Practical Issues of Vanishing Labour

Practical Issues

The following remarks are meant only for those who wish to consider the introduction of a Labour Right System in our real world. Needless to say, this is a rough and very speculative outline.

1. Immediate introduction would create chaos, since all B-members will leave their jobs, and C-members will have to occupy them. The acquisition of the appropriate type of consciousness towards labour preference by all members of society will take some time, during which the free market of Labour Rights will not work very well as a result of lack of understanding in those who operate on it (this may be compared to today's transition problems in former communist countries).

The best way to manage the transition is the following: cancel the obligation to work, give everyone the right to register for an unemployment benefit. Then, determine the rate of the benefit in such a way that you expect a number of applications for unemployment benefit that exactly equals job shortage. If too many able adult citizens register, lower the benefit. If part of those who register turn out to prefer a job, but cannot find one, increase the benefit. It seems reasonable to assume that it will take many years before all B-members and C-members have changed positions. As soon as you think this has happened, the Labour Right system can be introduced with the latest equilibrium rate of unemployment benefit as a first expectation of price.

2. Speculative trade in Labour Rights could be countered by market interventions analoguous to those on the currency markets: if some price rise in Labour Right seems to result from speculative stocks kept in private hands, the Labour Bank can sell additional Labour Rights to neutralize this effect. If, later, such speculative stocks are brought to the market, a price implosion can be prevented by the Labour Bank buying these stocks.

3. The basic problems are to define what is a "job" (for which Labour Rights need to be held), and who is an "able-bodied adult citizen" (to whom a share in the right to work is distributed in the form of Labour Rights). Jobs are