Historically there were periods of almost full employment, so the inherently lazy people postulated by the first theory don’t seem to exist. So we’re left with the second theory. But then it’s immoral to require that people find work or starve. It would be more moral to pay them welfare when the government can’t find any reasonable job for them, for some reasonable legal definition of “reasonable”.
There are two theories of unemployment:
1) They don’t want to work
2) They can’t find work
Historically there were periods of almost full employment, so the inherently lazy people postulated by the first theory don’t seem to exist. So we’re left with the second theory. But then it’s immoral to require that people find work or starve. It would be more moral to pay them welfare when the government can’t find any reasonable job for them, for some reasonable legal definition of “reasonable”.