THE RADICAL VITALITY OF LABOUR
In order to convince ourselves of the vital importance that the daily and constant struggle of all citizenship has for the economic progress of a society, it is not necessary for the President of the EC Jacques Delors or the “Morning Star” to state that without labour there is nothing to do. Neither is it necessary to resort to the casting of doubt by Carlos Solchaga on those affirmations to corroborate the proof even more. Simply carrying out a survey among several thousand people with their feet firmly on the ground is enough to vouch for the issue with a silent and overwhelming majority. If such arguments are insufficient, we can turn to academic resources and glean from the history of modern economic thinking.
One only has to go back to the age of the Mathusalen mercantile economy, as an example and to be brief, in order to listen to John Hales declaring that the state should adopt the appropriate measures in order to assure a great abundance of goods, and that this demanded both rural and industrial employment of all those qualified to work. Also William Petty (1662) progressed more than 300 years ahead of our contemporary and misunderstood Von Hayek by affirming that as the population of the nation increases, its wealth increases in larger proportions. Other figures of the time such as Josiah Child (1690), Sir Dudley North (1691), John Law (1720), John Cary (1745) or Josiah Tucker (1750) highlighted with emphatic affirmations that human labour was the main reason for the wealth of a country. For example the improvement in employment and the industry of the worker favoured economic growth; the size of the population was a decisive factor in the economic capacity of a nation or region; or that the majority of economic policy measures were explained taking for granted that full employment was the fundamental objective to reach greater quotas of economic power. To sum up it was essential to do the impossible in order to achieve the important effect of increasing employment and therefore, real and monetary wealth.
All the immense potential of economic abundance, contained in manifold natural resources will remain barren, inhospitable and unproductive if it is not fertilised by human labour. Since time began, the economic task has consisted of managing resources effectively in order to satisfy diverse necessities and objectives. It is a question of extracting the human vocation that all these incalculable natural realities have. This can only be carried out by way of the essential help of labour. All these corporeal entities change form and are transformed, gearing themselves towards the satisfaction of those economic pressures, only by reason of an extrinsic principle that acts on them. They are themselves a passive cause in the accomplishment of value. There is a need for an intellectual and manual active human principle. It is radically vital that the subject matter is driven towards the acquisition of a new more humanised form by way of labour. The scarcity of nature is a myth. What is truly scarce is human labour, good labour. Without labour there is nothing to do.
Why do our governmental labour force magnates console themselves saying that unemployment rates are not a requirement for European Convergence? Of course labour is not a requirement! Labour is the requirement! Human labour is the Convergence. The “Morning Star” as always, was right.
JJ Franch Meneu
