Abstract

The structural characteristics of current unemployment (and joblessness) have revived the need for a collective intervention, through the State, in defence of society. Among the economic policy proposals advanced in the academic context, the proposal that the State, assuming the role of "employer of last resort", guarantees its citizens the right to work, and therefore to survival and social inclusion, has gathered momentum. This note examines, using a simple framework, the constraints that the economic and social structure imposes on an economic policy that aims to a tight full employment (in the sense of Minsky, 1965). To overcome the tension between the distribution conflict of the social dividend, on the one hand, and the opportunity to exploit the complementarity between market and the non-market activities, on the other, it is essential that the action of the employer of last resort is not confined to the simple use of public spending, but is the "core" of a policy for labour to which the other economic policies (industrial, financial, fiscal, salary and, last but not least, the organisation of public administration) are redirected.