A few years before he published 1984 and thereby enriched the English language with gems such as “newspeak,” George Orwell published Politics and the English Language. In this essay Orwell introduced his readers to what he called “a catalogue of swindles and perversions,” a list of words and phrases “favourable to political conformity” used in “defence of the indefensible.” If he were to write this essay today Orwell, would surely want to expand that list.
Orwell would add “job creation” to his list. Creation looms large in the history of religions. Creation inspires admiration. Governments like to talk about job creation. Although “job creation” is a preferred political slogan, it is a strange phrase for our politicians to use. The concept of job creation belongs to Marxian economic ideology. Our economic ideology is the self-regulating free market designed to produce goods at the lowest possible cost and greatest possible profit, the goal being to accumulate and concentrate wealth and not the creation of jobs.
A few decades ago, in the 1970s, the federal government dabbled in policies to boost employment, such as the Local Initiative Program and Opportunities for Youth. These days are gone; what is left of summer student employment programs pales when compared to earlier government employment policies. Government economic policies today are aimed at attracting global corporate investors. These giants are not concerned with the fate of the unemployed; their focus is the bottom line (both the corporation’s and the CEO’s).
Sacrifice is not the virtue of the self-regulating free market. Industry embraces technology to increase productivity and to reduce labour costs, both being metaphors for reducing employment. As for direct employment by government in all fields, including health care, education, policing, fisheries and forestry to name but a few, I shudder whenever government announces plans for service improvements as such announcements are usually coupled with the closure of a local service outlet.
Another word Orwell would have added to his list is taxpayer. The essence of the democratic bargain citizens make with their governments is that citizens give governments the power to levy taxes on the condition that governments are accountable to citizens for how they use that power. Accountability is not a synonym for elections. Accountability is what parents expect in response when they ask junior sneaking in the backdoor at 2 a.m., where have you been? Accountability is an ethical concept that imposes an obligation to provide answers and to assume blame. Citizens cannot hold their governments accountable without providing direction and setting performance expectations. Government accountability, therefore, hinges on the citizenry’s democratic responsibility to direct and supervise their governments. These criteria cannot be satisfied only with periodic elections. Of course we pay taxes, but we also go to hospitals, drink water, and walk on sidewalks. It is as silly to refer to citizens as taxpayers as it would be to refer to us as hospitalgoers, waterdrinkers, or sidewalk-walkers.
Orwell warned us that “words of this kind are often used in a consciously dishonest way. That is, the person who uses them has his own private definition, but allows his hearer to think he means something different.” Thus, when governments speak of job creation, citizens would do well to remind their governments that investors are not attracted by opportunities to create employment. When governments refer to us as taxpayers, we need to remind them that we are not taxpayers but citizens. Being citizens, it is our duty to demand accountability not only for what government does and the way it goes about doing it but also for what government has failed to do.
In the closing paragraph of his essay Orwell cautioned readers that obfuscation of language leads to political chaos. I am not quite as cynical as Orwell was on the subject of politics and politicians, but his point on the subject of political language is valid. We cannot give direction to governments, and thus cannot hold governments accountable, if we are not mindful of the obfuscation of contemporary newspeak.
