The Myth of Job Creation

On the Communism Channel, the comedians like to talk about "President Obama is creating jobs!" Nobody ever bothers to ask "Since when is it the government's responsibility to create jobs?" or "If all these people are working for the government, then what other work is left undone?"

It's the usual "seen vs. unseen" fallacy. You see people working for the government building roads or digging ditches or whatever. You don't see the work that otherwise goes undone.

Everyone can't work for the government! Someone has to actually create the wealth that is then stolen via taxes!

When the government "creates jobs", a greater amount of work in the private sector must go undone. Someone gets a lucrative pork contract building a road. Someone else can't buy a new TV or car or house, because he lost his savings due to inflation or taxes. The net effect is that the parasite class benefits at the expense of productive workers.

When a politician spends a lot of money and hires people, it provides the illusion that he is doing something noble and wonderful. The reality is that the politician is spending stolen property. For every dollar of work performed by a government employee, more than a dollar of work in the free market goes unperformed.

Pro-State trolls always justify government spending as "creating jobs" or "creating wealth". They forget that the free market would *ALWAYS* allocate resources more efficiently. They say "See! The government spent $200B and bailed out GM! Look at all the jobs that were saved!" They don't see the many small car manufacturing businesses that would exist in a true free market. The economic system in the USA has deteriorated to the point where lobbying the State for favors is usually more profitable than building something useful. This leads to an accelerating rate of collapse.

The government always pays an above-market price when it performs work. A pro-State troll says "We need the government to build roads!" The fallacy is that the government pays a much higher cost than the true free-market price. When politicians build a road, a lot of the cost disappears as pork in the pockets of insiders. The State monopolisticially provides many "key" services. These services come at a cost much greater than the true free market price. This includes road-building, schools, police/defense, justice, money creation/regulation, electricity, water, and health care (Medicare/Medicaid, State licensing for doctors, and Obama's new "national health insurance" proposal). The State does not "create jobs" when it provides these services; wealth is destroyed whenever the State does something.

In a Communist society like the USA, there is typically a fixed pool of jobs. With a non-free market, it's hard for unemployed workers to start new businesses. This provides the illusion that government must hire the displaced workers. Increasing the size of the government displaces even more workers. The correct solution is never mentioned in the mainstream media, which is to remove all State restriction of the market.

In a true free market, whenever someone loses a job, they can easily find a comparable new job. Any pay cuts would be more than offset by cheaper prices, as resources are more efficiently allocated. In a true free market, a skilled worker is never unemployed for long; there's always work to be done. In a non-free market, there are barriers to starting new businesses. There are State-imposed extra costs on a business that seeks to hire or fire workers.

For example, I'm a very skilled software engineer, but am having a hard time finding a new wage slave job. The reason I can't find a job isn't "FSK is a loser!" The real problem is that in a non-free market, it's hard to match the work that needs to be done, with the people qualified to do it. Finding and keeping a wage slave job is more a bureaucracy exercise, rather than being able to do useful work. I always thought that by writing good software, I could help a lot of people. The right software can be simultaneously used by many people. In retrospect, all the work I've performed at wage slave jobs had zero or negative real economic value. The only work I do that has positive economic value is blogging, and for that I'm making only $0.10-$0.30 per day via AdBrite.

When President Obama "stimulates the economy" by spending money, he paradoxically makes it harder for me to find a job writing software in the productive sector of the economy. There are less resources available for employers who do actual useful work. Money and wealth are funneled from the private sector to the State, and wealth is destroyed in the process.

A lot of my relatives are saying "FSK should work for the State! That's a safe and secure job!" The fallacy is that, in a State job, it makes almost no difference if you do brilliant work or barely qualified work. As a really skilled worker, I'm guaranteed to be under-utilized if I work directly for the State. (This argument is unrelated to "FSK knows that government is terrorism." I'm supporting the bad guys if I work in *ANY* on-the-books job, whether it's directly for the government or in the "free market".) The State has a monopoly, and any cost can be passed on to taxpayers. In fact, if you do a good job, then your coworkers feel threatened by you. A large corporation is a branch of the State. This makes a wage slave job have almost the same drawbacks as working directly for the government.

Unfortunately, working in a corporate wage slave job is almost exactly the same as working directly for the government. Most corporate middle managers are concerned with protecting their turf, rather than doing great work. This is the Principal-Agent problem. A middle manager in a corporation controls resources, but isn't the owner. This naturally leads to bad decision-making, even if people have good intentions. The nature of the State means that people with the parasitic personality type are usually making the decisions. The last type of employee someone with the parasitic personality type wants is a productive worker who can see through his scam. I'm not interesting in pretending to be a fool just so I can get another wage slave job. Besides, I'd do a bad job of pretending to be stupid. I'm looking around to see if I can find a business where someone other than a parasite is making the decisions; I haven't had success.

Lately, when I go on interviews, it's depressing to see the truth. If the interviewer has the parasitic personality type, then it's obvious to me that he's an ***hole, but I try to be polite. Some "high functioning autisim" people develop a list of "social interaction rules", adding to the list whenever a parasite rejects them and gives a reason. I've discovered the real truth, which is that ***holes will always make up arbitrary reasons for rejecting you, unrelated to "It's because I'm an ***hole!" This behavior causes intelligent people to be continually unsure of themselves, placing blame on themselves rather than realizing that a lot of people in positions of authority are jerks. If the interviewer has the "abused productive" personality type, then I feel bad seeing him to be such a pathetic wretch. I can usually get along well with the people who are "abused productive", but one of the interviewers *ALWAYS* has the parasitic personality type.

Based on my experiences working as a slave software engineer, I can definitely say "The USA has a non-free market." Stupid hiring practices, such as "We demand 10 years of .NET experience!", wouldn't dominate in a free market. A group of skilled software engineers can't get together and run circles around the competition, due to State restriction of the market. In a true free market, good software is really valuable. The reality is that a large corporation has a State-licensed monopoly/oligopoly. Any cost due to lousy software can merely be passed onto customers as higher prices.

Why would a large "too big to fail" bank need good software, when they can always lobby the State for a bailout? All the software written at large banks is merely a fnord. The real source of bank profits is their massive State subsidy, coming from the perk of printing and spending new money. That's the reason that the financial industry is controlled by people with "Type A" personalities (i.e. abusive jerks). The financial industry is completely divorced from actual useful goods and services, so the abusive people are in firm control.

The free market is always blamed for economic problems. The reality is that a non-free market is made less free by increasing regulation. Pre-existing regulations are always the cause, but the free market is blamed. Via "Problem! Reaction! Solution!", more regulations are created. The worse things get, the more power that politicians claim. The more politicians loot, the more the productive sector shrinks. The parasites must keep increasing their looting percentage, just to earn the same size booty. This is the virtuous positive feedback cycle of complete economic collapse.