Transition to a Job Market

Let us now address this supremely practical question: How do we get there from here? Starting from where we are, how is it possible that a fundamentally different human economy can be reached by democratic, possibly even voluntary, means? If the word democratic means—as I believe it will mean to a democratically governed people who are considering their options—a gradual increase in the use of job-market services by that country’s firms and job seekers, the question becomes an even more challenging one: How, by such a notoriously unreliable process as “voluntary compliance” can such a far-reaching change as the installation of a national job market ever be achieved? How, by voluntary means, can the transition to a job-market economy ever be brought to a mature conclusion, one that reaches every corner of the land? “Voluntary” means without force, without revolution, without the imposition of harsh penalties on “disobedient” firms or citizens— without, that is, any greater or more sudden change in the distribution of power than the replacement of one body of officials by another in a democratic election. Perhaps most importantly to any fair-minded people, it means without imposing financial losses on even the losers in the political struggle that is bound to have preceded the adoption of any job-market program— indeed, without imposing uncompensated financial losses on any sector of the transiting population.