There are no easy answers to the causes of unemployment. Just as there are no easy answers as to the remedies. It's accepted by people of widely differing political viewpoints that NZ is facing an unemployment crisis similar to that of the ′30s. The answers and remedies which people put for forward, depend more on an ideological perspective than on an analysis of the concrete situation.

If people are to work towards the solving of the employment crisis, they must have some conception or analysis of the problem. Activity which is aimed at doing something about the employment situation, which is not informed by any analysis, is meaningless and counterproductive. It does not confront the basis of the problem, only its effects.

Similarly, activity which is not backed by any analysis; which specifies changing the government or the economic and political system, is based on wistful thinking and illusions about the mechanics of the present employment crisis.

There are two polar positions which are taken by people when forwarding solutions to the present employment crisis. Both are based on stated and unstated political viewpoints.

The first position states that people out of work are responsible for their own situation. If they are out of work, this view goes, they must be dole bludgers, lazy and don't want to work. They are often at a loss as to why there has been an upsurge in lazy people though.

The people who propound this position would say change the unemployed themselves, give them training. This will give them not only better chances for obtaining work, but the right attitudes and habits towards work as well. The focus here is on the unemployed themselves, as they are the obvious cause of their own plight.

The deficiencies of this approach are evident. First, it assumes that in training people to higher levels of skill and ability, there will be work available for them when they complete their training. If there are no jobs for them at the end of their training, the sense of frustration and anger will be compounded.

It assumes that other measures for the creation of work will be undertaken in the meantime. It assumes that government will take some responsibility for controlling such things as the investment and areas to which investment is made, which will in turn produce jobs.

There is no evidence to suggest that either of the majority parties are prepared to do this. What has been evident is the fact that both parties are prepared to drive public money into the hands of entrepreneurs. The last Labour government gave away public money for regional development with no guarantees for the workers involved that jobs in those regions would be provided on a continuing basis. The present National government has flogged off public money in a number of ways too, the most recent being their employment subsidy schemes.

Spending public money in this way does nothing to attack the basis of the unemployment problem. There is no guarantee for the voter or the taxpayer that the necessary structural changes in the economy will be made to produce jobs on a continuing basis. The effect of the schemes mentioned are rather like the effect of a disprin on a man with a major heart problem.

Short term measures which aim to train people and change their attitudes to, work will not work unless there are other factors within the economic and political system which are controlled and ultimately changed. Short term measures which involve n the spending of public money, for schemes which are designed as palliatives are irresponsible. They are designed more for political expediency, rather than the necessary economic and political change. The focus on the victims of the employment situation pays scant attention to the system which has produced the crisis in the first place.

At the other end of the spectrum, we have the people who propound the big bang theory. Crudely summarised, this position says, don't change the people, change the system. Unemployment will be solved by the advent of socialism in some form or another.

This approach is deficient in specifying what people should do in the short term while waiting for the collapse of capitalism and the ushering in of the millenium. It ignores the fact that any political and economic change will be constrained by the habits, attitudes and traditions from the past. It is based on the hope that things will be better in the future, without too much regard for the activities which must be undertaken in the short term for producing change. The focus of this position, is on the economic and political system which has produced the crisis with scant regard for the victims and their immediate personal problems.

Whatever the ideological position taken, whether it's conscious or unconscious, there are certain objective matters of which we should be aware.