Sufficient numbers of people need sufficiently well paid jobs in order for the hyperconsumption-hyperproduction treadmill economy to function. But recognition of this implies that employers should bypass such cost-saving, efficiency-oriented, and safety-increasing technology, just so that sufficient numbers of people can have sufficiently well paid jobs. The reality is, however, that if a business has the choice between employing humans, vs. employing less-costly new machines and ever more advanced software apps, and if the machines and new apps are ever more productive and affordable than workers, employers will choose the machines and apps every time. And if they don't, they will quite obviously lose their competitive edge, since at least one of their competitors will certainly make that very move.
Breaking the connection between wages and the right to basic goods and services
Therefore, the only true, logical and responsible solution to this problem, if it's not going to be the 30-hr week, is to eventually transcend the labor-for-income system itself, so that our economy can evolve new kinds of provisions (of basic goods and services) for low-income folks. Otherwise, the culture and educational standards of such folks will continue to deteriorate (as they have for the past 40 years throughout much of America), to the point that this continuing deterioration is ever more costly to the society as a whole. It costs something like $45K per year to keep someone behind bars, and every visit of a homeless person to an emergency room costs plenty, too, so it all adds up. As a result, both Salt Lake City and Phoenix have found that, overall, it's cheaper to provide homeless people with small apartments of their own, and free food, than it is to pay all the expenses that occur when such people are simply allowed to fend for themselves on the streets. It turns out that having a place of your own, and basic financial and food security, has an enormously therapeutic effect on such people.
What are the major causes of death and suffering in the world?
As Zeitgeist author Peter Joseph reports ,
There is one main catalyst for all the unnecessary causes of death and suffering in the world: Class inequality and incomes so low, for some, that the resulting poverty trumps every other form of violence and public threat -- hands down. The leading cause of death on the planet earth is relative and absolute poverty. Period. Every single year, the near equivalent of 2 holocausts, i.e. nearly 20 million people worldwide, are killed by the waste and absurdity that is inherent in the hyperconsumption-hyperproduction treadmill economy and the inevitability of thereby creating large class divisions, and the human deprivation, for some, that results from that.
There are two types of deprivation to consider: Absolute and Relative
Absolute deprivation is what the billion people currently not getting their basic nutritional needs are experiencing. This kind of deprivation is about basic physical needs not being met, which leads to illness, weakness of various kinds, and premature mortality.
Next Page 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
2
2
1
