The wealth creation versus leisure dilemma

In the first article (below), the good Walter Block points out that putting retirees back to work is not the solution to today's economic woes.

Retirees deserve and often can retire -- leave the labor force -- and live comfortably and safely on their savings, pensions and investments, not to mention the additional 'fall back' resources of home equity, charity and working offspring. One time in America, retirement often meant three generations living in one household, with retired grandparents and children attending school, with as little as one working parent.

Retirees’ Re-Entering the Labor Market Isn’t ‘Good for the Economy’ - WSJ.pdf

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My greater concern is the absence of tens and tens of millions of Americans under the age of 65 who choose to not enter the labor market, in the face of more than ten million job openings and record resignations. Instead, we pay these working age adults to maintain their leisurely condition, consuming wealth and producing none. This is not sustainable. And adopting a "universal basic income" might streamline the numerous subsidies and bureaucracies devoted to supporting 'leisure,' but it will not improve labor force participation.

Simply put, add ten million adults to private payrolls would reduce the need for subsidies by billions of dollars, increase state, federal, Social Security and Medicare tax collections by billions of dollars as well, generate tens of billions of dollars in personal income and probably increase corporate profits, personal savings and investments by billions as well. Migrant labor has little or nothing to do with this simple proposition. As many "undocumented workers" as there are in America today, many of them are employed and the number of unemployed (or simply not looking for work) undocumented workers is small compared to the tens of millions of American citizens not participating in the labor force.

Yes, it would be helpful to have more skillful and productive additions to the labor force, earning high wages and producing several times what they consume or cost, just as there should NOT be incentives for people to leave the labor force well before "retirement age," which today is an unrealistically low age of 65 for most people. Many of those working age Americans no longer in the labor force have retired "early," at times during their most productive years. And sometimes they retire because their productivity earned them enough to retire without subsidy, yet with a loss to the national economic product by their absence from the labor force.

One more thing. Everybody wants to earn a profit, meaning people, not just corporations. For people this means spending less than you earn and making good use of the remainder, e.g., save, invest, share. This profit can be measured by individual, or at a household level, or for all the working and earning people living in a certain area, and so on. If you consume all that you earn, there is no surplus, no rainy day fund, no cushion against income shocks, no personal investment, no savings plans. The idea that even your basic income should either be shared commonly by a community or that the government should provide you with a universal basic income, while sounding compassionate and noble, creates a world where life soon becomes shared misery, poverty and stagnation, rather than prosperity, growth, investment and innovation.

And, no, Jesus was not a socialist. Willing sharing is not the same as confiscation by taxation.

Jesus a Socialist_ That’s a Myth - WSJ.pdf

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It’s foolish to apply the categories of economic systems to the church. Socialism regiments society, an unplanned give-and-take among countless organizations, according to an all-encompassing economic blueprint. That isn’t the church’s mission. Reconciling all of creation to God in Christ is. While the church has a strong communitarian ethos, it isn’t committed to a specific set of economic institutions. Exploring the church’s internal constitution can be fascinating, and the generosity of the earliest Christians should serve as an example for us. But this has no relevance to the merits of single-payer healthcare or nationalizing railroads.

Knowing whether an economic system comports with Christianity requires careful study of the church’s social teachings, but church history matters too. Historical memory and interpretation are powerful forces for shaping contemporary beliefs. A socialist can be a good Christian, but the narrative of early church socialism is a myth.

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