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CHAPTER I

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CHAPTER I

THE CORE OF THE MESSAGE

1• IGtroductipn

The present levels and trends of unemployment (and not Just of youth uneaployaent) should raise a higher degree of concern and political alarm. In fact they are the manifestation of major forms of irrationality of our societies. Unemployment implies a loss of potentlal output. Furthermore, while there is still a wlde set of unsatlsfied needs . (both private and collectlve), the people who could work for satisfying such needs are not only kept paradoxi ca 1ly idle, but are frustrated and suffer from materiał as well as psychological deprlvatlon.

It is a subtle form of 'regulatory', if not plainly political, irrationali ty, that we overlook and to which we are beginning to be increasingly accustomed, while attributing the responsibi1 i ty for it either to the forces of the system or, even worse, to the previous attempts to fight against them. However, human societies are not anarchie or spontaneous Systems. Since their origins they have been characterized by their being structured by sets of rules and led by sowę form of government; and sińce the beginning of the present century many conscious attempts have been developed to impose sonę form of rationality on such rules and on the behaviour of the governmentś, as the end-result of long-lasting efforts, Consolidated during the illuministic period and strengthened by recent cultural as well as factual ¹revolutions', such as the blossoming of post-positivistic approaches, the explosion of mass education and the unprecedented economic affluence.

Political rationality is likely to be an endless escatological gambie. Nobody really thinks it could be achieved. and still most people believe it should be pursued; and that pursuing it is not only rational but positively contributes to sonę unspecified -but strongly shared- state of collective well-being.

Most of the social reforms that have been attempted, and partly achieved, in the course of this century -such as various forms of welfare state policies, post-keynesian fuli employment policies, the virtual elimination of extreme forms of poverty, the improvement of civil rights, etc.- are regarded as improvements in the degree of our political rationality, even by the majority of those conservatives who maintain critical attitudes towards the concrete features of such actlons.