Full Production Policies which leads to Full Employment, Or Full Employment Policies Not Allowing Full Prod?

Question

We cannot continuously have the fullest production without full employment. But we can very easily have full employment without full production. It would be far better, if that were the choice—which it isn't—to have maximum production with part of the population supported in idleness by undisguised relief than to provide "full employment" by so many forms of disguised make-work that production is disorganized. The progress of civilization has meant the reduction of employment, not its increase. It is because we have become increasingly wealthy as a nation that we have been able virtually to eliminate child labor, to remove the necessity of work for many of the aged and to make it unnecessary for millions of women to take jobs. A much smaller proportion of the American population needs to work than that, say, of China or of Russia. The real question is not how many millions of jobs there will be in America ten years from now, but how much shall we produce. Focus On Full Production?

Answer 1

Full employment is impossible because there are those who are so lazy they would exhaust every avenue of governmental help before they would lift a finger for themselves; it's no fault of the employers', some people are just lazy.

Answer 2

Your theory sounds good, but a much larger fraction of the population, particularly women, works today than 50 year ago, despite of substantial improvements in productivity.