But, of course, the state makes the greatest contribution to the growth of unemployment. Think for yourselves: what purpose does a tax serve, apart from purely fiscal ones? Take a tax on a resource like water, for example. Correct—to limit consumption, to artificially inflate the price of that resource. Now think about what purpose the taxation of payroll serves. The very same. The state taxes labor. Consequently, it wants us not to work.
Then there’s the “minimum wage.” This is when the state believes its laws supersede the laws of nature. The state tells the entrepreneur: “Pay ten dollars an hour for this labor!” But the entrepreneur knows that this labor isn’t worth ten dollars an hour. As a result, someone willing to work even for nine dollars ends up with no job at all, because the entrepreneur would be punished if he had been paid less. But the work still gets done—usually by an illegal immigrant for nine dollars. Or the work doesn’t get done at all, and the entrepreneur sells less utility than he otherwise would. The “minimum wage” is a direct cause of unemployment. When the United States began introducing something resembling minimum wages in 1933, up to half a million people were left out of work. Mostly young, restless Black men.
One might also recall “support for strategic industries.” What is that? It’s when the state pays enterprises for the fact that they do not bring utility—because if their products are already selling well, why would they need support, right? And yet, almost always, it ends in collapse. Either the money in the budget runs out, or the wrong party wins the election—and now an entire industry is out on the street, angry and hungry. If there had been no “support,” there would have been a gradual, natural restructuring process. But as it stands—there’s your revolutionary proletariat.
Well, and of course, unemployment benefits. The state says: I pay you for not working—for once again not bringing utility to other people. After all, being unemployed isn’t just lying on the sofa. It means attending meaningless courses, interviews, and the like. Being unemployed is hard, exhausting work, designed to ensure that the unemployed person has no excess free time, so that he doesn’t accidentally bring some utility to someone.