Keith Hudson wrote:
At 18:52 24/05/2005 -0400, Brad McCormick, Ed.D wrote:
Keith Hudson wrote:
Interesting article on the long-term unemplopyed in America.
Keith Hudson
<<<<
THE NEW PROFILE OF THE LONG-TERM UNEMPLOYED
Louis Uchitelle
[snip]
"There are just not new jobs being created in the things these
people did before," said Andrew Stettner, a policy analyst at the
National Employment Law Project and co-author of a study of
long-term unemployment.
[snip]
Well, that's the difference between (1) both an oikos [a household] and
a polis [a community of peers], and (2) an "economy" [a structure for
exploitation of
human as well as natural resources]:
When either a family member or a member of a real community becomes
"useless", he or she is still supported nonetheless because of
the human [blood or collegial] ties among all the co-subjects of
their co-constituted lifeworld.
Not at all. Most pre-agricultural societies neglected, killed or
allowed old people to die when they were beyond experiential or
physical help to the community. To a lesser extent, this occurs in
agricultural societies. The excessive preoccupation with keeping old
people alive -- even in a vegetative state -- is a Christian
phenomenon due to the old person having a "soul".
You make a very good point here, which, I hope,
nuances not conflicts with what I wrote.
We know that ancient peoples did often
provide care for injured persons (from healed bone
breaks, etc.) -- I think there is a big difference
between a caring community caring for, e.g.,
a person blinded and who has lost half their face
in a war for their country (or saving people
from an industrial accident), etc.,
but still retains their mind and a will to
live...and
"Right to lifers" "caring for" a brain-dead used-to-be-a-person.
The issue, however, if not primarily about
cripples, but about physically and mentally
normal persons who are not members of
the "in group" of enterpreneurs,
"old money" et al., who get discarded on the
free-enterprise superhighway -- persons who, had they
dropped out of a different birth canal, i.e., one
in and not out of the "in group", would be taken
care of even if they were prodigal sons like
Bushido....
\brad mccormick
We have been able to afford this during the fossil fuel boom, but not
for a great deal longer. The amount of suffering and neglect in state
retirement homes is enormous -- at least in England, and nation-states
in the coming decades will certainly not be able to afford to look
after their old people -- considering that their own families will not
look after them but pack them away in state homes. The rise of
euthansia as a matter of political debate in relatively recent years
is symptomatic of a growing problem. The modern nation-state will no
more look after its poor old people anymore than, for example, really
helping Africans.
Keith Hudson
In an "economy", when a resource becomes useless it just
drops off the radar screen.
Probably somewhere in some country at least once in the
coming decade, one useless drop-off who in his or her
earlier years did something for someone whose fortunes
in the economy prospered will be discovered in the
gutter by the prosperous person and "saved" [Androcles and
the lion?]
Not many of them, however, I expect....
\brad mccormick
--
Let your light so shine before men,
that they may see your good works.... (Matt 5:16)
Prove all things; hold fast that which is good. (1 Thes 5:21)
<![%THINK;[SGML+APL]]> Brad McCormick, Ed.D. / [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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Visit my website ==> http://www.users.cloud9.net/~bradmcc/
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Keith Hudson, Bath, England, <www.evolutionary-economics.org
<http://www.evolutionary-economics.org/>>
--
Let your light so shine before men,
that they may see your good works.... (Matt 5:16)
Prove all things; hold fast that which is good. (1 Thes 5:21)
<![%THINK;[SGML+APL]]> Brad McCormick, Ed.D. / [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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Visit my website ==> http://www.users.cloud9.net/~bradmcc/
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