Unemployment is an Underlying Goal of Our Economic Policy: The Pirate Party View
If there’s one thing we can all agree on, it is that unemployment is a problem. It is expensive. It steals the health and income of its victims. It narrows their opportunities. It subjects them to a host of dehumanising demands. It seems unimaginable that any country would purposefully force a part of its population into unemployment. But the truth is, all countries do. Including our own. The concept of a ‘non-accelerating inflationary rate of unemployment’ (NAIRU) gains little exposure beyond economics classrooms. The Reserve Bank and Treasury rarely mention it openly. Politicians never do. Yet, for 40 years, the NAIRU has been at the centre of economic policy