Why is there no way to separate the good from the bad? Just have a strict "one strike and you're out" policy.
It's certainly a fallacy to say that a plan is impossible because no one has done it before; everything has a first time. It's irrelevant in this case, however. FDR implemented it, it was called the Civilian Conservation Corp and it was awesome - we got a national park system out of the deal. India does it too.
> FDR implemented it, it was called the Civilian Conservation Corp and it was awesome
Its an awesome solution to a particular kind of transitory unemployment (and, at the scale it had at its height, perfectly sensible when there is a large, national, temporary economic dislocation) where you expect that the kind of work that people were doing before will be in demand again.
Its less good as a way of dealing with long-term structural changes in the economy -- either in the proportion of people employable at living wages in the marketplace or the jobs demanded. Particularly the latter, since locking people into public make-work jobs with mostly or entirely in-kind, survival-necessity payment provides little opportunity for adjustment to labor market changes.
Its an awesome solution to a particular kind of transitory unemployment (and, at the scale it had at its height, perfectly sensible when there is a large, national, temporary economic dislocation) where you expect that the kind of work that people were doing before will be in demand again.
Its less good as a way of dealing with long-term structural changes in the economy -- either in the proportion of people employable at living wages in the marketplace or the jobs demanded. Particularly the latter, since locking people into public make-work jobs with mostly or entirely in-kind, survival-necessity payment provides little opportunity for adjustment to labor market changes.