However in the JG policy, the provider of employment insurance does not bid against private employers for labor, but rather sets a price floor and gives way to anyone willing to outbid in wage or conditions.

It seems as if part of the premise is that if the political terrain in a country with employment insurance was the same as the neoliberal "do what we say or starve" countries, then any additional income will be scooped up by rentier and all that the employment insurance will do is to redistribute income among the relatively powerles middle income classes and working poor.

However, getting a Job Guarantee put into place seems like it first requires changing that political terrain, and having a Job Guarantee in place would seem to undermine much of the neoliberal disciplinary stick.

So I'm not clear on how the argument by which the income is soaked up by rentier is consistent with the premise that a Job Guarantee has been successfully put into place.


I've been accused of being a Marxist, yet while Harpo's my favourite, it's Groucho I'm always quoting. Odd, that.