Full Employment: The Road Not Taken

It is common knowledge that John Maynard Keynes advocated bold government action to deal with recessions and unemployment. What is not commonly known is that modern "Keynesian policies" bear little, if any, resemblance to the policy measures Keynes himself believed would guarantee true full employment over the long run. This paper corrects this misconception and outlines "the road not taken"; that is, the long-term program for full employment found in Keynes's writings and elaborated on by others in works that are missing from mainstream textbooks and policy initiatives. The analysis herein focuses on why the private sector ordinarily fails to produce full employment, even during strong expansions and in the presence of strong government action. It articulates the reasons why the job of the policymaker is, not to "nudge" private firms to create jobs for all, but to do so itself directly as a matter of last resort. This paper discusses various designs of direct job creation policies that answer Keynes's call for long-run full employment policies

Alkali activation of milled slag and its implications for the use of unmilled slag as a road stabiliser

Paper presented at the 20th Annual South African Transport Conference 16 - 20 July 2001 "Meeting the transport challenges in Southern Africa", CSIR International Convention Centre, Pretoria, South Africa.Un-milled GBS is widely used in France for stabilising gravels and sands and this stabilisation method is referred to as Grave-Laitier (GL) meaning gravel-slag. If sand is stabilised it is called Sable Laitier (sand-slag). In this process the GBS is mixed with the gravel or sand in a mixing installation (much like a concrete mixer). Because GBS will not hydrate in its own, but needs to be activated, lime and gypsum are added during the mixing process. Because un-milled slag has a gradation like sand and is used in relatively high percentages as a stabiliser (10 to 20%), the GBS not only provides chemical, but also a mechanical stabilisation. This stabilisation method has a number of advantages over conventional stabilisation using Ordinary Portland Cement (OPC) or bitumen.This paper was transferred from the original CD ROM created for this conference. The material on the CD ROM was published using Adobe Acrobat technology. The original CD ROM was produced by Document Transformation Technologies Postal Address: PO Box 560 Irene 0062 South Africa. Tel.: +27 12 667 2074 Fax: +27 12 667 2766 E-mail: [email protected] URL: http://www.doctech.co.z