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Anthony Giddens, "Third Way" guru to British Prime Minister Tony Blair 
and director of the London School of Economics, has an "open and public 
dialogue" about globalization on the LSE website. I've sent in the 
following contribution. 
 
The "lump-of-labour fallacy" referred to in the message has been a stock 
rejoinder to proposals for shorter work time, and has been discussed on 
this list in the past. It is a bogus claim. In their recent report to 
the Council of Europe, Boeri, Layard and Nickell use it to disparage 
any approach to full employment other than their favoured supply-side 
panacea. 
 
Tom Walker 
 
Message sent to the "Runaway World Debate" on "Democracy and Third Way 
Politics" 
 
According to the background summary for this debate, a keynote of the 
new social contract is 'no rights without responsibilities' (see 
http://www.lse.ac.uk/Giddens/RWDdemocracyandthirdway.htm). Not 
surprisingly, the same theme of complementary rights and 
responsibilities was central to the report to Prime Ministers Blair and 
D'Alema, "Welfare to Work", prepared by Tito Boeri and LSE experts 
Richard Layard and Stephen Nickell for the March 2000 meeting in Lisbon 
of the European Council.  
(see: 
http://www.palazzochigi.it/esteri/lisbona/dalema_blair/inglese.html). 
 
The issue that concerns me is what responsibilities do the experts have 
to ensure that their advice is balanced and credible? Boeri, Layard, 
Nickell disparage what they refer to as the 'lump-of-labour fallacy' 
behind policies, such as early retirement, which may reduce labour 
supply. Aside from the straw-man argument that such policies have labour 
supply reduction as their *only* or *predominant* aim, the 
lump-of-labour label itself is highly objectionable. 
 
As I have documented ("The 'lump of labor' case against work-sharing: 
populist fallacy or marginalist throwback" in Lonnie Golden and Deborah 
Figart, eds., _Working Time: International Trends, Theory and Policy 
Perspectives_, Routledge, forthcoming 2001), the claim of a so-called 
lump-of-labour fallacy has a dubious status in the history of economic 
thought. Its use by contemporary economists is characteristically 
inconsistent and incoherent. Furthermore, the dubious claim played a 
prominant role in anti-trade union and anti-democratic politics in the 
U.S. and Britain in the early 20th century.  
 
In short, Boeri, Layard and Nickell have trotted out a demonstrably 
bogus piece of right-wing propaganda to shore up their case for 
restricting benefits to the unemployed. I assume they are unaware of the 
background of their phraseology. Where is the responsibility 
complementary to their 'expert' right to disparage popular wisdom and 
thus close off, rather than open up, informed democratic debate? 
 
Tom Walker 
 
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