Re: [pf] BILL - slackers; unpopular opinion.

I've finished and found it 13 kB long. I've decided to post it as-is rather
than splitting it into 2 parts, but I'm putting a copy of the key
difference between mine and the common-US view here:
 -=-=-=-
· People all have obligations, and I see support of all citizens to at
least a minimal degree as an obligation in exactly the same way as a family
has an obligation to support all its members; it's been this way for tens
of thousands of years.

· Only within living memory has the dominant culture got most people to
believe: "what I get is mine, to do just-as-I-like with!"
  Inhuman. Reminds me of mad dogs.
 -=-=-=-

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
· I'm a slacker, and keen to get more people to be slackers.

· I do /not/ regard supporting the current economic system with my labour
as a good thing, for me or anyone else. With the exception of a small
fraction (one tenth?) of the current number of jobs that would be
considered "necessary" in anyone's books, mine included.

· I'm fortunate, in that: 
(1) I'm living in a mild climate where heat and cold are not problems; 
(2) I've trained myself to live on much less than the "reasonable minimum"
that the people Sharon Flesher was talking about below, actually do need;
(3) I have /been/ in well-paying jobs long enough to have saved up,
initially $25,000 , and now with lower interest rates I need $45,000 , so
that I can (just) live off the bank interest. No-one supports me.
  So I am a-typical, not an example for others.


· However this is not about me, it's to do with (i) Sharon's question about
her soup-kitchen's "regulars", the "eccentrics"; she says: "we certainly
don't want to work to pay taxes to support able-bodied people who don't
work. Where do these people fit into our culture? Do they have no value?";
and (ii) the current US-originated culture's strong connection between
working-at-a-job, and keeping body and soul together.

*#Part 1.#*

· Numbers are far too often ignored, as Jill (below _X_X_X_ ) pointed out.

· The phrase use to be "on government support", and it's been changed by
the neo-liberal-economic coup in certain countries, to "we certainly don't
want to pay taxes to support ...". As if we shouldn't leave it to
government to decide, but should control the purse-strings ourselves.
  Whichever.

· Numbers are needed to decide whether this or that can be afforded. I
don't have any numbers (people or dollars, US or NZ), but no-one should
expect to convince others that a situation is so serious that it has to be
avoided, without supplying numbers.
  In this case, these are some of the numbers needed:
1. How many suitable jobs are actually available for those out of work?
2. How much is being spent on defence, and on CIA activities?
3. How much profit is being made by (say US-based) corporations with 100 or
more employees?
4. What is the total wealth, including shares and bonds, of the richest 300
people in the country? (One millionth of the US population.)

   And related: Is it acceptable that the average of the top 5% in income,
get so hugely more than the average income of the bottom 10%?

- Now the main question:

5. How much money would it take to provide absolute minimum body-and-soul
support (in a warmer part of the country) for all those "regulars" like
those that Sharon was serving?  US$4,000 a year each?  What total?

· Even without me supplying numbers, it's _very_ obvious that: 
of course the US can support many tens of thousands of such people.

· What's lacking is tolerance, fellow-feeling
 - an understanding that: "other humans are just as human as me".
   "There, but for the grace of God, goes me".

  --==##==--

*#Part 2.#*

· About my point (ii): the current US-originated culture's strong
connection between working-at-a-job, and keeping body and soul together.

· I regard the go-getter, inventive, energetic material-focussed culture in
the last 150 years in the USA with a lot of admiration; it shows what
well-motivated people in a democratic society are capable of.

· It became the nation which was able to most-rapidly convert resources
into money. Other nations tried to keep up but never achieved the same rate
of conversion.
  However, this was gained with a progressive loss of humanity, of culture,
of the best in human life; one might say, with a loss of the earlier high
levels of civilization.
  And certainly the octopus-like grabbing of resources from all over the
earth (paid-for, but still making those resources unavailable to others now
or in the future) is now coming up against the world's supply and
waste-processing limits.

· This is the context in which I strongly question the current requirement
to have a paid job in order to keep yourself alive. Although I don't like
the implication of "free", I agree with tully (I've only just now read her
answer and am impressed by the similarity of our numbers):

 ----
On Wed, 23-May-2001 11:43:24 GMT, David A wrote:
>Tully, so then you think that food, housing, and health care should be free?
>
Basic housing and food, based on need, yes.  IMO, health care should be
free to all, and hmos, as profit based institutions, should be outlawed.  I
also believe in a common guaranteed income for all citizens, on the order
of $5000 per year for each adult and $3000 for each child.  Almost every
other country in the developed world attempts to provide these things for
their people, and yet the wealthiest nation of all of them can't be that
humane.  To me its an outrage and a shame.
 ----

· People all have obligations, and I see support of all citizens to at
least a minimal degree as an obligation in exactly the same way as a family
has an obligation to support all its members; it's been this way for tens
of thousands of years.

· Only within living memory has the dominant culture got most people to
believe: "what I get is mine, to do just as I like with!"
  Inhuman. Reminds me of mad dogs.

· Two related points. First, Keith Rankin (the economist)'s views on ways
of contributing to society, (and after that, a URL to my selection of past
Positive Futures posts on this theme of "work: do we need it").

http://davd.tripod.ca/Work-Human-QuMk.html  links-to my copy. It has:

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Three Ways of Contributing to Society    (4 June)

Humankind is a social species, and is implicitly understood as being so by,
I would guess, 95 percent of us. (The exceptions are the extreme
individualist; the sort of people who go to bed with a copy of Ayn Rand
under their pillows.)

The social good represents the "grand commons" of our species, meaning
everything that is shared (eg resources, cultures, environments,
institutions, infrastructures, science, ideas, ideals). We grow up with the
innate belief that everyone must contribute in some way to the maintenance
of the commons, suspecting - consciously or subconsciously - that if some
are seen to not contribute (free-riding) then others may be tempted to
free-ride also. Societies die when too many people become free-riders.

In Western and Confucian cultures - eg under the "Protestant Work Ethic" -
the term "contribution" has come to be understood to mean "paid work". In
reality, of course, there are other forms of contribution. In addition,
much paid word does not contribute to any social ends, and may indeed be
socially damaging while serving strictly individual ends.

For me, there are three broad categories of social contribution.

The first is socially responsible market production. Here, we must
recognise that the contribution is the "net social product" arising from
the work, and may be unrelated to the efforts, time sacrifices or wages of
the paid workers. We should never regard market incomes as measures of
contribution. Nor should we regard "income tax" as a measure of an
individual's contribution to society. An individual who appropriates an
excessive share of market income will be regarded as having paid more
income tax than persons less able to claim large shares, but may have made
a smaller net contribution.

The second form of social contribution is non-market production. This
includes a whole range of unpaid activities that take place at global,
national, local and household levels. Raising children is a particularly
important example of a non-market contribution; an example that occurs on
all four levels simultaneously. Each parent, through reproduction, is
creating the future (paid and unpaid) workforce of the world.

| The third form of contribution is "conservation", or "treading lightly".
| The purpose of social contribution is to maintain the integrity of the
| commons. One way to maintain that integrity is to adopt a lifestyle
| that, while not involving any form of measurable production, at the
| same time involves no destruction. Leaving the planet as we find it
| is a form of contribution.

A welfare system that facilitates a balance of the three different forms of
contribution is more valuable to human society than a system that forces
everyone to contribute through just one of the three forms. Indeed, mass
labour market participation may contribute even less, net, than mass idleness.

Variety is the spice of life. Variety of contribution is the means of
safeguarding society.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

· And lastly; my copy of a set of March 1998 Pos Fut letters on "should one
work hard?", is at:

http://www.geocities.com/davdd.geo/DsWorkHard.html#top

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 
_X_X_X_X_X_X_X_X_X_X_X_X_X_X_X_X_X_X_X_X_X_X_X_X_X_X_X_X_X_X_X_X_X_X_X_X_
            Quotes from earlier:

At 20:43 23/5/2001 -0500, Jill wrote:

> Anyway, the point I started making was that the money spent on the
so-called "slackers" is so miniscule as to not even be worth discussing.
People like to focus on it, but it is really irrelevant.  Any system will
have a small percentage of abuse - any system you might name.
>

At 11:33 24/5/2001 -0400, Sharon Flesher wrote to Positive Futures, with
Subject: Re: [pf] BILL - slackers {at:
http://csf.colorado.edu/mail/pfvs/2001II/msg01348.html } :-

I agree, Jill. Does someone on this list have the figures comparing the
money spent on corporate welfare and middle-class welfare to the money
spent on aid to the poor? I've seen it before and I know it's shocking, but
I can't remember the details. Any libertarians out there? They usually have
a good grasp of the cost of all types of "social engineering" programs.

Since I'm into definitions this week, I'd be curious to know if we all
agree on what a "slacker" is. Would someone who has the physical ability to
work but not the mental ability be considered a slacker?

For the past 8 years, I've volunteered once a month (pretty pathetic, I
know) at our local soup kitchen, which is supported by local churches.
About two-thirds or so of the people we serve are patrons for a month or
two at most; they might be women who have left abusive relationships and
staying at the shelter until they get an apartment and a job, or people who
are in a temporary state of some other sort of chaos.
 The other third have coming the entire 8 years, and likely many years
before that. Most are able-bodied. Some receive government checks for
disabilities that may not be readily visible; others scrape by with
occasional jobs and charity. Many of these "regulars" have mental health
issues that render them unemployable. Yet we don't even see many of the
truly destitute in our community, since the local police is rumored to have
an unwritten policy of picking up panhandlers and putting them on the bus
out of town.

It seems to me that as a society we are somewhat schizo ourselves on what
to do with these "eccentrics". If they seem to be of little or no danger to
others, we don't want them in mental institutions; we don't want to be
bothered by beggars on the streets; and we certainly don't want to work to
pay taxes to support able-bodied people who don't work. Where do these
people fit into our culture? Do they have no value?

Sharon Flesher
CarSharing Traverse, Inc.
Traverse City, Mich.
sflesher@traverse.net

"Be the change you wish to see." M.K. Gandhi

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
David.
(David MacClement) davd@ihug.co.nz 
http://www.geocities.com/davd.geo/index.html#top
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