On Unemployment

Mark R. Reiff teaches legal and political philosophy at the University of Manchester's School of Law, UK. He is the author of two previous books: Exploitation and Economic Justice in the Liberal Capitalist State (2013), and Punishment, Compensation, and Law (2005), as well as various papers on political, legal, and moral philosophy. During the 2008-09 academic year, Reiff was a Visiting Faculty Fellow at the Safra Center for Ethics at Harvard University, USA.

• Volume I PART I: THEORY 1. The Various Forms of Unemployment 1.1. What Is Full Employment? 1.2. Voluntary and Involuntary Unemployment 1.3. Cyclical and Structural Unemployment 1.4. The Natural Rate Hypothesis 2. In What Sense Is Unemployment a Proper Object of Moral Concern? 2.1. Unemployment as a Violation of an Individual Right 2.2. Unemployment as a Distributive Injustice 2.3. What Distributive Justice Requires 3. Technological Innovation and Structural Unemployment 3.1. Does Technological Unemployment Exist? 3.2. Say's Law and Its Implications 3.3. Sticky Wages and the Commodification of Labor 3.4. The Distinction between the Short and Long Terms 3.5. Robots in Waiting and the Difference between Work and Leisure 3.6. Is Technological Unemployment Incurable? PART II: PRAXIS 4. Getting Our Priorities Right: What Does Justice Require That We Do? (Part 1) 4.1. Managing Technological Innovation 4.2. Growth at Any Cost? 4.3. Direct Transfer Payments 4.4. Fiscal Stimulus and Unemployment 4.5. Increased Spending and Increased Taxation 4.6. Is Austerity the Way to Economic Prosperity? 4.6.1. The Anti-Interventionist Argument 4.6.2. The Ordoliberal Argument Volume II 4. Getting Our Priorities Right: What Does Justice Require That We Do? (Part 2) 4.6.3. The Anti-Debt Argument 4.6.4. The Unfairness Argument 4.6.5. The Mismatch Argument 4.6.6. The Real Economic Effects of Austerity 4.7. Inflation and Unemployment 4.8. Asset Bubbles and Unemployment 4.9. Redistribution and Unemployment 4.10. Refinancing Homeowner Debt 4.11. Refinancing State and Local Government Debt 4.12. The Problems of Tax and Regulatory Competition 4.13. "Work-Sharing" as a Just Way to Preserve Jobs 4.14. Immigration and Unemployment 4.15. Trade and Tariffs 5. The Politics of Unemployment