aWhat type of jobs could the government create?
Read a bit of nonsense this morning from the so-called ‘Taxpayer’s Alliance’ about how ‘work for dole’ programmes should be expanded to save money. The effectiveness of this as a policy rest upon the idea that most unemployed people are generally taking the piss, and if we make being unemployed more unpleasant (as if it’s not unpleasant enough already), people will just go out and find a job. The idea also appeals to a certain type of person who view themselves as ‘paying for’ unemployed people to live it up on benefits, and think they should have to dance for their suppers.
Needless to say, I think this idea is garbage, and the actual problem is a lack of paid work. The solution to this seems obvious. The government should just create jobs. This is anathema to people like the Taxpayer’s Alliance, who suffer from a certain kind of cognitive dissonance about the issue. While they have no problem in coercing welfare claimants into jobs at Poundland et al as long as it pays no more than the current level of benefits, if the government were to actually create jobs paid at a living wage, these jobs would be ‘make-work’, akin to Keynes’ digging holes and filling them in again.
Even people who realise there simply aren’t enough jobs to go round are resistant to the idea that the government should simply create some, because they doubt that sufficient useful work could be found, so it’s better to leave people unemployed.
To counter this, I thought a list of potential jobs that could be created might be useful. I’ll start with a few of my own and request others to add their suggestions below in the comments:
- Sports Coach
- Street Musician
- Street Artist
- Actor
- Landscape Gardner
- Community Allotment Worker
- English Language Teacher
- Community Translator
- Childcare (own kids)
- Childcare (someone else’s kids)
- Adult Social Care
- Youth Worker
- Household Energy Efficiency Installer
Think Left 
THis is not serious I Hope. Gov’t can create thousands of jobs in the building ind by building Cll houses for low rent. We need 5million such houses due to 30yrs neglect. This will produce thousands of apprenticships. In addition throughout ind many jobs will be produced as ppl move into houses & buy goods. One problem is that they won’t have the money so initially taxes will have to be relaxed or as BSCParty says SCRAPPED. the taxes are not needed because we are overtaxed by 100%. Due to the myth of “taxes having to equal gov’t spending.”
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It’s not the job of government to create jobs. It’s the job of government to seed the economy. We have a central bank which can create legal tender, money, whenever the mood takes it or whenever it’s directed by the government which owns it. This money could be loaned at very low rates – or given – to the wealth-creating sector, ie, promising businesses. Job creation, useful jobs with a genuine societal function, would surely follow as a natural consequence. Why are we discussing anything else? Labour seem as confused about how an economy works as most others are. Until they start talking about how economies work in the real world, they’re just no good to us.
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Lets be serious. The created money is best used for construction because that produces an asset for the created money to be balanced against.
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If we fund painters, do they not create assets? Wealth is more than bricks and mortar.
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How about; dog walker, one’s own, other peoples; political commentator, sports commentator, professional in house waiter ( as in waiting for tradesmen et al to call )
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More youth workers of all different kinds to cater for all the different kinds of youths with have,
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