Got laid off. My last day is Friday. No severance package since I'm a contractor. Just called the unemployment benefits line and was told to call back later- they are all too busy taking the claims of other people. I just hope Husband doesn't get laid off too.

I never got those jokes about black Presidents in the movies. Haven't they seen Bruce Almighty? It isn't a great movie, but then again neither is Deep Impact.

The meteor hits the earth every day for those on the receiving end of our unemployment system.

There is an economist's expression for the "optimum" percentage of workers who wish to work but have no jobs: NAIRU, or the Non-Accelerating Inflation Rate of Unemployment. Under capitalism, NAIRU is "a steady state unemployment rate above which inflation would fall, and below which inflation would rise." For many decades, through various incarnations, the NAIRU principle has guided economic policy in the U.S.

The common use of esoteric language by mainstream economists tends to disguise the true nature of capitalist theory. Working people who may be impacted by such policies are rarely informed about them in our public school system. Why is this the case?

Here's one probable explanation: NAIRU requires a certain number of workers to have no jobs. The unemployed play a very specific role in the capitalist scheme. Unemployment in capitalist society exists by design.

In the recent history of the United States, the unemployment rate has been intentionally kept in the range of 4 to 6 percent. In more human terms, that means one out of fifteen, twenty, or twenty-five workers has been unemployed because of government policy. There are approximately seven and a half million working people who cannot find jobs. That's a lot of human suffering, much of it intentionally inflicted.

How about a simpler example of this vile economic construct called NAIRU?

If a boss has twenty workers that he would like to employ to dig a ditch, he could hire all twenty workers. But in the present system he will find it more efficient and profitable to hire just nineteen of them to dig. Fellow worker number twenty is not employed; he's kept at the edge of the construction project-- hungry, poor, and eager to take the job of the first fellow whose back is not strong enough, or whose "work ethic" fails to satisfy the boss.

If we examine this scheme closely, it becomes apparent that all twenty workers are adversely impacted. The eagerness of worker twenty to scab on any one of the other nineteen hangs over their heads like a sword of Damocles. If the employed worker should dare to ask for a wage that corresponds to a larger portion of the profits than the boss is willing to provide, she is immediately forced to trade places with worker number twenty.

In many capitalist societies, worker number twenty is easily found among the masses of starving families who must scrape to survive. In more "civilized" societies, worker number twenty will be alotted a starvation wage (just to keep her alive and in play) via welfare or "the dole," which is typically financed out of taxes paid by the other nineteen workers. The nineteen are thereby easily led to believe that worker twenty is a social leech, a pariah with whom they should never find common cause.

Such divisions help to perpetuate a political climate in which NAIRU can thrive. So much better to use propaganda to focus the attention of the nineteen on that "welfare cheat" hanging out at the edge of the ditch, than to give them any reason or opportunity to dwell upon the obscene ditch-digging profits being amassed by the boss.

So for capitalism, the unemployed are victims, villains, and scapegoats. These roles of the unemployed are absolutely vital to the success of the capitalist con job.

Isn't there some "kinder and gentler," more inclusive alternative available under capitalism?

If exactly twenty workers were available and necessary to the project, and if all of them were employed, then-- according to capitalist economic theory-- each of them could demand a raise in pay without fear of dismissal. Wages would rise, resulting in inflationary pressures on the system.

Why is this situation inflationary? Because economic rules and regulations are intended to shield the boss from eating unanticipated expenses, by giving him the power to hire and fire, and to establish wages and prices for his business. The boss has the ability and the inclination to pass the cost of higher wages on to his customers.

In some cases capitalist economic terminology isn't just obscure, it is flagrantly deceptive. The term "full employment" is a good example. Workers may perceive "full" to suggest that when a society reaches full employment, everyone who wants to work has a job. The capitalists insure that it doesn't work that way.

Although there isn't complete agreement on the meaning of the term, "full employment" is most frequently used to describe what's left over after the NAIRU rate of unemployment is achieved. In short, workers may demand that everyone have a job, economists quietly evaluate such a goal as injurious to economic stability, and politicians can appear to deliver on a false promise thanks to misleading terminology.

According to mainstream theory, "full employment" exists when enough workers remain unemployed to keep the inflation rate stable. The full employment rate, allowing for the NAIRU unemployed, is also referred to as the "natural" rate of unemployment. These theories have real world consequences.

Milton Friedman has argued that policy-makers should manipulate interest rates to stabilize prices (with a low, or even a zero inflation rate), whatever that may do to workers' jobs. As interest rates are increased, businesses will have less money to hire workers. If such a policy is sustained, Friedman believes, then the economy will automatically gravitate toward its "natural" rate of unemployment.

Modern capitalist economic policy is aimed at maintaining the "reserve army of the unemployed" at just the optimum size, and for one purpose: as a club to use against the active workforce. If you are a worker who derives your income from the wage, then your opportunities to obtain the real value of your toil have been narrowed by the NAIRU scheme, which forces someone to always be looking over your shoulder, coveting your job. Please join the struggle to abolish such a rotten system.

richard myers

Denver, Colorado