The Job Guarantee: An Institutional Adjustment towards an Inclusive Provisioning Process.

This inquiry seeks to establish that a job guarantee (JG) would animate the non-invidious re-creation of community, challenge the hierarchy which permeates social and economic relations, and facilitate an institutional adjustment towards a more inclusive provisioning process. In so doing, the analysis commences by revealing how the current institutional structure fails to provide a non-invidious provision of the material means of life. The first section demonstrates that the institution of ownership and the price system serve as the animating forces which create the inegalitarian power structure effecting unemployment, an inequitable distribution, and hierarchy.  After describing the social problem and institutional structure, the analysis considers and extends Hyman Minsky’s proposal for a public employment program. The second section focuses on the institutional implications encouraged by the implementation of a JG, emphasizing the interrelated nature of employment and community and their role in facilitating institutional. In drawing on the theory of institutional adjustment, it becomes lucid that community remains integral to the adjustment process, providing space for organizing across historical divisions while encouraging an increased recognition of the interdependence necessary for change. The analysis draws to a close by considering how a JG challenges the dominant and problematic institutions. The ultimate objective of the final section remains illuminating the role of a JG in facilitating a transition towards an inclusive provisioning process: the creation of an institutional structure that reduces hierarchy and domination and promotes equality, diversity, and autonomy, enabling all members of the community to participate in the social provisioning process.