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The Politics of Unemployment

  • Preface
  • Acknowledgments
  • Introduction

Part One: Work, Wages and Unemployment

Chapter 1: The Supply of Labor

  • 1. A New Terminology
  • 2. Labor and Leisure
  • 3. Prices, Wages, and Physical Force
  • 4. Population Growth
  • 5. The Participation Rate
  • 6. Hours of Work
  • 7. Spreading the Work
  • 8. Education and Labor
  • 9. Markets and Mobility

Chapter 2: The Demand for Labor

  • 1. Labor as a Means
  • 2. The Productivity of Labor
  • 3. Temporary Unemployment
  • 4. Institutional Unemployment
  • 5. Production Barriers
  • 6. Price Controls
  • 7. Inflation
  • 8. Labor Unions

Part Two: Political Barriers

Chapter 3: Minimum Wages

  • 1. The Home-Work System
  • 2. The Victims
  • 3. The Beneficiaries
  • 4. Wages and Benefits
  • 5. Extension of Coverage
  • 6. Indexing the Minimum
  • 7. Offsetting the Minimum
  • 8. From the World of Politics

Chapter 4: The Davis-Bacon Act

  • 1. "Prevailing" Wage Rates
  • 2. Gross Racism
  • 3. The Great Depression
  • 4. Remarkable Longevity

Chapter 5: Benefit Mandates

  • 1. Fringe Benefits
  • 2. Labor Legislation
  • 3. Old and New Benefits
  • 4. Social Security
  • 5. Unemployment Compensation
  • 6. Workmen's Compensation, OSHA, ERISA and EEOC

Chapter 6: Unemployment Compensation

  • 1. The Rationale
  • 2. Social Welfare and Private Charity
  • 3. Automatic Economic Stabilizers
  • 4. Skills and Training
  • 5. Employer Incentive
  • 6. Employee Disincentive
  • 7. Invitation to Deceit and Fraud

Chapter 7: Inflation

  • 1. From John Law to John Keynes
  • 2. The Phillips Curve
  • 3. Strategem of Deceit
  • 4. Extraneous Force
  • 5. Illusions of Income and Wealth

Chapter 8: Business Cycles

  • 1. Doctrines and Theories
  • 2. The Complexities of Division of Labor
  • 3. The Capitalistic System
  • 4. Government Intervention
  • 5. The Labor Market as Affected by Cycles
  • 6. Common Cause
  • 7. Automatic Stabilizers

Chapter 9: Taxation

  • 1. Fiscal and Economic Objectives
  • 2. Improper Means to Dubious Ends
  • 3. Employment Taxes
  • 4. Business Taxes
  • 5. Fiscal Justice
  • 6. Rituals of Tax Reform

Chapter 10: Labor Unions

  • 1. Labor and Laborers
  • 2. Labor's Disadvantage
  • 3. A Margin of Indeterminateness
  • 4. Employer Combinations
  • 5. Inability to Wait
  • 6. Doctrines of Exploitation
  • 7. Power and Privilege
  • 8. Collective Bargaining
  • 9. Concessions and Givebacks
  • 10. Political Action
  • 11. Myths of the Past

Chapter 11: Laws Against Plant Closings

  • 1. Closing Shop
  • 2. Need versus Greed
  • 3. The Obligation to Reinvest
  • 4. Job Rights versus Property Rights
  • 5. Restrictions on Openings
  • 6. Keeping Business in Town

Part Three: Explanations and Interpretations

Chapter 12: The Natural Rate of Unemployment

  • 1. Natural Laws and Inexorable Principles
  • 2. The Inflation Function
  • 3. Frictional Unemployment
  • 4. Structural Unemployment
  • 5. A Range of Skills
  • 6. The Demographic Mix

Chapter 13: Workers and Robots

  • 1. The Second Industrial Revolution
  • 2. Antagonism to the New
  • 3. Automation in Water Delivery
  • 4. Triple Benefits for Workers
  • 5. Learning New Skills
  • 6. Moving to Another Location
  • 7. Economic Superiority and Technical Efficiency

Chapter 14: Foreign Competition

  • 1. Inscrutable Foreigners
  • 2. Protectionism, Old and New
  • 3. Old Notions in New Garb
  • 4. United States—Japanese Trade Relations

Chapter 15: Women, Work and Wages

  • 1. Production and Distribution
  • 2. The Issue of the 1980s
  • 3. Education and Income
  • 4. Women and the Law
  • 5. Equal Rights Amendment
  • 6. Tradition and Custom
  • 7. The Difference

Chapter 16: Illegal Aliens

  • 1. Age-Old Charges
  • 2. The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965
  • 3. The Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986
  • 4. Dirty Work and Subminimum Jobs
  • 5. Outside the Law
  • 6. Benefits and Entitlements
  • 7. Unfair Competition
  • 8. Legalizing the Illegals

Chapter 17: Stagnation in Puerto Rico

  • 1. Star of the Caribbean
  • 2. The Labor Market
  • 3. Population and Migration
  • 4. Federal Dominion over Labor
  • 5. Intent and Design
  • 6. San Juan and Washington
  • 7. Island Independence

Chapter 18: Work in the Underground

  • 1. Underworld and Underground
  • 2. Hiding from Tax Collectors
  • 3. Circumventing Regulations and Licenses
  • 4. Reaping Entitlement Benefits
  • 5. Underground Employment

Chapter 19: Employer of Last Resort

  • 1. War on Poverty
  • 2. Government, Cause or Cure
  • 3. Business Employment
  • 4. Job Programs
  • 5. Federal Assistance

Chapter 20: Unemployment in College Textbooks

  • 1. Economic Education
  • 2. A Best Seller
  • 3. Unemployment Theories
  • 4. Macro Explanations and Holistic Solutions
  • 5. Micro Explanations and Balanced Perspectives
  • 6. Faithful Mirrors

Notes

Index

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