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From: melissa@mit-trillian.MIT.EDU (Melissa Silvestre)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.misc
Subject: Re: When is a Job Not Employment?
Message-ID: <1194@mit-trillian.MIT.EDU>
Date: Wed, 24-Sep-86 10:20:16 EDT
Article-I.D.: mit-tril.1194
Posted: Wed Sep 24 10:20:16 1986
Date-Received: Sun, 28-Sep-86 23:31:54 EDT
References: <1245@drutx.UUCP> <3384@umcp-cs.UUCP> <925@usl.UUCP>
Reply-To: melissa@trillian.UUCP (Melissa Silvestre)
Organization: MIT Project Athena
Lines: 26

In article <3384@umcp-cs.UUCP> mangoe@umcp-cs.UUCP writes:
>
>THis simply isn't a good way of looking at employment.  The Feds employ air
>traffic controllers.  Can anyone deny that they help to facilitate the
>making of wealth?

I think you missed the original point. The Feds "make" wealth only in the
sense that the "steal" the wealthmaking tools from the private sector.

The point, which I think still stands, is that the Fed doesn't make
any wealth that would not have been made by the private sector anyway.
So it doesn't ADD anything, merely moves it around (and removes in most
cases due to the added expenditures necessary for doing that moving -
eg. beaurocracy).

For example, the Fed pays those traffic controllers with money it
"stole" via taxes from the private sector. The private sector, had it
been allowed to keep that money, would have generated the same number
of jobs with it (and if the need (read: demand) is there, maybe even the
same jobs).  This will of course bring us back to the same argument
of will the private sector meet all the needs of society that govt
currently does (in the way of services - we're talking jobs here, not
welfare).

-- 
Melissa Silvestre (melissa@athena.mit.edu)