We’re often told that unemployment is the result of laziness – that ‘dole bludgers’ and ‘leaners’ are holding our nation back.
But what really drives unemployment? And what can be done about it?
In our latest edition of Big Facts, author and Guardian columnist Van Badham unpacks the question, and examines what the current crisis can tell us about the spectre of unemployment.
Sources & Credits:
How Is Unemployment Deliberate? Video by Van Badham and David Molloy, 2020
Further Reading:
Econobabble by Richard Denniss https://www.blackincbooks.com.au/books/econobabble
Capitalism and Freedom by Milton Friedman https://www.dymocks.com.au/book/capitalism-and-freedom-by-milton-friedman-and-p-n-snowden-9780226264219
Milton Friedman did not save Chile by Naomi Klein https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/cifamerica/2010/mar/03/chile-earthquake
For some in Australia, unemployment is worse now than during the Great Depression by Andrew Leigh https://www.crikey.com.au/2019/08/02/unemployment-rate-poor-indigenous-disabled-australians/
The Lucky Country by Donald Horne https://www.penguin.com.au/books/the-lucky-country-9781742531571
Capital: A critique of political economy (Volume 1 – chapter 25) by Karl Marx https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/download/pdf/Capital-Volume-I.pdf
Effects of unemployment on mental and physical health by M W Linn, R Sandifer, and S Stein https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1646287/
