
move to a steady state economy and
potentially
what has a job guarantee role in that
and just before answering that i'm not
100 sure what is meant by steady state
wayne did you want to say any comments
on that one
if wayne's still there
oh there we go okay thanks mate and very
please be brief thank you marcus the
steady state economy
um herman daley i'm sure that bill
and um pavlina are aware of herman
daley's work
brilliant all right thank you for that
so steady state theory and um
what a job guarantee can play in that
thanks wayne
marcus who some direction please sorry
sorry uh bill if perhaps if you
start with that one give it as
australian context
well look we aspire to a steady state
economy
in this in that context
and when we talk about so when we talked
about full employment say in the 1960s
the the one there were several elements
of a steady state economy that we
we ignored because we were ignorant
and in 2021 we
add more elements to what we mean by a
steady state a steady state is that
everybody who wants a job can find one
everybody who wants some working hours
can find them
and of course all activities have to be
consistent with maintaining our natural
environmental health as much as we worry
about our own physical health but we've
also got to worry about that obviously
we're embedded in the planet
the planet isn't just another resource
that we can use to
fix the economy to make the economy work
the economy works for
us and the planet and that's what a
steady state has to be
so job guarantee that doesn't alter the
fact that
in a steady state people want to work
and have to work i mean from there
from the day one of humanity we've been
transforming nature
that's the only way we survived and the
the
the the way in which we transfer
form nature has to evolve in it and in
this
current era it has to evolve very
quickly
and uh away from the the damaging
transformations
the the catastrophic terminal
transformation so
it that doesn't alter the need for a
buffer stock of jobs
uh that is of always available to
anybody who wants to work
and and i i think pavlina's point was
fantastic
that you know i see on the
on twitter people thinking that job
guarantee is going to become
40 of the workforce or something
that we're going to have hordes of
people on minimum wages in a
properly run economy would have a job
guarantee very very small
when we had true full employment in
australia
we might have had half a percent of the
workforce half a percent
if that in these jobs i talked about
within the public sector that you could
always get a tiny little number of
people
they were very important people because
they were people
but it was a very small thing and that's
because the government
had plenty of other jobs for people so
i think yeah i was that i'll finish
there i think i've said everything i
need to say
brilliant thank thanks for that bill um
have linda do you want to add anything
to that or i'll move on to the next one
i i think bill put it perfectly well
there are environmental limits
we'll have to live within these
environmental limits but as long as
this economy that operates within these
environmental limits goes through ups
and downs the job guarantee has to be a
key component of how we reach the steady
state there are many other
you know things we need to be thinking
about of how to maintain assist you know
you know not pillage the environment etc
but um yeah i think that
that's right okay thank you pablina so
a question that's related to that is
around the role i suppose of what a job
guarantee
can have for mental health so there's
been a few questions
around um so for example i do appreciate
your work addressing negative mental
health effects of unemployment
how far do you think the job guarantee
would go into solving these sorts of
mental health crisis in the western
world pavlina perhaps if you could start
with that one
yeah i mean i don't want to uh over
promise you know i think this is
important you know mental health
is a complicated issue you know and
and there it's a compounded issue right
by a
multitude of um individual and social
factors.
but what we want to do is we want to
remove this one critical
determinant of mental health social
determinant mental health
and we do not want the distressed of
absence of a job
to be a source of mental health problems
um you know housing could be an issue
you could be
you could have a job but not have a home
and that would also be contributing to
some of these
um other costs so i think we need to
think of it more holistically
but what we know is that when jobs rob a
community of its economic life
these effects become compounded and they
also accelerate
and so it's the job is just seems to be
linked to all sorts of social
deprivations
it's not going to solve them all but we
just want to remove it as a critical
factor yeah so so two
three observations
one when i describe those jobs that
anybody could get in the 1960s and 70s
in the public sector
i used to be i was i used to be able to
get a job on
down at the victoria at spencer street
in melbourne rail yards on any day of
the week i wanted
and and that gave us a chance to have a
little bit of income
at a time in a difficult period
and my work mates would disappear
on some days some days they'd be there
some days they wouldn't be there
and they were people with episodic
illnesses
but they could always go down to the
spencer street rail yards
and load trucks when they were feeling a
bit better
and we also know second point we also
know that one of the
pathologies that arise from unemployment
is the deprivation of social contact and
the feeling of shame
and the loss of your social network the
social network
narrows until you're sitting at home on
your own feeling depressed and failed
and that contributes to rapid incidence
in in mental
uh illness the third thing i'd say is
relates to my own personal experience
one of my large australian research
council
grants that i've had in the past was to
work with the
the new south wales
health department as a as one of the
link
linkage partnership and this was the
james fletcher hospital group that
that are the leading researchers and
practitioners in dealing with youth with
psychosis
and that partnership what we did was we
worked with the
the clinical professionals over a three
year period
and the problem of young people is they
they
they become schizophrenic typically in
their towards the end of their secondary
school
and that completely
disrupts their life because they often
can't finish secondary school
they often can't go on to university or
other training other technical
or skill development and they can't get
jobs
and so their life spirals out of control
and all the research evidence shows that
early intervention
into that problem which is a very
significant problem for
for young people early early
intervention
can stop their adult lives being totally
dysfunctional and
unbelievably depressing and so our
project was to
design design job structures
and find employers that would
hire these young young men and women
and uh and we and the clinical team
design clinical support structures
uh that could uh help help those young
people when they were having problems
and uh what we found was the following
private sector employers wouldn't
participate
wouldn't have a bar of it so we found
some employers that would participate
and the we also found that
one of the problems of of young people
with mental
illness going into the workplace was not
their own
problem but the perception of the other
workers in the workplace
who were you know elementary concerns
like are these people going to get an
axe and
freak out and access to death and stuff
like this
and so we also designed an education
program
that could help the non-mentally ill
workers
participate with young people who who
did have
episodic illnesses and sometimes were
just
dysfunctional and what we found to cut a
long story short
was that those young people their their
life's experiences
improved dramatically they were very
functional they were very productive
but some days they weren't because they
were ill
and they got adequate clinical support
and we could
read we could design the work processes
to be flexible
to to accommodate them and
and what we what i learned from that was
that
job creation programs like that at an
elemental level
can give um people with those mental
problems
a much better life and what we also what
what's
the evidence of longer term studies have
observed
is the the the incidence of of symptom
declines as the as the self-esteem rises
so that even though they've still got
schizophrenia
the dramatic the the devastating
consequences of that
decline and they become functional
adults they have
they suddenly these young people
suddenly had relationships for the first
time with
with girls or boys
you know partnerships they were able to
manage their lives better
it's it's a no-brainer and and and only
a
a public sector type structure can be
that flexible
you need flexibility and you need to
value and i thought what
pavlina said about it it's it's the
people we care about not
that the jobs have to be be tailored
to the people brilliant
thanks bill appreciate that so the next
question is actually sort of
extends on from that discussion around
the role of jobs guarantee
uh from a mental health or society
improvement perspective
and a lot of people have commented
having challenges around well what sort
of jobs does a job guarantee
fulfill or entail so there's a couple of
questions here
around you know what sort of jobs could
the job guarantee cover
pavlina would you mind kicking off on
that?
P：1-14-10
one
yeah thank you um i mean as we discussed
earlier
in um the environmental concerns of many
they are ongoing
and there isn't you know there isn't a
kind of a commercial return and
incentive for the private sector to do
but that's not even
um the proper way to think about it
there's so many things that the private
sector doesn't have an incentive to do
and so this is a proper function of the
public sector
so what what we're really thinking about
is a structure by which when somebody
goes to the unemployment office they can
walk out with a job offer.
we can deploy existing infrastructure to
provide them those opportunities
right so they may be green
rehabilitation projects i
as i said it's they these are um very
open to expanding and to
um contracting but
you know there are also ongoing threats
you know we we have fires we have floods
we have ongoing devastation that has to
be cleaned up
um so you will need to have a permanent
body that deals with these
but that would be very suitable to
providing
job employment opportunities for people
who have been
um unemployed for one reason another
you know i i think of kind of a
symbiosis between
the ongoing public sector
work that needs to be done with the job
guarantee
what what are our aspirations we want to
give a
people a step up right a leg up with
opportunities
so having you know on the job training
opportunities
whether it is in school settings whether
it is in hospital settings
that are kind of on the job training
programs essentially
um and then of course there will be um
you know folks who the private sector
will not be able to employ
that that will become the permanent
employment opportunity
so i think that you know the basic
criteria
is a public service um employment
opportunity that
is uh ongoing and you know could be
community gardens
could be after scare aftercare school
activities
i mean in the united states the context
is very peculiar a lot of these things
are done on
voluntary basis there are so many um
after-school programs that are you know
under staffed because they wait for
volunteers to come in
and do them and we can certainly use
that infrastructure
the community groups are already there
right they're just struggling
we can certainly use that infrastructure
um to
uh put some you know some folks to to
work
so i would say i i speak of care work
care for the environment care for the
community care for people
right meals on wheels etc with an
understanding that there are
these these it's not the project that
needs to come and go
it's the person that needs to be enabled
to come into the project
and then move out as they need
you know i can i just say one more thing
very often when i'm asked this question
um i wonder if there's like an
underlying assumption that
it the justification for the job
guarantee is the kind of project
that is going to be done i i may not
have been intended in this particular
question but i do
find this quite often but wait a minute
what kind of jobs will they be
and i think it's important to think
about this again from a macro
perspective the litmus test is not the
project
the litmus test is that we're
eradicating unemployment
right because it becomes the same thing
what's more important the person or the
job
right so the person or the project and
so of course we want to have meaningful
public service employment opportunities
and there are
many areas of need that are unfilled
but the litmus test is the benefits on
the individual and the benefits of the
macro economy from having this kind of
policy paradigm shift.
C：1-18-15
really thank you
very much pavlina
um i have we have a question that came
in during the week
uh around the and i have a lot of
discussion around this point job
guarantee versus basic income versus ubi
and the question is i hear people who
are pro job guarantees so they also
think it would be incompatible with a
basic income
that is a job guarantee could sit
alongside an income for those who choose
not to work
could the panel provide some views on
this and bill
if we don't mind we'd start with you on
this one well.
bill：1-18-50
i don't really want to but
i i know i know i think this has been
done to death and i'm sick to death of
it myself and i'm
i just think it's it's an incredibly
ignorant debate and i'm sorry for saying
that i think it's just a destructive
debate that
a few people with 15 twitter followers
have
amplified it to ridiculous proportions
you the job guarantee can be compatible
with almost anything
let's say that for the start so in the australian context
sure you could maintain the current
pernicious vicious
cruel torturing unemployment benefit
system
if you want to and that's what a lot of
progressives seem to say they want
and and have a job guarantee
and the idea that job guarantee would be
mandatory it's just false i've never
said that in my life
job guarantees voluntary you if you want
a job you can have it it's unconditional
it's demand driven
it's not a slave camp it's not work fair
it's not it's totally voluntary
and so it can be you could run an
unemployment benefit system
as well but if you eliminate
unemployment why do you need an
unemployment benefit system
you don't obviously so then what you're
really talking about is basic income
system
now then then you say then i say to
people
okay well if you
understand the genesis of the job
guarantee as a
price stabilization framework
and you want to have a basic income
program
well then effectively you're maintaining
a system where the government pays
everything at market prices whether it
does it through its own procurement or
whether it gives it to people as basic
income a day compete at market price
spend at market prices
it's okay you can do that but then what
happens when capitalism has an
inflationary crisis
and the government needs to tighten
spending because that's
that's indicated
then your basic income model becomes a
navy model
you're really still going to use
unemployment and the perniciousness of
that
to stabilize your your distributional
conflict
i reject that outright i reject that
outright
and if we then go on and say well
what else can we say about this
well then go back to what i said right
at the beginning today
of collective will i believe in society
i believe that we've all got a role to
play to benefit
each other as best we can and we should
respect everybody's contribution
at all times everybody can contribute
i don't really want to live in a society
where people think they're so
privileged that they can extract
income for nothing and not give back
that's just a moral ethical position for
me as a left-wing socialist
i want everybody to contribute in
in whatever way they can and i want
everybody to have the opportunity to do
that
and if you can't contribute through work
because you're old
or sick or young then we look after you
that's the nature of society
but if you're able and i and to
contribute i believe you should
and if we eliminate unemployment there's
no no need for unemployment benefits
and i challenge people who's who who
make these views that they're quite
happy in a progressive society having
people who can contribute not
then create a private welfare
organization and pay
incomes and i bet i guarantee you
that the voices that are loudest out
there on social media will not
create a private welfare organization
and contribute
and i just reject that argument that oh
we can
just be left alone to do our art well
someone's got to clean the streets and
stop
infection someone's got to make the food
that you buy at the supermarket
someone's got to do all of those things
so you're not escaping capitalism you're
not escaping material world and the
market
you're just pushing those
responsibilities onto other people
and then i could go on for hours about
the the work i've done with
psychologists and how
how social networks shrink and and it's
not a viable solution to have people not
engaged in society but i won't
i didn't want to talk about that at all
today.
yeah okay
thanks bill and look as a um behavioral
scientist myself your point
on the psychological benefits of work
are
very valid and decades decades every
hundred years
of research has shown that um thank you
for your response
uh pavlendo did you want to add anything
to that one .
T ：
i just i agree with bill this
conversation is totally argued on the
wrong premises
and a lot of it is driven by extremely
narrow conceptions of work
not only the mischaracterization the job
guarantee
tends to enjoy out there that it's a
work fair it's a guarantee it's not an
obligation
so we can repeat it one more time but
also it's a very narrow conception of
work like what does it mean
to to work i you know a lot of people
still have this you know
they're not able to emancipate
themselves off of the
the um of the current constraint you
know they see work as always and
everywhere punitive
but once you think of it as
participatory right
we would like we should we don't believe
that there should be starving artists
musicians right so in the modern context
you know a lot of people say well i just
want my ubi so i can you know go
and pursue my artistic interest well who
said we won't value that
in in fact the job guarantee precisely
recognizes this that we want to value
um um the many contributions that that
people
um can make so um i'm gonna
just put it put it there that there is a
literature on participation income
that i think is is the place where these
two dialogues can merge.
um i do agree that you know this idea
that ubi
is sufficient to satisfy our needs is
completely
incorrect on not just on moral grounds
that bill articulated
but also on economic grounds you just
don't understand how the economy works
and if you think that just
income is enough we don't create that
well-being then
sorely mistaken.
and number two i think
people understand this
i i there are loud voices but people do
understand this in the polls
the job guarantee always comes on top
brilliant.
C：
thank you very much for that
um we have had a couple of questions
come in
around the how to determine the level of
wages
for a job guarantee program um and and
bill i know you've
addressed this on your blog actually
quite extensively so i actually in terms
of australian context i think i would
direct people
to bill's blog around that but have lena
perhaps from
the us perspective or outside of
australia if you could make some
comments
around um you know how to determine the
level of weight living wages of the job
guarantee program
and as part of that if the minimum wage
rate in the private sector is not yet
adequate can the wage level the job
guarantee program be set above the
private sector minimum wage.
T：
yes it can and
it will it will work better of course if
you have
um combined legislation with the
increase in the minimum wage
it would make it easier um and less
disruptive
but uh you know right now in the united
states we have this huge debate whether
we should increase the minimum wage from
725 to 15
an hour and you know doubling it
essentially and we haven't increased the
minimum wage since 2009. it's long
overdue
it is really low low wage people cannot
live on that wage
and we have a large proportion of the
population that that works below 15
42 so as we were discussing earlier
you know these um you know these are
empirical questions on the potentially
disruptive effect on the minimum wage
and um the best way for me to go forward
is to first mandate a nationwide
increase in the minimum wage so that
private firms are forced to meet that
standard
but in the depths of a recession if you
have some small businesses and they
have to double up their you know double
their wage bill you may have some on
you know some layoffs but that's why we
have the job guarantee
you know we no longer have to make that
choice we actually can affirm that there
will be a basic standard at 15
and then we will deal with the residual
unemployment um
you know as i said these are probably
more empirical questions in terms of how
you phase in
um this this minimum wage but we see
that states do this
they do it washington increased their
minimum wage to 15. there are various
other states who are moving above
the minimum in the um in the united
states
uh bernie sanders shamed amazon into
raising their wage in 15 a couple of
years ago it's not hard
it can be done um but all these
anxieties can be alleviated with
with the job guarantee and i think you
know we keep saying that this is this is
a feature of the program
you do want to provide the competition
that private firms don't have
uh on matching that wage right
um and so um what is the living wage i
think we agree that we want to have a
stable nationwide there's a
democratizing kind of potential of
having like a minimum wage justice
said nationwide um and then you can
allow
as it is today uh states or
municipalities to have their own living
wage ordinances and do a top-up
uh of the the base wage from the job
guarantee.
1：38：10
bill：
yeah i think the general principles that
i've always articulated and i've done
work for the international labour
organisation
south african government in this context
designing the minimum wage system that
they currently use
is that the first principle is that the
minimum wage cannot be a capacity to pay
concept so i do a lot of work in the
in the industrial courts here for trade
unions and that
and it's always coming up the capacity
to pay principal.
now if you what a minimum wage is is the
is the minimum material standard you're
you're willing to accept as a society
that's what it is and uh
it can't be a capacity to pay because
then you can have all
high cost low productivity firms.
saying well we can't pay it well then
then you
then you have to say to those firms buzz
off
this came up in the south african
experience where a lot of firms were
below what was
what was going were paying below what
could pos socially inclusive minimum
level of
wage payments and and the imf said to me
oh well all these firms couldn't afford
to pay i say okay but that's not south
africa's future those firms.
and so there's a transition plan you've
got to come up with but
if you aspire to be a sophisticated
society then the minimum wage has to
express the minimum of that
and and it doesn't take too many
nutritionists and psychologists and
sociologists on a panel
to work out what the dollar figure for
that would be.
it's not rocket science.
C：
brilliant
thanks for that bill um look i am
conscious of time
so i think um there is one more question
which i think
will be fairly quick but it's an
interesting one
associated with the education of mmt
um and someone said uh i've
i've used this is from david parker uh
from
seattle to family and friends he's used
the
uh example of monopoly the game of
monopoly and the banker has to go first
to giving people currency not by tax and
money we don't have
and the monopoly sort of metaphor has
been used a number of different times
could you briefly as a comment say you
know is that a good example do you find
that works .
bill ：
i'll be brief pavlina can be longer it
doesn't to me i don't like it because
it's about
renting air capitalism and about uh rich
bastards driving out four people
in in uh old kent road and uh
houston and pentonville out of their
homes into destitution i
hate the analogy even though i
understand them.
C：
thanks bill pavlin.
P ：
i don't have this these strong feelings
i play monopoly with my kid but we do
talk about capitalism still
um you know you know it's a
it's a device you know where does the
money come from i think as long as it
does
drives the point that somebody gets it
that it's not
you know the money in your pockets comes
from one place only the currency rather
comes from one place only i think
we're you know a step ahead .
C ：
yeah look
thank you for that i think the broader
question that's also been touched on by
a number of people is around
you know turning this this new knowledge
that
mmt brings and and trying to
uh influence the public discourse and
ultimately policy change
and whether you use
metaphors of some kind monopoly or
whatever you know it's all
wrapped around that idea of how do we
get the message out how do we influence
change
and perhaps as a final comment around
that
because we do need to wrap up bill i
know you've
spoken a lot around this and you've even
done webinars and
courses around you know train the
trainer so to speak and how to
affect the public discourse as a final
comment uh
bill or have lena perhaps bill but we
won't go first what sort of comments you
might want to make around
what what do we do next where do we go
from here .
1：42：25
bill：
yeah i think that
over time i've underst i've learned i've
learned to understand
that being clever about economics is not
sufficient
that we can bat on all day about
do we get the currency from and all the
rest of the technical
things that now define mmt.
but it's it's a psychological challenge
we're up against as well
and this is where the sort of stuff on
framing and language matters
and that's why in the last seven or
eight years i've moved into that area as
well with louisa connors who's
that's her area and it's really
important that it's a double challenge
to
reframe people's thinking because if we
if we don't do that then what when i say
something
as a in an economic sense .
it just gets
reframed back into the
mainstream cognition
and and i think the lesson from the
social psychologists and the cognitive
linguists is very clear
that unless you reframe and make that
your priority
then you can be as smart as you like on
the mmt concepts you won't get through.
and that's our challenge it's a
unbelievably difficult challenge
but relentlessness is necessary.
C：
brilliant thank you for that lena.
P：
no i absolutely agree with uh with bill
and i think i would
also add one other challenge that we all
actually don't have the luxury of time
we don't have the luxury of time of
people
you know adopting and understanding a
new paradigm and
us finding the way to communicate it and
so
we are really running a kind of an
unfair race
and in that race i feel that you've got
to get all the help that you can get
and one way to do this is to
perhaps help how others
who are working on their specific issues
can connect to your own work
so you know you know broadly coalition
building but how the goal
of securing full employment um also
connects to the goal of
housing um and the various other kind of
social deprivations
and everything is connected to
everything so the more that we can
articulate those linkage
linkages i think um the better off we
are
uh we probably are not going to get the
version of the job guarantee that we
we think we're gonna get um
we're gonna try right we're gonna work
hard at it
but you also have to solve some very
important problems
so.
C：
brilliant thank you very much
both of you and i think um we'll
end the question session there and i'll
hand it back to
ann and jane.
J：
i am i really appreciate your um
generosity with your time and your
expertise and i um
always enjoy these sessions their hard
work
but it's um the mmt pennies are always
dropping and i always
benefit from further discussion and
delving deep into the issues and hearing
issues over and over again
and i just wanted to say um
bill uh i really i think um without
embarrassing you
or appearing fawning over you i think
you're a national treasure and i hope
people learn to
appreciate that you are
and and i think if we were to um
i mean i'm impatient for change and i
know that we don't have the luxury of
time and um and i really hope we
as an organization can have a little bit
of an impact on
spreading the word and changing people's
minds
um and pavlina i really
have been um following your work for a
long time and i
very much appreciate the metaphors that
you use in public the public health
metaphors and i think for me prevention
and preparedness really does
sort of boil it down to
boil um the approach down to what it
really is about is like
um yeah
it is preventing all of those social
ills that come about
naturally from a capitalist system
that's unchecked
and um and preparing for those
that may come in the future so um
i'll hand it to anne and i just wanted
to also say
um that your tribute in the front of the
book
to your daughter yvette and i think you
know that's a tribute for everyone
really that may we live in a world that
is green and just
and so i think ending on that would be
quite a nice um
message to finish off the webinar so
thank you
and anne do you have anything to say
thank you jane yes just to echo all
those sentiments and to thank our
speakers very much for their time today
because i know they are both in demand
because it is such a pertinent issue at
the moment
and bill i loved your image of the
glowing embers of collective will which
may be
fanning into flames
past 20 30.
yeah i'll be in melbourne next week
we'll i'll hope to catch up
terrific
and um thanks to our attendees um
we had yeah a great turnout and a lot of
familiar
names and people who i've had the
benefit of meeting in person
um and i just remind you to
uh if you want to listen or watch this
one again this episode again this
webinar again you can go to our youtube
channel which um i think is on our
website
and you can google it uh this should be
we'll just
have a few days to edit it and then
posting it in
um in a couple of days hopefully and
also
the mnt podcast with christian reilly
and petit priscia
sorry patricia pino um look out for that
one
okay thank you and thank you
thank you for that okay bye-bye see you
later bye bill
bye everyone see you peppling
okay see you later
英語 (自動生成)
00:01
my name is anne maxwell
00:03
and i am part of the committee with
00:05
modern money australia
00:08
uh who are hosting today's event
00:12
which is a webinar featuring professor
00:16
bill mitchell
00:17
and associate professor pablina geneva
00:22
before we begin the actual event i'll
00:25
just do a little bit of housekeeping
00:29
uh and to start with i would like to pay
00:32
my respects
00:33
to the traditional custodians of the
00:35
land where i am
00:36
today which is the lands of the kulin
00:39
nation
00:40
and i pay my respect to the elders past
00:43
and present
00:45
myself and marcus champ who is also with
00:48
modern money australia
00:51
marcus will be moderating most of the q
00:54
a today
00:55
and i'll be assisting him
00:58
so the aim of today was to make this
01:01
event as
01:02
interactive as we can with a webinar
01:05
so we have uh given over the majority of
01:08
time to a q a
01:10
section we hope it'll be about an hour
01:14
so don't be shy about asking your
01:17
questions i'm sure if you've got it in
01:19
your head somebody else is wondering
01:20
about it too
01:22
so it helps everyone to learn when you
01:24
can ask whatever's
01:26
on your mind
01:29
and marcus will be collating those
01:31
questions
01:32
and so you might find that your the
01:34
questions are not answered in the order
01:36
that we're receiving them
01:38
because marcus will be collating them
01:41
according to topic
01:45
so i think that's all i need to say
01:47
regarding the housekeeping
01:49
i'm just wondering marcus do you have
01:52
anything to add at all
01:54
thanks ladan not in particular other
01:55
than just to reinforce
01:57
really helpful if you put questions in
01:59
the q a area
02:00
and as we said earlier we won't
02:02
necessarily answer questions in order
02:04
that they're posted
02:06
it will depend on how the conversation
02:07
is going and so on just so everyone's
02:09
got
02:09
clear expectations on that but we will
02:11
obviously try to get to everyone's
02:12
questions
02:13
uh depending on time thank you
02:16
great well at this point i might hand
02:20
over
02:20
to jane who did a lot of work
02:24
to put this event together today and
02:26
she'll make some introductory
02:28
remarks hi everyone so i'm jane flanagan
02:32
and i'm
02:32
currently president of our little
02:36
association which is incorporated and
02:38
we um became we came into existence
02:42
about it
02:42
18 months ago and um it was
02:46
josh who really started josh in
02:48
melbourne who's one of who's our
02:49
secretary
02:50
started things off in victoria and we
02:53
joined soon after in
02:54
new south wales um and so we've
02:58
been running education events
03:02
since about august or may
03:05
uh 2019 and um since covert we've been
03:09
online and have had about 16 i think
03:11
this is our 16th
03:13
um event since covert hit and um
03:17
so i think yeah pushed on through
03:20
despite the challenges and um because of
03:23
the challenges i think
03:25
so modern money australia we our main
03:28
purpose is to
03:31
provide sort of an independent media i
03:34
suppose education
03:35
um about modern monetary theory uh we
03:39
um uh a group of volunteers
03:43
and we so are working
03:46
unpaid to bring you these uh events
03:50
uh we um
03:51
[Music]
03:54
we have received significant donations
03:56
that have contributed towards our
03:58
subscription to zoom for the next
04:00
two webinars and so we really appreciate
04:03
people who have donated
04:05
and if you are able to um
04:08
donate for future events we can then
04:11
cover about the minimal costs which are
04:14
zoom costs mostly
04:15
um so we can continue to provide these
04:18
some mobile webinars
04:20
uh and it really is a matter of maybe
04:22
one or two dollars
04:23
so if you can afford that that would be
04:26
amazing i also
04:28
want to acknowledge that we have um
04:31
sort of worked in partnership with
04:33
various other organizations and so
04:35
we today's recording will be used by the
04:39
mmt podcast with christian
04:41
reilly and patricia pino so look
04:44
out for that next week when it's i think
04:46
will probably be released next week
04:49
um and potentially our future webinars
04:52
will also be used
04:53
for their podcast series
04:58
in terms of this today's webinar i
05:01
really
05:01
sort of took um inspiration from the
05:05
second chapter of pavlina's book and
05:06
really wanted to do a little bit of it
05:09
well i went into a little bit of a
05:10
rabbit hole around the social contract
05:12
and trying to understand how that
05:16
um yeah the the
05:19
social contract theory and mmt really
05:22
and so i think um
05:24
first of all i wanted to put it in
05:26
perspective in terms of
05:27
what we've all been experiencing over
05:30
the last year
05:31
and um just to say that
05:35
it was on the 29th of february 2020
05:39
so not quite one year ago that the
05:41
united states reported
05:43
what was first thought to be the first
05:45
death of a u.s citizen so
05:47
in one year one year ago which is seems
05:50
much longer
05:52
but um in actual fact there were two
05:55
deaths
05:57
in um industry that were
06:00
attributed to covert today the united
06:03
states
06:04
has reached a devastating covert 19 toll
06:07
with
06:08
um 508 000 deaths
06:11
with a total number of cases reaching
06:13
28.4 million
06:16
and so to put that in perspective i
06:19
heard
06:19
this was heard on the radio the other
06:20
day there have been more
06:22
u.s citizens die from covert 19 in the
06:25
last year
06:26
than died in world war one world war ii
06:29
and then more combined
06:32
and deaths in the u.s
06:35
account for approximately 20 of the
06:39
total number of deaths worldwide
06:41
which um the total worldwide stands at
06:44
2.5 million deaths and
06:47
no actually 113 million cases
06:50
no sorry 2.5 million deaths
06:53
so and the total number of cases
06:57
is now at 113 million with
07:00
approximately 300 380
07:03
000 new cases in the world every day
07:07
and it's just i think those figures
07:10
every time i read them
07:11
i found them astounding and just takes
07:14
my breath away
07:15
and i guess
07:19
reminding people of where we're at
07:21
because in australia
07:22
we have had nearly a month in new south
07:25
wales at least the longest
07:27
duration without community transmission
07:30
since the beginning of the
07:31
pandemic and so we kind of feel a little
07:34
bit removed from
07:35
the nightmare that people are living in
07:37
other countries
07:38
and but we feel
07:41
a sense of solidarity i suppose
07:43
especially across
07:44
the mmt community because particularly
07:48
because
07:50
we understand that it could have been
07:52
avoided it could have been totally
07:53
avoided this
07:55
catastrophe and um
08:01
and i this the figures really do sort of
08:04
illustrate
08:05
how we're not into this together
08:08
and how the politics of our um
08:12
of the pandemic has divided us
08:16
across national boundaries
08:19
and across regional boundaries across
08:21
you know between individuals that has
08:23
divided us
08:25
so um i
08:28
um
08:32
so i'm very conscious of the fact when
08:34
we're talking about lessons learnt from
08:36
covert that
08:37
everyone joining us today has had vastly
08:39
different experiences
08:41
and traumas associated with that this
08:43
pandemic
08:46
in australia um our figures are
08:50
you know probably
08:54
minuscule in comparison so we have had
08:58
only
08:58
909 deaths and so we've been
09:01
we've done magnitudes better than for
09:04
example the u.s the uk
09:06
and europe us and the uk sort of having
09:09
comparable political economies
09:13
um but i you know i think that the
09:16
lesson also here is that we can't
09:19
get caught in the intellect intellectual
09:21
trap of anchoring against the
09:23
extreme horrific figures that we see in
09:26
the us
09:27
um and letting it corrupt our reasoning
09:31
and
09:32
stop us from understanding that we could
09:35
have prevented
09:36
even what number of cases that we've had
09:37
in australia
09:39
because we could quite frankly have done
09:41
better in australia
09:42
and we could have achieved zero covert a
09:45
year ago
09:47
we could have achieved zero coverage in
09:50
all of the countries a year ago
09:53
[Music]
09:54
and i suppose something i read a tweet
09:57
by bill bo
09:58
bautel who's quite a prominent
10:02
person figure in public health in
10:03
australia who said
10:05
that nature creates viruses bad
10:08
politicians
10:09
or more so bad politics create pandemics
10:13
and i i guess that's you know one of the
10:15
particular lessons that we had can learn
10:17
from the covert 19 crisis
10:20
so um
10:24
i discussed uh the angle that we're
10:27
going to take yes a few days ago with
10:29
bill
10:30
and we talked about um really
10:33
emphasizing the brutal nature of
10:36
capitalism and the the very fact that
10:40
capitalism by its very nature
10:44
cannot guarantee full employment and in
10:47
that way
10:48
um many people are excluded from
10:51
the economy and uh condemned really to
10:55
a life of um disadvantage and
10:58
deprivation
11:00
i won't actually go into too much more
11:02
detail about that because bill wrote a
11:04
brilliant
11:05
blog a couple of days ago that really
11:07
does
11:08
go into um argue the case of
11:13
how particularly the job guarantee
11:17
and the issues of
11:21
instability in capitalism
11:24
are moderated by um
11:29
the automatic stabilizing function of
11:31
the job guarantee system but
11:32
you know we'll go into more detail about
11:34
that with our discussions with pavlina
11:36
and bill
11:37
i sort of in terms of the social
11:39
contract wanted to say really that we've
11:42
sort of suffered under
11:43
another sort of virulent strain
11:46
a plague called neoliberalism and it
11:49
really has
11:50
um skewed our social contract in favor
11:53
of a very small minority
11:56
and they've really captured our um
11:59
democracy and in the process
12:02
also have um
12:05
duped us a lot of us into
12:10
um a bogus sort of sense of liberty
12:14
and freedom where we um are more focused
12:17
on
12:18
sort of the freedom from government and
12:20
freedom from
12:21
um government in our lives and really
12:24
have
12:25
sort of missed the the true the bigger
12:28
problem of
12:29
being free from the market which has
12:32
really intervened in
12:34
a lot of aspects of our public policy
12:37
and caused significant
12:38
problems so i um i suppose
12:42
in in that sort of
12:46
framing i want to say really that
12:50
m t really does clarify
12:53
who um
12:55
[Music]
12:56
holds genuine power or sovereignty
12:58
within our society and at the moment
13:01
the people that hold the the genuine
13:03
power
13:04
and who have the ability or using the
13:07
money
13:08
money system to serve their interests
13:10
are really the market
13:12
and in
13:15
in educating people about modern
13:17
monetary theory we're educating them to
13:19
really have that sense that we need to
13:23
reclaim as bill would have said
13:27
um
13:27
[Music]
13:30
yeah sorry sort of reclaim what was it
13:32
bill reclaim our um
13:35
productive um production of the
13:38
the currency i think it's anyway sorry
13:41
i'm bumbling along
13:42
i'll hand it over now to bill who will
13:46
um speak for about 10 minutes
13:49
and after that we'll um hand it to
13:53
uh pavlina who again will speak to tech
13:56
for 10 minutes
13:58
so bill well thanks very much jane and
14:01
thanks to anne
14:02
and marcus and and all the team at mma
14:06
it's and it's great to see pavlina in
14:09
australia
14:12
even though she's not here but we can be
14:15
anywhere
14:16
this this in this age and so fantastic
14:19
to see you again papalina
14:21
uh yeah i mean this is a really vexed
14:25
issue
14:25
and i grew up in post-war
14:28
australia
14:32
at a time when in material terms we were
14:36
considerably less well-off than we are
14:38
now
14:39
[Music]
14:40
we had a
14:44
a growing economy but it was a fairly
14:46
primitive economy we were exporting
14:49
commodities primary commodities and we
14:52
had a burgeoning manufacturing sector
14:54
protected by
14:55
tariff walls but what we did have
14:59
and you know i mean people often
15:03
criticize that era
15:06
and there's a lot to criticize in terms
15:08
of our approach to our indigenous
15:11
australians our approach male approach
15:14
to women
15:15
their cons you know the exclusion of
15:17
women from a lot of things and
15:19
they they were things that over time
15:22
have evolved a bit and they're still not
15:24
satisfactory but
15:27
what we did have in that era was a
15:30
concept of collective will
15:33
and a concept of society
15:37
and a concept of each one of us being a
15:40
member of that society and giving to it
15:44
and you you grew up in that society
15:47
realizing that you expected something
15:50
from it
15:52
and if it didn't come from the kindness
15:54
of your neighbors or your parents
15:56
then it came from the state and
16:01
and i personally benefited significantly
16:04
growing up in a very low income
16:06
working class family from
16:10
state welfare and that state welfare
16:14
included both
16:15
trans cash transfers and all sorts of
16:18
things like that scholarships and
16:21
help in in cash terms but also
16:26
it was crucial
16:30
that the you know and that was the men
16:33
in those days because of the sort of
16:35
stratification
16:36
of the labor market it would
16:39
it was crucial that the men could have
16:42
work
16:43
and the poorest men the lowest income
16:46
men and a lot of these men were people
16:49
who'd come back from the second world
16:50
war
16:52
who had grown up and survived the great
16:54
depression
16:55
and came back from the second world war
16:57
with nothing
17:00
they'd just gone to war on a dream you
17:02
know of
17:03
of serving their nation and what all
17:05
those sort of sentiments
17:08
uh we can contest those sentiments and i
17:12
i have all my life about the you know
17:14
the emphasis on
17:16
celebrating war and all of that but
17:18
those men would
17:19
did what they thought was best and they
17:22
came back with nothing a lot of them
17:24
and the the unskilled men in the context
17:27
of labor market skills
17:30
and uh the state looked after them
17:33
through making sure that the state used
17:37
its
17:38
policy power its capacity
17:42
to ensure there was always jobs now
17:44
there weren't always jobs in the
17:47
private sector or in the korea public
17:51
sector
17:52
but there was another sector in the
17:54
australian economy which was replicated
17:56
in almost every other economy
17:58
in this period and that was you could
18:01
conceive it as a job guarantee sector it
18:03
wasn't called that then
18:06
but you could always get a job on any
18:09
day of the week
18:10
during this period by going to the the
18:13
railway yards
18:15
the ports the local government uh
18:19
depots uh you could get jobs in in
18:23
in the housing utilities that were
18:25
within government not privatized
18:28
within the transport utilities and that
18:31
was the difference between full
18:32
employment and not
18:34
it wasn't that everybody had jobs in
18:37
the other sectors it was because there
18:39
was a buffer stock an
18:40
absorption sector that meant that for
18:43
whatever reason you didn't have an
18:45
income
18:46
you could get a job and
18:50
with the events of the 70s and the and
18:53
the
18:54
shift in mentality as we started to lose
18:57
our
18:57
sense of and it wasn't that it just
19:01
happened by accident
19:02
we were the the narrative changed as
19:06
you know for people who who are old
19:08
enough will remember all the debates in
19:09
the early 70s about profit squeeze and
19:13
um you know in america there was the
19:15
power
19:16
memorandum which really lay the
19:18
blueprint for
19:19
for for what was to come how how capital
19:22
was going to come back
19:24
and that changed the narrative
19:27
and the big difference now between now
19:30
and then
19:31
was that we had collective will then we
19:34
thought as a collective
19:36
and we've been now manipulated
19:39
to think as individuals and a lot of our
19:42
thinking
19:43
about public policy and how we
19:46
understand the logic of government etc
19:48
is because we we think as individuals
19:51
now
19:52
and we somehow been being duped into
19:55
believing that if we
19:56
just look after ourselves and
20:02
it'll all be okay and and this concept
20:05
of society
20:06
has lapsed a bit now what the pandemic
20:09
taught us in australia is that there
20:12
still was a very much as
20:14
a society and and what was heartening
20:17
you know in a travesty for me
20:21
was what what gave me some hope in the
20:24
last year
20:25
was that the embers of society
20:29
the embers of collective will are still
20:32
there
20:33
it was quite clear that we adopted in
20:35
this country
20:36
a very explicit uh pressure on
20:40
governments
20:41
that we weren't going to let our parents
20:43
and our grandparents die
20:45
that we were going to protect everybody
20:47
no matter what
20:49
now there were lapses because of
20:50
quarantine leaks but not many
20:53
and we as a society stood by our state
20:56
governments even though the neoliberal
20:58
federal government was berating them
21:00
to open borders and do all that sort of
21:04
stuff and open shops and the business
21:06
communities were
21:07
the people of australia
21:10
stood by forced our state governments
21:13
and this was a peculiarity of our
21:15
constitution which
21:16
net we all now understand that the
21:18
federal government isn't
21:19
necessarily in charge of a whole lot of
21:21
things so these uh
21:23
things that we hadn't actually thought
21:25
about unless you're a constitutional
21:27
lawyer
21:28
came to came to fruition that the state
21:31
governments had a lot of power that they
21:32
did
21:32
that we didn't think they had but we
21:35
forced our state governments to
21:38
uh look after all of us
21:41
and uh we were prepared to you know
21:43
melbourne 111 days of lockdown no
21:47
not moving five kilometers from your
21:49
house only once a day
21:51
unbelievable and and so
21:55
that that's that's why we win the state
21:57
we are but
22:01
that taught me that the the idea of
22:04
collective will hasn't been
22:05
eliminated from our psyche our
22:09
our the way we think about each other
22:12
and the way we think about the
22:13
responsibilities of government
22:16
now to talk more explicitly about
22:18
employment guarantees
22:21
there's a lot of noise out there all the
22:24
time about this and i'll summarize
22:26
the points very quickly because we all
22:29
want to hear from pavlina and uh
22:33
the points are this that when i came up
22:36
with the idea of the job guarantee in
22:38
1978
22:40
the buffer stock mechanism i was a young
22:44
student and and going into postgraduate
22:48
studies
22:49
and the big issue of the day was
22:51
inflation
22:53
australia had inflation up around 19
22:57
and it was that came from the oil shocks
23:00
and the
23:01
massive increase in the price of oil and
23:03
all these our oil dependent nations
23:06
suffered massive price shocks
23:09
and if you were alive then you'll know
23:12
that the very next council throw out
23:14
there were all these big tanks and out
23:17
on the nature strips and they were oil
23:19
heaters people would get they couldn't
23:21
afford to heat their homes anymore
23:23
and and there was a dramatic
23:25
substitution to gas
23:26
and small cars and all the rest of it
23:28
that took time
23:30
so the area that i grew up in was the
23:33
beginning of monitors
23:34
as a student was and as a postgraduate
23:37
student the beginning
23:39
at that time was high inflation and the
23:43
academy had been taken over by
23:44
monetarists
23:46
the the i all the keynesians had
23:48
disappeared
23:50
and the monetarists were ruling the
23:51
russo i mean i i
23:53
started i was in universities where
23:55
monetarism was rife
23:57
and their their
24:01
construction of the inflation problem
24:03
was it was excessive deficits
24:06
was it was too much money and uh the
24:09
government had to
24:10
run go quickly as possible into surplus
24:14
and cut the public sector dramatically
24:17
and of course you know
24:18
in the light in the light of increased
24:20
knowledge we know that that was a
24:22
political strategy an ideological
24:24
strategy
24:25
because the the uh the principles of
24:29
monetarism don't stack up in any
24:31
knowledge sense it was an ideological
24:33
agenda
24:35
even if some of the adherents and
24:37
proponents didn't
24:38
appreciate that and they were just being
24:40
used as well but the point is
24:42
that this was an era where unemployment
24:45
had previously been
24:46
less than two percent for four decades
24:49
nearly
24:50
three and a half decades and governments
24:53
in australia lost
24:54
federal elections if unemployment went
24:56
above two percent
24:59
and suddenly in this late 70s we're
25:01
having
25:02
unemployment rising to 3 4 5
25:05
and then it never went back down
25:08
and so as a young progressive student
25:12
wanting to build a postgraduate career
25:15
and is wanting to
25:16
then go on and try to become an academic
25:20
my main agenda was how the hell am i
25:23
going
25:23
how the hell does a progressive young
25:25
person
25:27
who wants to do research and and
25:30
understand stuff and
25:31
and influence the public debate through
25:33
research
25:34
how the hell does that person
25:38
deal with what we're facing you've got
25:40
the whole academy in economics
25:42
twisting the argument that you've got to
25:44
have unemployment abandoning the whole
25:46
concept of a trade-off between inflation
25:48
and unemployment
25:51
and because a lot of my early
25:54
reading and study had been in with
25:57
koleski and marx and
25:59
those great classical economists
26:03
i also came my ideological persuasion
26:06
was that capitalism was conflictual
26:09
and that one of the it was prone to
26:13
and also my keynesian thinking influence
26:16
was that it was prone to underemployment
26:19
and steady states and
26:20
with high unemployment but also as the
26:24
social democratic era evolved it was
26:26
also
26:27
prone to inflationary biases because of
26:30
the distributional struggles the
26:32
conflict over the distribution of income
26:35
and that was because you had two big
26:37
price setting powers in the labor market
26:39
the
26:39
unions and the and the more concentrated
26:42
firms that could battle it out through
26:44
price adjustments and wage demands
26:47
and so as a young academy young aspiring
26:50
academic who wanted a research career
26:52
i wanted desperately to work out a way
26:54
that i could come up with a plan
26:56
that would cut through that
26:59
accepted wisdom and come up with an
27:01
alternative that was progressive
27:04
and the progressiveness was that you
27:06
didn't create unemployment
27:07
that you gave people jobs and it came
27:11
out of my studies as
27:12
people who've read my work in
27:14
agricultural economics
27:15
where australia was successfully more or
27:18
less at the time running a wool price
27:20
stabilization scheme
27:21
and that that was a price stability
27:24
scheme that gave
27:25
sheep farmers full employment
27:27
effectively
27:29
of their clip and that's where job
27:32
guarantee came from
27:34
it's an anti-inflation device that that
27:37
that
27:38
that prevents
27:41
society from building unemployment and
27:45
instead offers people jobs
27:47
for the for the time that's needed
27:50
to mediate and and and cut back into
27:53
that conflictual
27:55
uh distributional conflict and attenuate
27:58
the inflationary pressures
28:00
i never saw it as a job creation scheme
28:03
i never saw it as i
28:05
as as a very nice scheme i've
28:08
never saw it as something we should
28:10
aspire to
28:12
i just saw it as being a whole lot
28:14
better than than the travesty of
28:16
unemployment
28:17
and and it gave us some room to breathe
28:21
without creating that unemployment
28:24
and then as i studied a little bit more
28:25
and i'll be another minute
28:27
as i studied more i realized that that
28:31
buffer stock of jobs also was
28:33
were really that that had existed in the
28:36
post-war period
28:37
were really permanent jobs for some
28:38
people
28:40
some people that had mental mental
28:42
illnesses episodic illnesses people
28:45
who were in and out of the prison
28:47
criminal justice system
28:49
young students young musicians young
28:52
artists
28:52
a whole range of people used that buffer
28:55
stock capacity to their own advantage to
28:57
get give them income
28:59
and give them a chance to participate
29:01
and contribute
29:03
where they couldn't get that opportunity
29:06
in the standard
29:07
employment sector so i realized that it
29:09
couldn't just be a temporary
29:12
anti-inflation buffer it had to be a
29:14
permanent system
29:16
we and we should aspire to make that as
29:18
small as possible at all times
29:21
now in a non-inflationary period like
29:23
we've got now
29:24
a job guarantee wouldn't be the first
29:26
priority for government
29:28
the the job guarantee should be there as
29:30
a piece of institutional
29:32
mechanics that the system has always
29:35
but the aims of government should always
29:37
be to minimize it by creating high paid
29:41
high productivity secure dignified
29:44
decent jobs that's not to say that job
29:46
guarantee jobs would be undignified
29:49
but the infl anti-inflationary capacity
29:52
of the scheme
29:53
has to be that they are at the bottom of
29:55
the wage distribution and fixed price
29:57
that's that's the realities of that
30:00
and as a society we shouldn't aspire to
30:03
to
30:04
relying on that type of structure for
30:08
advance of well-being but it's an
30:10
essential piece of the machinery
30:12
in a capitalist system that's
30:14
conflictual
30:16
and any other plans that like ubi and
30:19
basic income that you want to propose
30:23
can't address that conflict without
30:25
unemployment
30:27
unless you have a buffer stock of jobs
30:30
so i'll leave it there but that's
30:31
that's that's the sort of context in
30:33
which this
30:35
which i came up with this proposal and
30:37
later when i ran into
30:38
met up with warren which has been a
30:41
really rewarding
30:42
uh relationship for me personally and uh
30:45
i hope others uh he he came from it
30:49
in a different way but ex exactly the
30:53
same
30:53
sort of sentiment that it was to be
30:56
minimized it was an essential piece of
30:58
institutional economic policy structure
31:01
but it should be
31:03
and it can be minimized in a
31:05
non-inflationary environment by
31:07
government creating
31:08
high quality jobs thanks very much
31:14
okay thank you bill and i actually
31:16
neglected to um
31:18
formally introduce you and most people
31:21
would know
31:21
your credentials it doesn't matter
31:24
yeah i did want to mention i did want to
31:27
give
31:28
you a plug to your mooc which is
31:30
starting next week and i think most of
31:33
the panelists including myself ann and
31:34
marcus are enrolled
31:36
so i really want to encourage people to
31:39
um enroll it's free and
31:42
there is a certificate level um
31:46
course as well which is a minimal cost
31:50
and i'll put the link in the chat box so
31:53
you can
31:55
go straight there and enroll
31:58
bill um so i'll hand over to pavlina and
32:03
i really i suppose um and have been
32:06
um very interested in the how pavlina
32:10
talks about the unemployment crisis as a
32:13
silent epidemic and
32:15
and some of the mmt informed
32:19
um policies really being about
32:23
prevention and preparedness and it is
32:26
quite um sort of it's
32:30
i think pertinent that this was being
32:32
you've been writing about this prior to
32:34
the pandemic
32:35
and so that language we're all familiar
32:38
with now but in um
32:40
in terms of um uh
32:44
what's happening in society at the
32:45
moment when we look at that a lot of the
32:48
problems of inequality and problems of
32:51
um
32:53
associated with the wicked problems of
32:55
public health the causes of the causes
32:57
of the causes
32:58
we need we need to look really deep into
33:01
what the root of those causes are and
33:04
and i i have to say doing a masters of
33:06
public health
33:08
um i think they always neglect to look
33:10
at the macro
33:11
and look at how the scarcity
33:15
economics is um hamstringing
33:19
our public policy and um so i
33:22
am interested in you speaking about that
33:25
and
33:26
um and also
33:29
i suppose also considering how bill has
33:32
discussed
33:33
the um small part that a job guarantee
33:36
would play
33:37
as in terms of the labor market policy
33:40
and addressing these issues
33:41
or the issues of capitalism inherent to
33:44
capitalism
33:45
um would you say that
33:49
in acknowledging that would you say that
33:51
the job guarantee the power of
33:53
its um transformative um
33:58
the well sorry the um power of the job
34:00
guarantee to transform
34:02
the prevailing neoliberal contract
34:05
is in its function as an automatic
34:07
stabilizer and a price anchor
34:09
and and what would you
34:12
would a new social contract founded on
34:15
this new macro economic models
34:17
look how that look for workers so i've
34:20
a lot to work with there but um yeah i'd
34:22
love to hear what you have to say about
34:24
that
34:24
thank you no thank you jane
34:27
and thank you to ann and marcus for
34:31
inviting me and
34:31
it's always a pleasure to be with bill i
34:35
was just thinking that maybe the last
34:37
and i'm gonna date myself but i think
34:38
the last time i was in australia was
34:40
maybe about
34:41
20 years ago or maybe 19
34:44
when bill was organizing the coffee
34:47
conferences so i think
34:50
long overdue for a visit hopefully soon
34:53
um so thank you for bringing the public
34:56
health
34:57
um angle because you know when
35:00
i was reading bill's work on the buffer
35:02
stock that people are now familiar with
35:05
um you know one of the things that you
35:07
know struck me and everyone that reads
35:09
that narrative
35:11
is that how we have wonderfully managed
35:14
to figure out a price stabilization
35:17
scheme
35:18
for wool and for the commodities and
35:21
there are other examples where we could
35:23
you know just stabilize the price of
35:25
corn and soybeans and gold
35:27
we sell them and we buy them um
35:30
but you know to be able to stabilize the
35:33
price of a commodity you actually have
35:35
to
35:35
employ the commodity you can't just fix
35:38
the price
35:39
you have to also have an employment
35:40
program
35:42
so it got me thinking you know that
35:45
bill's
35:46
argument um that we are not doing that
35:49
for labor is you know probably the most
35:52
egregious kind of
35:53
example of us having a perfectly good
35:56
policy
35:57
but not applying it to the most valuable
35:59
resource
36:00
that we have and so you know often
36:03
people talk about let's increase the
36:05
minimum wage is very important of course
36:07
uh it's critical to increase the minimum
36:09
wage but that is not a complete policy
36:11
you also have to have an employer at
36:14
that minimum wage policy of last resort
36:17
to ensure that anyone can find that
36:19
employment opportunity
36:21
so you know when you think about it will
36:25
doesn't care if it's employed or not
36:28
right wool can you know go and rot and
36:32
go unsold and
36:33
corn can waste away and all of these
36:36
commodities they don't care if gold is
36:38
buried in the ground but people care
36:40
people experience the mental
36:44
physical all the other costs that come
36:47
with unemployment
36:48
which makes this macroeconomic paradigm
36:51
even more pernicious we have tools we're
36:53
not
36:54
deploying them and we are willingly
36:57
bearing these social and economic costs
37:01
so what i do in my work is that i
37:04
connect
37:05
the macroeconomic features of the
37:07
program
37:08
with the um public health
37:12
findings and there are many you know the
37:14
literature on public health is not new
37:16
but it really has not been brought into
37:18
the macro framework
37:20
that um the costs of unemployment
37:25
are there are many and they're mostly
37:27
non-monetary
37:29
okay and um so when you think about you
37:32
know bi or ubi programs like they will
37:35
not be
37:35
you know a solution to the problem of
37:38
unemployment
37:40
but also for the very reasons that you
37:42
mentioned jane in the introduction you
37:44
know i i look at unemployment
37:46
not just as a macro phenomena that goes
37:48
up and down throughout time but i also
37:49
look at it spatially
37:51
very often in my presentations i show a
37:53
map of unemployment how
37:55
unemployment behaves in a geographical
37:57
sense it really
37:58
ripples through a community and very
38:00
much mimics
38:01
the behavior of viruses and epidemics
38:04
and so
38:04
that that metaphor that you know i i i
38:08
came up with
38:08
before the pandemic wasn't really a
38:10
metaphor it was a description of
38:12
the way unemployment actually dissipates
38:15
through a community
38:16
and so when you start thinking about the
38:19
social costs
38:20
the mechanism through which unemployment
38:22
ripples through
38:23
um and the fact that this is
38:27
a um highly destabilizing process
38:30
right an economy that tolerates mass
38:32
unemployment is much more
38:34
unstable than one that aims at full
38:36
employment
38:37
um then you start thinking about
38:39
different policy responses from the
38:41
outset
38:42
and in macro we usually respond too
38:45
little
38:46
too late as you know we see the crisis
38:48
that's upon us and then we try to tackle
38:50
it and of course it never works
38:51
but when you connect the the employment
38:54
program
38:55
with this epidemiology epidemiological
38:58
view
38:59
you actually start thinking about
39:00
preparedness you start thinking about
39:02
prevention you start thinking about
39:03
putting in place
39:04
structures that are permanent that exist
39:07
on ongoing basis that
39:08
tackle the problem of unemployment and
39:11
thus prevent
39:12
all of the other macroeconomic social
39:14
political you name it costs
39:16
so these are the two pieces that you
39:18
know i think probably worth
39:20
highlighting that's just like bill is
39:22
saying we're not just talking
39:24
just another job that's not really what
39:26
we're talking about we're talking
39:28
about just deeper structural changes in
39:31
the way the economy is working
39:33
and in a way that it's working in a
39:35
healthy in a healthier manner
39:37
right so um i then when i was thinking
39:41
about your question you know how does
39:42
this forge a new social contract
39:45
i jot it down uh just a few um
39:48
a few points and i agree with bill
39:52
uh we have always aspired to
39:56
having a well-run economy that provides
40:00
good employment opportunities for all by
40:03
whatever means possible
40:04
whether they're in the public sector
40:06
whether it is requiring the private
40:08
sector to do better
40:10
whether it is enhancing social services
40:12
that are neglected
40:13
but the public option for job
40:17
has been missing right that is another
40:18
mechanism that is missing
40:20
and so in in a way we would like a well
40:24
um oil you know well-run economy
40:27
that provides economic opportunity
40:29
climbing you know
40:30
ladders if you will but we have to start
40:33
somewhere
40:33
there has to be a basic standard
40:37
and so when i think about this social
40:39
contract i think of it this way
40:42
um number one a new social contract is
40:46
one that says we will not inflict the
40:49
injury of unemployment on people as a
40:52
policy commitment
40:54
we will guarantee employment
40:57
opportunities
40:58
basic living wage employment
41:01
opportunities
41:02
so our macro thinking then becomes from
41:04
the bottom up
41:05
it happens from through direct
41:06
employment um
41:08
at base wage you know the price anchor
41:11
for all wages and prices in the economy
41:14
that's the macro commitment but it is a
41:17
kind of a new a new social
41:19
contract responding to ups and downs of
41:21
economic
41:22
fluctuations number two um
41:25
this would be familiar to those who have
41:27
studied mmt the social contract says
41:30
that we will remedy
41:31
the problem that we have created in the
41:34
monetary system
41:36
the tax and non-reciprocal obligations
41:40
create the inevitable unemployment
41:42
somebody seeking work
41:44
in the monetary unit and it is only
41:47
the issuer of that unit that can remedy
41:49
that condition
41:51
and so if we have um this kind of injury
41:54
the original sin
41:55
of our monetary system is unemployment
41:58
then the social contract says that it is
42:01
the public sector that will
42:02
will remedy that that problem it creates
42:05
so it's really a right
42:06
to me actually the rights framework is
42:08
very important because
42:10
it is the right of the people to demand
42:12
the employment
42:13
of the of the source that creates the
42:16
unemployment
42:18
okay number three no working person
42:21
shall fall below
42:22
um basic dignified wage benefit package
42:25
so
42:26
while we would not want the job
42:28
guarantee to do and i always say you
42:30
know there are far too great
42:32
expectations of the job guarantee you
42:33
shouldn't expect the job community to
42:35
solve all your social problems
42:37
um it you know it should be small it
42:38
should be there but
42:40
it has to be the standard that says this
42:42
will be the dignified wage benefit for
42:44
this is what every other firm
42:48
must match and thus it becomes the labor
42:50
standard so that's a new component to
42:52
the social contract
42:55
number four the government safety net
42:58
it's
42:58
you know maybe a subset we always have
43:00
income support and various training
43:02
opportunities for jobs that are not
43:03
there but the safety net will be
43:05
will have the missing piece of the
43:07
direct employment
43:08
um number five you know we often talk
43:12
about the job guarantee fitting the job
43:13
to the worker
43:15
right that there are um we want to
43:17
enable people to be successful to be
43:20
able to transition into employment to
43:21
transition to better paid employment
43:24
to provide these opportunities so you
43:26
see the paradigm is flipped
43:27
where in you know in the traditional
43:29
sense people are fitted to particular
43:31
jobs here
43:32
we're creating employment opportunities
43:34
where they can you know get on the job
43:36
training to be successful etc so it
43:37
flips
43:38
we value people not jobs
43:41
right number six um the jobs in the
43:45
public sector
43:47
don't yield these are public service
43:49
jobs right they don't they're not
43:50
created for commercial return they're
43:52
not created for profit they created for
43:54
all of the reasons that we just
43:55
articulated
43:57
that does not mean that they cannot
43:58
deliver social value and indeed they
44:00
must
44:01
right you know we are also talking about
44:04
doing things that they're just not
44:05
traditionally
44:06
done and i think this is why the link
44:09
between the job guarantee and the
44:10
environmental concerns
44:12
is just so strong because they're often
44:15
the last ones on the ladder neglected
44:18
and they cannot be remedied with a job
44:20
guarantee i want to be very
44:22
clear about this that the environmental
44:23
concerns require
44:25
multi-pronged strategy but when you talk
44:27
about
44:28
a job that would be for basic
44:32
maintenance of our natural environment
44:35
that
44:35
is almost the most basic form of labor
44:38
that we can do
44:39
um to to sustain you know our
44:42
uh our world if you will so we value
44:44
what is typically undervalued
44:47
a few more a few more angles that i want
44:50
to highlight number seven
44:52
going back to the macro we reject the
44:55
necessity
44:57
of unemployment right all these things
44:59
that bill was referring to
45:01
that you know the trade-off that was
45:02
formalized in the 50s in the 60s now
45:05
it's called the nairo
45:06
this constant refrain that we need
45:09
unemployment for price stability
45:11
that is a new social contract we reject
45:13
that we
45:15
argue that unemployment or poorly paid
45:18
employment
45:19
will not be used as inflation bulwark
45:23
we will find other mechanism of
45:24
addressing inflation job guarantee is
45:26
one
45:26
of course there are other sources of
45:28
inflation you know there are other
45:30
policies
45:30
but it's not going to be people in
45:32
poverty number eight
45:34
um you know once we reject the threat of
45:37
unemployment
45:39
that has ripple effects for people who
45:41
are not unemployed
45:42
right it improves their own well-being
45:44
um
45:45
that you may have a job but you're
45:47
constantly afraid you know
45:48
you tolerate discrimination you tolerate
45:50
other things and those things happen at
45:52
the lower end of the income distribution
45:54
a lot more and so having the out having
45:57
the option
45:58
is a new social contract um
46:01
finally we we now we don't have to talk
46:03
about the inevitable trade-offs between
46:05
jobs and
46:05
environment jobs and technology jobs and
46:08
you name it jobs are always the
46:09
trade-off of anything
46:10
right so we reject that narrative
46:13
so that's another component of the of
46:15
the job guarantee
46:17
and finally um as i argued
46:21
this this has to do with design
46:24
like you know taking into account all
46:26
the macro features once you think
46:28
about how you put it in place on the
46:29
ground you know my
46:31
um emphasis has always been on the
46:33
bottom up
46:34
participatory design where you involve
46:36
the people in the community and the
46:38
design of the projects
46:39
which means that we enhance
46:41
participatory democracy
46:43
we enhance input of the very people
46:45
whose livelihoods are being
46:46
impacted of our communities and so we
46:49
now try to mobilize all corners of civil
46:51
society
46:52
for this new social contract and this
46:55
new way
46:56
of of being and living and working and
46:59
the very very last point that i'm going
47:01
to say that i'm going to
47:02
point out is that this is not a
47:03
nation-specific policy
47:06
you know the the ideal commitment would
47:09
be to
47:10
have a global commitment to full
47:12
employment
47:13
where now you know globe we we foster
47:16
global labor solidarity right people you
47:18
know jobs are not again
47:20
pitted against each other in the in the
47:22
competition for trade
47:23
and thus we then articulate and we
47:27
um uh we uh meet the challenge that was
47:31
laid out very early the turn of last
47:33
century
47:33
right that you know from the ilo to the
47:35
ito to the u.n
47:37
that there has been an international
47:39
articulation for the importance
47:41
of guaranteeing the right you know
47:42
employment and full employment
47:44
and so um the job unity can be that tool
47:48
for social macroeconomic and global
47:51
integration okay
47:55
thank you thank you and
47:58
um i actually also didn't formally
48:02
introduce you pavlina but i think you're
48:03
very well known to
48:05
our audience and i just wanted to
48:08
prompt you to look into the chat box um
48:11
and i've
48:12
put in a link to pavlina's book
48:15
and that has her website which has is i
48:18
mean other than the book which i've read
48:20
um is a great resource for understanding
48:22
the job guarantee and
48:24
mmt and so i highly recommend going
48:27
there so and i might
48:28
um hand it over to you and we have
48:31
a series of questions we're seeing
48:33
quickly running out of time and we have
48:34
a lot of
48:35
questions coming through q a so we may
48:37
not get through all of our
48:39
questions as hosts so we can
48:42
let the attendees ask their questions
48:46
okay and over to you thank you jane
48:49
and thank you to bill and pavlina for
48:52
your comments that have got everyone
48:54
thinking
48:55
um so while marcus is just collaborating
48:58
those questions
48:59
um maybe i'll get the ball rolling with
49:02
just a first one
49:03
to uh both of you maybe beginning with
49:06
bill
49:07
just in this in this idea that we're
49:10
talking now about
49:12
the job guarantee so maybe we could be a
49:14
little bit more
49:15
explicit about how we talk about the job
49:19
guarantee
49:20
um you know the way i've started to
49:24
think about it myself is this idea that
49:27
the job guarantee is like
49:29
this um necessary but not
49:32
sufficient sort of aspect of
49:35
you know if we're calling it renewing
49:37
the social contract
49:40
um and bill you even uh got me thinking
49:43
with your blog post relating today's to
49:45
today's discussion
49:47
where you said that um paulie pouring
49:50
all
49:50
our activists and political energy into
49:53
getting a job guarantee up
49:55
is not a sensible strategy so of course
49:57
that makes the
49:58
activist in me sit back and think
50:01
well we seem to be in this conundrum i
50:04
think which is
50:05
where the job guarantee
50:08
on the surface it seems like a very
50:10
simple concept
50:12
you know it's obviously a job creation
50:14
program but it gets a little bit more
50:16
complex when we think about the
50:19
macroeconomics and
50:20
the way uh you know you describe it as a
50:23
price stability framework
50:26
and i think that's the harder thing for
50:28
people to get their heads around
50:30
and i've even heard proponents
50:33
of the job guarantee as well as the
50:35
detractors you know just say well
50:36
all this talk about price stability
50:38
that's just economic
50:40
techno babble so i was just wondering if
50:43
um perhaps you could talk more about
50:47
what is the significance of the job
50:50
uh in its function as a price stability
50:53
framework
50:56
and even if you would like to unpack
50:58
some of those more
51:01
difficult to understand concepts like
51:03
automatic stabilizing and price
51:05
anchoring
51:07
because i think our audience is probably
51:09
already very sympathetic to the idea
51:11
but i feel like we need ways of getting
51:14
this
51:15
over to people without um making the job
51:18
guarantee
51:19
also like the the center point for
51:23
if we are looking for a new social
51:26
contract or if we are looking at
51:29
um being active around moving the
51:32
economy
51:32
out of say a fossil fuel driven economy
51:35
and looking at what the just transition
51:37
or the green
51:38
transition might look like so if you
51:40
either of you have any comments about
51:42
how to talk about the job guarantee but
51:44
might start with you bill
51:46
well look i thought i thought pavlen's
51:49
10
51:50
point plan or 10-point definition
51:54
was very elegant and i think that
51:58
you know when i grew up we
52:03
had a right to public education we knew
52:06
that
52:06
everybody had a right to
52:10
state delivered public education
52:13
we knew that every citizen we grew up as
52:16
children knowing that everybody could
52:19
have public health care if they were
52:21
sick and very sick they'd go to a
52:23
hospital without and they wouldn't
52:24
become
52:25
poor as a consequence we
52:31
knew that we had lots of protections
52:33
under rule of law
52:35
as principles of of a civil society
52:39
and the other thing that when i was
52:41
young because it was a full employment
52:43
era
52:44
we knew that we could always have a
52:47
right to a job
52:49
as a young person and through school you
52:52
knew
52:53
that there was always a job
52:58
even at the minimal at the lowest level
53:00
of pay you could always get a job so you
53:03
didn't think about that
53:05
i always knew that i could get a job
53:07
when i wanted one
53:10
and so my thoughts were on well
53:14
what am i going to do with myself and
53:17
what am i going to
53:18
you know do i want to pursue a trade and
53:21
become a carpenter or
53:23
a plumber or do i want to go in
53:26
pursue higher education whether do i
53:29
want to go to tech school and become a
53:31
drafts person or something or do i want
53:33
to go to university and become
53:35
something else these were the ways we
53:38
thought
53:39
because we knew we could always get a
53:41
job no matter what so
53:43
so there was no issue worrying the angst
53:45
of whether i was going to be unemployed
53:47
or not
53:49
so your life's dreams become what am i
53:52
going to do with myself
53:53
what opportunities can can i pursue
53:56
according to my preferences and my
53:59
assessment of what i can do and
54:03
that way of thinking was driven by the
54:06
full employment
54:08
guarantee that we had when in the full
54:12
employment era
54:14
and it's a fundamental shift in in
54:18
in in in a young person's dreaming about
54:21
their future
54:23
than we have now and so the way i think
54:26
of a job guarantee is that
54:28
it's it's like having a right to an
54:31
education or a right to public health
54:35
or a right to to being respected under
54:38
the law
54:40
it's just one of the rights of a
54:42
sophisticated
54:43
civilized society that then frees you
54:47
from the anxieties
54:51
in this case of unemployment and and and
54:53
poverty
54:55
so if we all grow up thinking there's
54:58
there's at least a job there that i can
55:00
do
55:00
and i can select my hours i can get
55:02
trained within it
55:04
it's going to give me a socially
55:05
inclusive wage that
55:07
means that i can go to the football on a
55:10
saturday or go to the
55:11
go to a restaurant or have a bit of a
55:13
holiday
55:15
so i can be included in society it's the
55:19
minimum conditions required for that
55:21
inclusiveness
55:22
it will give me four weeks holiday pay
55:24
in the australian settings if i get sick
55:27
it'll give me whatever
55:28
14 days sick pay a year it will
55:30
contribute to my superannuation fund so
55:33
that i can expect
55:34
a a moderate return material retirement
55:38
but at least to secure retirement
55:43
then then i'm freed i can think big
55:47
knowing that at least i've got security
55:50
in society that's the way i think of a
55:52
job guarantee
55:54
that's a very inspiring way i think to
55:57
talk about it
55:58
and so what you're talking about is how
56:00
if you frame it in the rights
56:02
framework that actually translates into
56:05
the way individuals can dream big and i
56:07
think it help really helps to have an
56:09
historical
56:10
memory about how things used to be
56:12
different and
56:13
therefore taking the best of the past
56:15
and projecting it into the future
56:18
so i'm wondering if you had any comments
56:21
about that
56:25
yeah thank you i want to talk maybe a
56:27
little bit about
56:29
the question of how do we you know get
56:31
over
56:32
to you know having people recognize the
56:36
benefits
56:36
of the job guarantee and i think at
56:40
least
56:40
at least in the recent years
56:45
we have polled the program and it does
56:48
pull very well it really and actually
56:51
we haven't we've been polling it since
56:53
the late 80s and the united states there
56:54
are various surveys but in
56:55
like the it has entered the popular
56:57
discourse at least in the united states
56:59
and the uk
57:00
was polled and so um
57:03
people do like it it is quite possible
57:07
that people don't
57:08
fully appreciate what it is that it
57:12
may be that they like it for the job
57:14
creation aspect
57:15
that there is so much anxiety and the
57:17
loss of jobs
57:18
but nevertheless it is overwhelmingly
57:22
popular
57:23
and it is it does garner bipartisan
57:26
support i'm in the u.s it's upwards of
57:27
70
57:28
similar survey in the uk etc um
57:32
and so i think uh this is a good thing
57:36
it's it's a it's a good thing and all
57:38
aspects of the job guarantee need to be
57:40
highlighted i think that
57:42
if we are to have an enduring success
57:46
i think we need to appreciate the
57:47
macroeconomic uh aspects of it
57:50
okay because um it is it's these sorts
57:53
of wranglings that um
57:54
that were you know problematic during
57:57
the new deal
57:58
you know well which is a real job and
57:59
which is not a real job you know will
58:01
unions support it or not support it you
58:03
know what's considered low skill versus
58:04
high skilled work
58:05
you know what on which premises is the
58:08
job offer
58:09
made right what is the program supposed
58:11
to do and support to serve if the
58:13
program is supposed to serve
58:14
all of the neglected areas in public
58:16
sector life
58:18
as i said it's a sizifian task we
58:20
shouldn't ask so much of the job
58:21
guarantee
58:22
what we need to do is fortify
58:26
our public services whichever way we
58:28
need them on
58:29
ongoing permanent bases and still
58:31
recognize
58:33
that people are the collateral damage of
58:36
a
58:36
economy that has a heartbeat and we just
58:40
have to reject that
58:41
and we need to say very firmly that that
58:43
will not be an acceptable condition that
58:45
we will provide
58:46
the dignified basic job offer so we
58:49
think it is important to articulate the
58:50
macroeconomic benefits but we should
58:52
also embrace
58:53
very much the democratizing potential of
58:55
it and the
58:56
other aspirational aspects that it is
58:58
possible that our community will have
59:00
community gardens
59:01
and they will be yes staffed by job
59:04
guarantee workers
59:05
but they will be there as permanent
59:07
infrastructure and job guarantee workers
59:09
will come and go
59:10
but we will have those public services
59:13
that might be missing
59:14
that we will have an ongoing army of
59:18
tree planters or people that will be
59:20
doing
59:21
remediation that's invisible but it has
59:23
to be done
59:24
and so that's why i highlight that green
59:26
jobs are very
59:28
um really good for this kind of work
59:30
because they
59:31
certainly can be expanded very quickly
59:33
they can certainly be delayed
59:35
they are permanent there's a permanent
59:37
need for their for their work so the way
59:39
you think of it
59:40
is you think of the permanent programs
59:43
not
59:44
necessarily permanent employment and
59:46
some of the employment will be permanent
59:49
but some of it will come and go right on
59:51
the job training young people will need
59:53
apprenticeships etc so
59:55
so um we are trying i think what we're
59:57
to articulate is a permanent
59:59
fiscal infrastructure as a macroeconomic
60:02
response
60:03
and then on the ground um sites
60:05
locations of job offers
60:07
that will be able to deal with either
60:10
larger
60:11
influx or lower influx but i do want to
60:14
say this this is a huge misconception
60:15
about the job guarantee
60:17
that somehow it will have to fluctuate
60:20
in these dramatic ways
60:21
as unemployment fluctuates once you have
60:24
a full employment economy
60:26
all matter of employment is more
60:27
stabilized it's private sector it's
60:29
public sector
60:30
the and we've seen this historically in
60:32
the data full employment economies do
60:35
not go through the yoyo avalanche effect
60:37
of unemployment so
60:38
the task is so much easier
60:42
that's really useful actually to help
60:44
people start imagining what
60:46
a full employment world would look like
60:49
because if you haven't lived through it
60:50
it's very hard to imagine therefore how
60:53
would a job guarantee look like or how
60:55
would a fully functioning public service
60:57
look like
60:58
and i really liked your um comment
61:01
earlier about rejecting that
61:03
narrative about the trade-off between
61:05
jobs and environment or
61:08
you know jobs and something else and i
61:10
think it's that whole
61:11
reframing that we're all doing as we
61:14
talk about the job guarantee
61:16
so unless you either of you have any
61:17
more comments i might throw over to
61:21
marcus who will have some questions from
61:24
our audience today brilliant thanks ann
61:28
um so the first one we've actually had
61:30
two questions coming in
61:33
around steady state so can australia
61:36
move to a steady-state economy and
61:38
potentially
61:39
what has a job guarantee role in that
61:42
and just before answering that i'm not
61:45
100 sure what is meant by steady state
61:48
wayne did you want to say any comments
61:51
on that one
61:55
if wayne's still there
62:03
oh there we go okay thanks mate and very
62:06
please be brief thank you marcus uh the
62:08
steady state economy
62:10
um i like um herman daley i'm sure that
62:13
bill
62:14
and um pavlina are aware of herman
62:16
daley's work brilliant all right thank
62:20
you for that so steady state
62:22
theory and um what a job guarantee can
62:24
play in that
62:26
thanks wayne
62:34
marcus who some direction please sorry
62:37
sorry
62:37
uh bill if perhaps if you start with
62:39
that one give it as australian context
62:43
well look we aspire to a steady-state
62:47
economy
62:48
in this in that context
62:51
and when we talk about so when we talked
62:54
about full employment say in the 1960s
62:59
the the one there were several
63:02
elements of a steady-state economy that
63:04
we we ignored because we were ignorant
63:08
and uh in 2021 we
63:12
add more elements to what we mean by a
63:14
steady state a steady state is that
63:16
everybody who wants a job can find one
63:19
everybody who wants some working hours
63:23
can find them
63:25
and of course all activities have to be
63:29
consistent with maintaining our natural
63:33
environmental health as much as we worry
63:37
about our
63:37
own physical health but we've also got
63:39
to worry about that
63:40
obviously we're embedded in the planet
63:43
the planet isn't
63:44
just another resource that we can use to
63:47
fix the economy to make the economy work
63:50
the economy works for us and the planet
63:53
and that's what a steady state has to be
63:56
so job guarantee that doesn't alter the
63:58
fact that
64:00
in a steady state people want to work
64:02
and have to work i mean from there from
64:04
the day one of humanity
64:06
we've been transforming nature that's
64:08
the only way we survived
64:11
and the the the the way in which we
64:14
transfer
64:15
form nature has to evolve and it and in
64:18
this
64:19
current era it has to evolve very
64:21
quickly
64:22
and uh away from the the damaging
64:26
transformations the the catastrophic
64:29
terminal
64:30
transformation so that doesn't
64:34
alter the need for a buffer stock of
64:37
jobs
64:38
that is of always available to anybody
64:40
who wants to work
64:41
and and i i think pavlina's point was
64:44
fantastic
64:46
that you know i see on the
64:50
on twitter people thinking that job
64:52
guarantee is going to become 40 percent
64:54
of the workforce or something
64:56
that we're going to have hordes of
64:58
people on minimum wages in
65:00
a properly run economy would have a job
65:03
guarantee very very small
65:06
when we had true full employment in
65:07
australia
65:09
we might have had half a percent of the
65:12
workforce
65:14
half a percent if that in these jobs i
65:18
talked about
65:18
within the public sector that you could
65:20
always get a tiny little number of
65:22
people
65:23
they were very important people because
65:25
they were people
65:27
but it was a very small thing and that's
65:29
because the government
65:30
had plenty of other jobs for people
65:33
so i think
65:37
yeah i was that i've finished there i
65:38
think i've said everything i need to say
65:42
brilliant thank thanks for that bill um
65:45
have linda do you want to add anything
65:46
to that or i'll move on to the next one
65:50
i think bill put it perfectly well there
65:53
are environmental limits
65:55
we'll have to live within these
65:56
environmental limits but as long as
65:59
this economy that operates within these
66:01
environmental limits goes through ups
66:03
and downs
66:04
the job guarantee has to be a key
66:06
component of how we reach the steady
66:08
state there are many other
66:09
you know things we need to be thinking
66:10
about of how to maintain assist you know
66:13
you know not pillage the environment etc
66:15
but um yeah i think that
66:17
that's right okay thank you pavlina so
66:20
a question that's related to that is
66:23
around the
66:25
role i suppose of what a job guarantee
66:27
can have for mental health so there's
66:29
been a few questions
66:30
around um so for example i do appreciate
66:34
your work addressing negative mental
66:35
health effects of unemployment
66:36
how far do you think the job guarantee
66:38
would go into solving these sorts of
66:40
mental health crisis in the western
66:42
world pavlina perhaps if you could start
66:44
with that one
66:46
yeah i mean i don't want to uh over
66:49
promise you know i think this is
66:50
important you know mental health is a
66:52
complicated issue
66:54
you know and and there it's a compounded
66:57
issue
66:57
right by a multitude of
67:01
individual and social factors but what
67:04
we want to do is we want to remove this
67:06
one
67:06
critical determinant of mental health
67:09
social determinant mental health
67:11
and we do not want the distress of
67:13
absence of a job
67:14
to be a source of uh mental health
67:17
problems
67:18
um you know housing could be an issue
67:21
you could be
67:22
you could have a job but not have a home
67:24
and that would also be contributing to
67:26
some of these
67:27
um other costs so i think we need to
67:30
think of it more holistically
67:32
but what we know is that when jobs rob a
67:35
community of its economic life
67:37
these effects become compounded and they
67:39
also accelerate
67:41
and so it's the job is just seems to be
67:43
linked to all sorts of social
67:44
deprivations
67:46
it's not going to solve them all but we
67:48
just want to
67:49
remove it as a critical uh factor
67:53
yeah so so two three observations
67:59
one when i described those jobs that
68:02
anybody could get in the 1960s and 70s
68:04
in the public sector
68:07
i used to be i was i used to be able to
68:10
get a job on
68:11
down at the victoria at spencer street
68:14
in melbourne rail yards on any day of
68:15
the week i wanted
68:18
and and that gave us a chance to have a
68:20
little bit of income
68:23
at a time in a difficult period
68:26
and my work mates would disappear on
68:30
on some days some days i'd be there some
68:32
days they wouldn't be there and they
68:34
were people with episodic illnesses
68:37
but they could always go down to the
68:38
spencer street rail yards and load
68:41
trucks when they were feeling a bit
68:43
better
68:44
and we also know second point we also
68:48
know that one of the
68:49
pathologies that arise from unemployment
68:52
is the deprivation of social contact and
68:55
the feeling of shame
68:57
and the loss of your social network the
68:59
social network narrows until you're
69:01
sitting at home on your own feeling
69:03
depressed and failed
69:05
and that contributes to rapid incidence
69:07
in in mental
69:09
illness the third thing i'd say is
69:12
relates to my own personal experience
69:14
one of my large australian research
69:16
council
69:18
grants that i've had in the past was to
69:20
work with the
69:21
the uh new south wales
69:25
health department as a as one of the
69:28
link
69:28
linkage partnership and this was the
69:30
james fletcher hospital group that
69:32
that are the uh leading researchers and
69:36
practitioners in dealing with youth with
69:38
psychosis
69:40
and that partnership what we did was we
69:42
worked with the
69:43
the clinical professionals over a three
69:45
year period
69:47
and the problem of young people is they
69:50
they become schizophrenic typically in
69:52
their
69:53
towards the end of their secondary
69:54
school and
69:58
that completely disrupts their life
70:02
because they often can't finish
70:03
secondary school they often can't
70:05
go on to university or other training
70:08
other technical
70:09
or skill development and they can't get
70:11
jobs
70:12
and so their life spirals out of control
70:16
and all the research evidence shows that
70:18
early intervention
70:20
into that problem which is a very
70:22
significant problem for
70:23
for young people early early
70:26
intervention
70:27
can stop their adult lives being totally
70:30
dysfunctional and
70:32
unbelievably depressing and so our
70:35
project was to
70:37
design design job structures
70:40
and find employers that would
70:44
hire these young young men and women
70:48
and uh and we and the clinical team
70:52
design clinical support structures
70:55
uh that could uh help help those young
70:59
people when they were having problems
71:01
and uh what we found was the following
71:04
private sector employers wouldn't
71:06
participate
71:08
wouldn't have a bar of it so we found
71:10
some employers that would participate
71:13
and the we also found that
71:16
uh one of the problems of of young
71:19
people with mental
71:20
illness going into the workplace was not
71:23
their own
71:24
problem but the perception of the other
71:27
workers in the workplace
71:30
who were fear you know elementary
71:32
concerns like are these people going to
71:34
get an
71:34
accent freak out and access to death and
71:38
stuff like this
71:40
and so we also designed an education
71:43
program
71:44
that could help the non-mentally ill
71:47
workers
71:49
participate with young people who who
71:52
did have
71:52
episodic illnesses and sometimes were
71:55
just
71:55
dysfunctional and what we found to cut a
71:59
long story short
72:01
was that those young people their their
72:03
life's experiences
72:06
improved dramatically they were very
72:09
functional they were very productive
72:11
but some days they weren't because they
72:13
were ill
72:14
and they got adequate clinical support
72:17
and we could read
72:18
we could design the work processes to be
72:20
flexible
72:21
to to accommodate them
72:24
and and what we what i learned from that
72:27
was that
72:28
job creation programs like that
72:31
at an elemental level can give
72:35
um people with those mental problems
72:38
a much better life and what we also what
72:41
what's
72:41
the evidence of longer term studies have
72:44
observed
72:45
is that the the the incidence of of
72:49
declines as the as the self-esteem rises
72:54
so that even though they still got
72:56
schizophrenia
72:59
the dramatic the the devastating
73:02
consequences of that
73:04
decline and they become functional
73:06
adults they have
73:07
they suddenly these young people
73:09
suddenly had relationships for the first
73:11
time with with
73:12
girls or boys you know partnerships they
73:16
were able to manage their
73:18
lives better it's it's a no-brainer
73:21
and and and only if a public sector type
73:25
structure can be that flexible
73:27
you need flexibility and you need to
73:29
value and i thought what
73:31
pavlina said about it it's it's the
73:33
people we care about not
73:35
that the jobs have to be be tailored
73:39
to the people brilliant
73:42
thanks bill appreciate that so the next
73:44
question is actually sort of
73:46
extends on from that discussion around
73:48
the role of jobs guarantee
73:50
uh from a mental health or society
73:53
improvement perspective
73:54
uh and a lot of people have commented
73:56
having
73:57
challenges around well what sort of jobs
73:59
does the job guarantee
74:00
fulfill or entail so there's a couple of
74:03
questions here around
74:05
you know what sort of jobs could the job
74:06
guarantee cover
74:08
pavlina would you mind kicking off on
74:10
that one
74:14
yeah thank you um i mean as we discussed
74:17
earlier
74:18
in um the environmental concerns of many
74:24
they are ongoing and
74:28
there isn't you know there isn't a
74:32
kind of a commercial return and
74:34
incentive for the private sector to do
74:35
but
74:36
that's not even um the proper way to
74:38
think about it there's so many things
74:39
that the private sector doesn't have an
74:41
incentive to do
74:42
and so this is a proper function of the
74:45
public sector
74:46
so what what we're really thinking about
74:51
is a structure by which when somebody
74:52
goes to the unemployment office they can
74:54
walk out with a job offer
74:56
we can deploy existing infrastructure to
74:59
provide them those opportunities
75:01
right so they may be green
75:03
rehabilitation projects
75:04
as i said it's these are um very open to
75:08
expanding
75:09
and to contracting
75:12
but you know there are also ongoing
75:15
threats
75:16
you know we we have fires we have floods
75:19
we have ongoing devastation that has to
75:20
be cleaned up
75:22
um so you will need to have a permanent
75:25
body that deals with these
75:26
but that would be very suitable to
75:28
providing
75:29
job employment opportunities for people
75:31
who have been
75:33
um unemployed for one reason another
75:36
you know i i um think of kind of a
75:39
symbiosis between
75:41
the ongoing public sector work that
75:44
needs to be done
75:46
with the job guarantee what what are our
75:48
aspirations we want to give
75:50
a people a step up right a leg up with
75:53
opportunities
75:54
so having you know on-the-job training
75:57
opportunities
75:58
whether it is in school settings whether
76:00
it is in hospital settings
76:02
that are kind of on-the-job training
76:04
programs essentially
76:06
um and then of course there will be um
76:10
you know folks who the private sector
76:13
will not be able to employ
76:14
that that will become the permanent
76:16
employment opportunity
76:18
so i think that you know the basic
76:20
criteria
76:21
is a public service um employment
76:24
opportunity that is
76:26
uh ongoing and you know could be
76:28
community gardens
76:29
could be after scare aftercare school
76:32
activities
76:33
i mean in the united states the context
76:34
is very peculiar a lot of these things
76:36
are done
76:37
on voluntary basis there are so many
76:40
um after-school programs that are you
76:42
know understaffed because they
76:44
wait for volunteers to come in and do
76:46
them and
76:47
we can certainly use that infrastructure
76:49
the community groups are already there
76:51
right they're just struggling we can
76:52
certainly use that infrastructure
76:54
um to uh put some you know some folks to
76:58
to work so i would say i speak of
77:01
care work care for the environment
77:05
care for the community care for people
77:07
right
77:08
meals on wheels etc with an
77:10
understanding that there
77:11
are these these it's not the project
77:14
that needs to come and go
77:16
it's the person that needs to be enabled
77:18
to come into the project
77:20
and then move out as they need
77:24
you know i cannot just say one more
77:26
thing very often when i'm asked this
77:27
question
77:29
i wonder if there's like an underlying
77:30
assumption that it
77:32
the justification for the job guarantee
77:34
is the kind of project
77:36
that is going to be done i i may not
77:38
have been intended in this particular
77:40
question but i do
77:41
find this quite often but wait a minute
77:43
what kind of jobs will they be
77:44
and i think it's important to think
77:46
about this again from a macro
77:48
perspective the litmus test is not the
77:50
project
77:51
the litmus test is that we're
77:53
eradicating unemployment
77:55
right because it becomes the same thing
77:56
what's more important the person or the
77:58
job
77:58
right so the person or the project and
78:01
so of course we want to have meaningful
78:02
public service employment opportunities
78:04
and there are
78:05
many areas of need that are unfilled
78:08
but the litmus test is the benefits on
78:10
the individual and the benefits of the
78:11
macro economy from having this kind of
78:14
policy paradigm shift
78:16
brilliant thank you very much pavlina um
78:18
i've we have a question that came in
78:21
during the week uh around the and i have
78:24
a lot of discussion around this
78:26
point job guarantee versus basic income
78:28
versus ubi
78:29
um and the question is i hear people who
78:31
are pro job guarantees so they also
78:33
think it would be incompatible with a
78:35
basic income
78:37
that is a job guarantee could sit
78:40
alongside an income for those who choose
78:42
not to work
78:43
um could the panel provide some views on
78:46
this and bill
78:46
if we don't mind we could start with you
78:48
on this one well i don't really want to
78:50
but
78:51
i i know i know i think this has been
78:54
done to death and i'm sick to death of
78:55
it myself and i'm
78:57
i just think it's it's become an
79:00
incredibly
79:00
ignorant debate and i'm sorry for saying
79:03
that i think it's just a destructive
79:05
debate that
79:07
a few people with 15 twitter followers
79:09
have
79:10
amplified it to ridiculous proportions
79:14
you the job guarantee can be compatible
79:16
with almost anything
79:19
let's say that for the start so in the
79:21
australian context
79:22
sure you could maintain the current
79:24
pernicious vicious
79:26
cruel torturing unemployment benefit
79:30
system
79:30
if you want to and that's what a lot of
79:31
progressives seem to say they want
79:35
and and have a job guarantee
79:38
that and the idea that job guarantee
79:40
would be mandatory it's just false i've
79:42
never said that in my life
79:44
job guarantees voluntary you if you want
79:47
a job you can have it it's unconditional
79:48
it's demand driven
79:51
it's not a slave cam it's not work fair
79:56
it's not it's totally voluntary
80:01
and so it can be you could run an
80:03
unemployment benefit system
80:04
as well but if you eliminate
80:06
unemployment why do you need an
80:07
unemployment benefit system
80:09
you don't obviously so then what you're
80:11
really talking about is a basic income
80:13
system
80:15
now then then you say then i say to
80:17
people
80:18
okay well if you understand the
80:23
genesis of the job guarantee as a price
80:25
stabilization
80:27
framework and you want to have a basic
80:31
income
80:32
program well then effectively you're
80:36
maintaining a system where the
80:38
government pays everything at market
80:40
prices
80:41
whether it does it through its own
80:43
procurement or whether it gives it to
80:44
people as basic income and they
80:46
compete at market price spend at market
80:48
prices
80:49
it's okay you can do that but then what
80:52
happens when capitalism has an
80:54
inflationary crisis and the government
80:57
needs to tighten spending because
80:59
that's that's indicated
81:03
then your basic income model becomes a
81:05
navy model
81:08
you're really still going to use
81:09
unemployment and the perniciousness of
81:11
that
81:12
to stabilize your your distributional
81:14
conflict
81:15
i reject that outright i reject that
81:19
outright
81:20
and if we then go on and say well
81:24
what else can we say about this
81:27
well then go back to what i said right
81:29
at the beginning today
81:30
of collective will i believe in society
81:34
i believe that we've all got a role to
81:36
play to benefit each other
81:38
as best we can and we should respect
81:40
everybody's contribution
81:42
at all times everybody can contribute i
81:46
don't really want to live in a society
81:48
where people think they're so privileged
81:52
that they can extract income for nothing
81:56
and not give back that's just a moral
81:59
ethical position for me as a left-wing
82:01
socialist
82:03
i want everybody to contribute in
82:06
in whatever way they can and i want
82:08
everybody to have the opportunity
82:10
to do that and if you can't
82:14
contribute through work because you're
82:15
old or sick or young
82:18
then we look after you that's the nature
82:20
of society
82:22
but if you're able and i and to
82:24
contribute i believe you should
82:27
and if we eliminate unemployment there's
82:29
no no need for unemployment benefits
82:32
and i challenge people who's who who
82:37
make these views that they're quite
82:39
happy in a progressive society having
82:41
people who can contribute not
82:44
then create a private welfare
82:46
organization and pay incomes
82:49
and i bet i guarantee you that the
82:52
voices that are loudest
82:54
out there on social media will not
82:56
create a private welfare organization
82:58
and contribute and i just reject that
83:03
argument that oh we can
83:05
just be left alone to do our art well
83:07
someone's got to clean the streets and
83:09
stop infection someone's got to
83:11
make the food that you buy at the
83:13
supermarket
83:14
someone's got to do all of those things
83:16
so you're not escaping capitalism you're
83:18
not escaping material world and the
83:20
market
83:22
you're just pushing those
83:23
responsibilities onto other people
83:27
and then i could go on for hours about
83:29
the the work i've done with
83:30
psychologists and how
83:32
how social networks shrink and and it's
83:34
not a viable solution to have people not
83:37
engaged in society but i won't
83:40
i didn't want to talk about that at all
83:41
today yeah okay
83:44
thanks bill and look as a behavioral
83:46
scientist myself your point
83:47
on the psychological benefits of work
83:50
are
83:50
very valid and decades decades every
83:53
hundred years of research has shown that
83:55
um thank you for your response uh
83:57
pavlento did you want to add anything to
83:59
that one
84:01
i just i agree with bill this
84:02
conversation is totally argued on the
84:04
wrong premises
84:05
and a lot of it is driven by extremely
84:07
narrow conceptions of work
84:09
not only the mischaracterization the job
84:11
guarantee
84:12
um tends to enjoy out there that it's a
84:14
work fair it's a guarantee it's not an
84:16
obligation so
84:17
we can repeat it one more time but also
84:20
it's a very narrow conception of work
84:22
like what does it mean
84:23
to to work i you know a lot of people
84:25
still have this you know
84:26
they're not able to emancipate
84:28
themselves off of the the
84:30
um of the current constraint you know
84:32
they see work as always and everywhere
84:34
punitive
84:35
but once you think of it as
84:37
participatory right
84:38
we would like we should we don't believe
84:40
that there should be starving artists
84:42
musicians right so in the modern context
84:45
you know a lot of people say well i just
84:47
want my ubi so i can you know go and
84:49
pursue my
84:49
artistic interest well who said we won't
84:51
value that in in fact the job unity
84:53
precisely
84:54
recognizes this that we want to value
84:58
the many contributions that that people
85:01
can make
85:02
so um i'm gonna just put it put it there
85:05
that there
85:06
is a literature on participation income
85:08
that i think
85:09
is is the place where these two
85:11
dialogues can merge
85:13
um i do agree that you know this idea
85:15
that
85:16
ubi is sufficient to satisfy our needs
85:20
is
85:20
completely uh incorrect on not just on
85:23
moral grounds that
85:24
bill articulated but also on economic
85:27
grounds you just don't understand how
85:28
the economy works and if you think that
85:30
just income is enough
85:31
you don't create that well-being then
85:34
sorry mistaken
85:35
and number two i think people understand
85:37
this i i there are loud voices but
85:39
people
85:40
do understand this in the polls the job
85:42
guarantee always comes on top
85:44
brilliant thank you very much for that
85:46
um
85:47
we have had a couple of questions come
85:49
in around
85:50
the how to determine the level of wages
85:53
for a job guarantee program
85:56
and bill i know you've addressed this on
85:58
your blog actually quite extensively
86:00
so i actually in terms of australian
86:02
context i think i would direct people
86:04
to bill's blog around that but have
86:07
leaner perhaps from
86:09
the u.s perspective or outside of
86:11
australia if you could make some
86:13
comments around um
86:14
you know how to determine the level of
86:16
weight living wages of the job guarantee
86:18
program
86:19
and as part of that if the minimum wage
86:21
rate in the private sector is not yet
86:23
adequate can the wage level the job
86:25
guarantee program be set
86:26
above the private sector minimum wage
86:30
yes it can and
86:33
it will it will work better of course if
86:36
you have
86:37
um combined legislation with the
86:38
increase in the minimum wage
86:40
it would make it easier um and less
86:43
disruptive
86:44
but you know right now in the united
86:46
states we have this huge debate whether
86:48
we should increase the minimum wage from
86:49
725 to 15 dollars an hour and
86:52
you know doubling it essentially and we
86:54
haven't increased the minimum wage since
86:55
2009 it's long overdue
86:58
it is really low low wage people cannot
87:01
live on that wage
87:02
and we have a large proportion of the
87:03
population that that works below 15.
87:06
42 so as we were discussing earlier
87:10
you know these um you know these are
87:12
empirical questions on the potentially
87:14
disruptive effect on the minimum wage
87:17
and the best way for me to go forward
87:20
is to first mandate a nationwide
87:22
increase in the minimum wage so that
87:23
private firms are forced to meet that
87:25
standard
87:26
but in the depths of a recession if you
87:28
have some small businesses and they
87:30
have to double up their you know double
87:32
their wage bill you may have some
87:33
on you know some layoffs but that's why
87:36
we have the job guarantee
87:37
you know we no longer have to make that
87:39
choice we actually can affirm that there
87:41
will be a basic standard at 15
87:43
and then we will deal with the residual
87:44
unemployment um
87:46
you know as i said these are probably
87:48
more empirical questions in terms of how
87:50
you phase in
87:51
um this this minimum wage but we see
87:54
that states do this
87:56
they do it washington increased their
87:58
minimum wage to 15 there are various
88:00
other states who are moving above the
88:02
minimum in the
88:03
um in the united states uh bernie
88:06
sanders
88:07
shamed amazon into raising their agent
88:09
15 a couple of years ago it's not hard
88:12
it can be done um but all these
88:15
anxieties can be alleviated with with
88:17
the job guarantee and i think
88:18
you know we keep saying that this is
88:19
this is a feature of the program
88:21
you do want to provide the competition
88:24
that private firms don't have
88:27
on matching that wage right
88:30
um and so um what is the living wage i
88:33
think we agree that we want to have a
88:35
stable nationwide there's a
88:36
democratizing kind of potential of
88:38
having like a minimum wage justice
88:40
said said nationwide um and then you can
88:44
allow as it is today uh states or
88:47
municipalities to have their own living
88:49
wage ordinances and do a top-up
88:51
uh of the the base wage from the job
88:53
guarantee
88:54
yeah i think the general principles that
88:57
i've always articulated and i've done
89:00
work for the international labour
89:01
organisation
89:02
south african government in this context
89:04
designing their minimum wage system that
89:06
they currently use
89:08
is that the first principle is that the
89:10
minimum wage cannot be a capacity to pay
89:14
concept so i do a lot of work in the
89:18
in the industrial courts here for trade
89:20
unions and that
89:21
and it's always coming up the capacity
89:23
to pay principal
89:25
now if you're what a minimum wage is is
89:28
the
89:29
is the minimum material standard you're
89:32
you're willing to accept as a society
89:36
that's what it is and uh
89:39
it can't be a capacity to pay because
89:41
then you can have all
89:42
high cost low productivity firms
89:46
saying well we can't pay it well then
89:49
then you
89:50
then you have to say to those firms buzz
89:52
off
89:54
this came up in the south african
89:55
experience where a lot of firms were
89:57
below what was
89:59
what was going were paying below what
90:01
could pos socially inclusive minimum
90:03
level of wage payments
90:06
and and the imf said to me oh well all
90:08
these firms couldn't afford to pay i say
90:10
okay but that's not
90:11
south africa's future those firms
90:14
and so there's a transition plan you've
90:16
got to come up with but
90:18
if you aspire to be a sophisticated
90:20
society then the minimum wage has to
90:22
express the minimum of that
90:25
and and it doesn't take too many
90:27
nutritionists and psychologists and
90:29
sociologists on a panel
90:31
to work out what the dollar figure for
90:33
that would be
90:35
it's not rocket science brilliant
90:39
thanks for that bill um look i am
90:41
conscious of time
90:42
so i think um there is one more question
90:44
which i think will be fairly quick but
90:47
it's an interesting one
90:48
associated with the education of mmt
90:53
and someone said uh i've
90:56
i've used this is from david parker from
90:59
seattle to family and friends is use
91:02
the uh example of monopoly the game of
91:05
monopoly and the banker has to go first
91:06
to giving people currency not by tax and
91:08
money we don't have
91:10
um and the monopoly sort of metaphor has
91:12
been used a number of different times
91:14
could you briefly as a comment say you
91:17
know is that a good example do you find
91:18
that works
91:22
i'll be brief pavlina can be longer it
91:24
doesn't to me i don't like it because
91:26
it's about
91:27
rontier capitalism and about uh rich
91:30
bastards driving out poor people in
91:33
in old kent road and
91:37
houston and pentonville out of their
91:39
homes into destitution i
91:41
hate the analogy even though i
91:44
understand them
91:46
thanks bill
91:50
i don't have this these strong feelings
91:53
i play monopoly with my kid but we do
91:54
talk about capitalism still
91:56
um you know it's a
92:00
it's a device you know where does the
92:02
money come from i think
92:03
as long as it does drives the point that
92:05
somebody gets it that it's not
92:07
you know the money in your pockets comes
92:09
from one place only
92:11
the currency rather comes from one place
92:13
only i think
92:14
we're you know a step ahead yeah look
92:17
thank you for that and i think
92:18
the broader question that's also been
92:19
touched on by a number of people is
92:21
around
92:21
you know turning this this new knowledge
92:24
that
92:25
mmt brings and and trying to
92:28
uh influence the public discourse and
92:30
ultimately policy change
92:32
and whether you use metaphors of some
92:36
kind monopoly or whatever
92:37
you know it's all wrapped around that
92:39
idea of
92:40
how do we get the message out how do we
92:42
influence change um
92:43
and perhaps as a final comment around
92:46
that
92:47
because we do need to wrap up bill i
92:49
know you've
92:51
spoken a lot around this and you've even
92:53
done webinars and
92:55
courses around you know train the
92:57
trainer so to speak and how to
92:59
affect the public discourse as a final
93:01
comment uh
93:02
bill or pavlena perhaps bill but you
93:04
won't go first what sort of comments you
93:06
might want to make around
93:08
what do we do next where do we go from
93:09
here you know i think that
93:12
over time i've understood i've learned
93:15
i've learned to understand
93:18
that being clever about economics is not
93:22
sufficient that we can
93:25
bat on all day about where do we get the
93:28
currency from
93:29
and all the rest of the technical things
93:32
that now
93:33
define mmt but it's
93:37
it's a psychological challenge we're up
93:39
against as well
93:40
and this is where the sort of stuff on
93:42
framing and language matters
93:44
and that's why in the last seven or
93:47
eight years i've moved into that area as
93:49
well
93:50
with louisa connors who's that's her
93:52
area
93:53
and it's really important that it's a
93:56
double challenge to
93:57
reframe people's thinking because if we
94:01
if we don't do that then what when i say
94:04
something
94:05
as a in an economic sense it just gets
94:08
reframed back into the
94:10
mainstream cognition
94:15
and and i think the lesson from the
94:17
social psychologists and the cognitive
94:19
linguists
94:20
is very clear that unless you reframe
94:24
and make that your priority then you can
94:27
be as smart as
94:28
you like on the mmt concepts you won't
94:30
get through
94:32
and that's our challenge it's a
94:34
unbelievably difficult challenge
94:37
but relentlessness is necessary
94:41
brilliant thank you for that pavlina
94:43
[Music]
94:45
no i absolutely agree with uh with bill
94:47
and i think i would
94:49
also add one other challenge that we all
94:52
actually don't have the luxury of time
94:55
we don't have the luxury of time of
94:56
people
94:57
you know adopting and understanding a
94:59
new paradigm and
95:00
us finding the way to communicate it and
95:03
so
95:04
we are really running a kind of an
95:06
unfair race
95:07
and in that race i feel that you've got
95:09
to get all the help that you can get
95:11
and one way to do this is to
95:15
perhaps help how others
95:19
who are working on their specific issues
95:22
can connect to your own work
95:24
so you know you know broadly coalition
95:25
building but how the goal of securing
95:28
full employment
95:29
um also connects to the goal of housing
95:33
um and the various other kind of social
95:35
deprivations
95:36
and everything is connected to
95:37
everything so the more that we can
95:38
articulate those linkage linkages
95:41
i think um the better off we are uh we
95:44
probably
95:45
are not going to get the version of
95:48
the job guarantee that we we think we're
95:51
going to get
95:52
um we're going to try right we're gonna
95:55
work hard at it
95:57
but you we also have to solve some very
95:59
important problems
96:01
so brilliant thank you very much
96:04
both of you and i think um we'll
96:07
end the question session there and i
96:09
hand it back to
96:10
ann and jane
96:14
i am i really appreciate your
96:17
generosity with your time and your
96:19
expertise and i
96:21
always enjoy these sessions their hard
96:24
work
96:24
but it's um the mmt pennies are always
96:29
dropping and i always
96:30
benefit from further discussion and
96:32
delving deep into the issues and
96:34
hearing issues over and over again and i
96:37
just wanted to
96:38
say um bill uh i
96:41
really i think um without embarrassing
96:45
you or
96:46
appearing fawning over you i think
96:47
you're a national treasurer and i hope
96:49
people learn to appreciate that
96:52
you are and
96:55
and i think if we were to um
96:58
i mean i'm impatient for change and i
97:00
know that we don't have the luxury of
97:02
time and um and i really hope we
97:06
as an organization can have a little bit
97:08
of an impact on
97:10
spreading the word and um changing
97:12
people's minds
97:14
um and pavlina i really
97:17
have been following your work for a long
97:20
time and i very much appreciate the
97:23
um metaphors that you use in public the
97:25
public health metaphors and i think
97:28
for me prevention and preparedness
97:30
really does sort of
97:32
boil it down to boil um
97:36
the approach down to what it really is
97:38
about is like um
97:42
yeah it is preventing all of those
97:45
social ills that come about
97:46
naturally from a capitalist system
97:48
that's unchecked
97:50
and um and preparing for those
97:53
that may come in the future so um
97:56
[Music]
97:57
i'll hand it to anne and i just wanted
97:59
to also say
98:01
um that your tribute in the front of the
98:03
book
98:04
to your daughter yvette and i think you
98:06
know that's a tribute for everyone
98:08
really that may we live in a world
98:10
that is green and just and so i think
98:12
ending on that
98:13
would be quite a nice um message to
98:16
finish off the webinar so thank you and
98:19
anne
98:21
do you have anything to say thank you
98:24
jane
98:25
yes just to echo all those sentiments
98:28
and to thank our
98:29
speakers very much for their time today
98:30
because i know they are both in demand
98:32
because it is such a pertinent
98:34
issue at the moment and bill i loved
98:37
your image of the glowing embers of
98:39
collective will which may be
98:40
fanning into flames
98:41
[Laughter]
98:45
i'll be in melbourne next week we'll
98:47
i'll hope to catch up
98:48
terrific look forward to seeing you
98:52
and um thanks to our attendees um
98:56
we had a great turnout and a lot of
98:59
familiar
99:00
names and people who i've had the
99:02
benefit of meeting in person
99:05
um and i just remind you to
99:08
uh if you want to listen or watch this
99:11
one again this
99:12
episode again this webinar again you can
99:14
go to our youtube um
99:16
channel which um i think is on our
99:20
website
99:20
and you can google it uh this should be
99:23
we'll just have a few days to edit it
99:25
and then
99:26
posting it in um in a couple of days
99:29
hopefully
99:30
and also the mnt podcast with christian
99:33
riley and petit priscia
99:34
sorry patricia pino um look out for that
99:38
one
99:38
okay thank you and thank you
99:41
thank you for that okay bye-bye see you
99:44
later
99:46
bye bill bye everyone see you pepe
99:54
okay see you later
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