Dangerous Path of Unemployment
By Jan J. Erteszek
Los Angeles Times
November 29, 1982
Although I have been for years a conservative Republican both by instinct and philosophical persuasion, I do not share the views of some of my fellow conservatives that unemployment is necessary price to pay for the revival of our economy, or that it is indispensable to this revival.
As a matter of fact, I think that unemployment in the final analysis may be one of the most dangerous paths to follow for those who are interested in preserving the free enterprise system and the free way of life.
The problem of unemployment may well be the true weakness of our economic system. This is well expressed in the recent encyclical of Pope John Paul II “Laborem Exercens.” The encyclical states that unemployment “is in all cases and evil, and when it reaches a certain level can become a social disaster.” Thus, it is incumbent on direct managers (employers) and indirect managers (public authorities) to plan for steady and full employment. The right to work “is a fundamental right.” According to the encyclical, “It is characteristic of work that it first and foremost unites people. In this consists its social power to build a community. In the final analyss, those who work, those who manage, and those who own must, in some way, be united in a community of production.”
Being employed is the key to the sense of meaning, justice and belonging in an interdependent society. Unemployment severs the active participation in the life of the community. The unemployed person becomes a liability to the community and often perceives himself to be a liability to his family. Unemployment is the kindling that sparks revolutionary fires.
A commitment to permanent employment, rather than profit exclusively, releases a different thought process. Thus, it results in a different approach to business policies. Japan’s commitment to steady employment may have been a significant key to the economic success in that country.
It seems almost self-evident that if the American automotive industry planned for employment as much as for profits, the philosophy of “small cars, small profits,” and “big cars, big profits” would not have prevailed. Chances are that the 250,000 unemployed auto workers would have been fully employed, the Big Three care companies would have been making money, and the government would have been collecting taxes from employed citizens and money-making corporations. We would have retained leadership in the world’s markets in this important industry.
If we want to preserve the free way of life and the free enterprise system, which has been such a blessing to this country and which has been the cause of the flowering of human spirit and creating of caring and serving society, then we must recognize that in the 20th Century, in a highly interdependent society, assurance of steady employment is the key to its preservation and its future.
It is customary for corporate business to plan for profit, but in the future, corporations will have to plan for employment as much as they plan for profits. The assumption that we must get sick from time to time in order to keep the system operating is dangerous in its very premise and foreboding in terms of the survival of our free way of life.
A country with resources, imagination and know-how of America can certainly find better answers to keeping its system of values, its ideals and institutions, alive and thriving than by throwing people out of work, making them a liability to society, a problem to their families and causing them to lose their sense of dignity, self-worth and importance.