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Even lazy idiots have the right to live
One thing I've never quite gotten about the U.S. is that policymakers and lots of ordinary folk don't consider it a moral responsibility of government to guarantee the basic necessities of life: food, clothing, shelter, and yes, medical care to everyone. It's stunning to me. I totally get, and to a large extent, share the desire not to support freeloaders. If I have to work to have a decent life, so should you. That's why I'm only talking about necessities. But for everyone, even able-bodied, childless adults.
I personally have no problem with a guaranteed national income set at the subsistence level, plus free health care, no strings attached. But I understand people who would insist on looking for work, education or training, "workfare", or the like as a condition for cash aid (essentially what I believe the UK and Canada do). Public shelters/soup kitchens would be made available for people who don't meet the conditions. The basic payment would be gradually phased out for those who work, providing both work incentives and income support for the working poor. The parameters would be set so that anyone who works full-time at the minimum wage would be out of poverty.
This is a wealthy country -- we could easily afford such a guarantee. While we all are substantially responsible for our fate, with enough bad luck anyone who isn't independently wealthy could end up on the street. Most who do are no lazier than the average person, bigger "screwups" maybe. But even if they are, laziness should not be punished with death. I think a lot of thinking on this subject hearkens back to an earlier time when there was less to go around, possibly not enough for everyone. Perhaps this is still the case in some Third World countries today, I don't know enough to say, though I suspect at least the richer ones could also afford such a guarantee, given the cost of necessities is cheaper in poorer countries. (Helping the Third World poor is another important moral imperative, but deserves another post.)
I personally have no problem with a guaranteed national income set at the subsistence level, plus free health care, no strings attached. But I understand people who would insist on looking for work, education or training, "workfare", or the like as a condition for cash aid (essentially what I believe the UK and Canada do). Public shelters/soup kitchens would be made available for people who don't meet the conditions. The basic payment would be gradually phased out for those who work, providing both work incentives and income support for the working poor. The parameters would be set so that anyone who works full-time at the minimum wage would be out of poverty.
This is a wealthy country -- we could easily afford such a guarantee. While we all are substantially responsible for our fate, with enough bad luck anyone who isn't independently wealthy could end up on the street. Most who do are no lazier than the average person, bigger "screwups" maybe. But even if they are, laziness should not be punished with death. I think a lot of thinking on this subject hearkens back to an earlier time when there was less to go around, possibly not enough for everyone. Perhaps this is still the case in some Third World countries today, I don't know enough to say, though I suspect at least the richer ones could also afford such a guarantee, given the cost of necessities is cheaper in poorer countries. (Helping the Third World poor is another important moral imperative, but deserves another post.)
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It's a dilemma. On the one hand it hardly seems fair that I'm expected to be responsible for myself... yet others are not.
On the other hand, not everybody is blessed with good hardware (brain)... or more importantly, software!!!! There are many people who are raised by "adults" that do a TERRIBLE job preparing their child... Indeed, the morals (or lack thereof) and ideas they feed their kids insures their kids will pretty much fail. Not to mention children who are abused and otherwise screwed up by the adults who raise them... I can only imagine it's almost impossible to rise above that... and I am sympathetic... Afterall, You are what you eat... and some people are fed metaphoric crap.
But... You know... That's NOT acceptable. It can't be.
IF: From each according to his abilities, To each according to his needs.
Then: I suspect there will be a lot of needy people.
Personally I don't mind helping somebody get on their feet... Education, trade school, etc... but just simply supporting people... and their next generation... and their next generation.. well, that rubs me wrong.
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You say, But even if they are, laziness should not be punished with death.
It's not.
There are PLENTY of social programs out there for the truly poor (for WHATEVER reason, sloth included). Medicaid, for example. Housing and food programs as well.
We do not put lazy people before a firing squad.
October 1, 2009 3:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
I remember listening to this one speaker who had spent time as a homeless person to better understand their perspective...and one of the stories was about how he (there was another guy that joined him on this) was visiting with this homeless couple, and they were chatting one evening and he witnessed the mother put a little alcohol into the baby's formula in order to soothe the baby.
The first point was that the mother believed she was being a good parent and doing something to help the child.
The second point he made was he wondered at point did this child, with all the things putting up barriers to achieving a healthy, productive life, switch from being the victim in society's eyes to being one of the "bad ones." Or in this words of this blog, one of those able-bodied lazy people.
In the end, how can we think we can decide who is deserving and who isn't.
Of course, if the parents were able to access decent long-term public housing, and access to child raising information such as don't give infants alcohol, this kid would stand a much greater chance of staying clean and on the right side of the law. Which would decrease the burden on the legal system (paid for by all those hard working people), and keep hardworking Americans from waking up in the morning to find their car had been broken into or stole, etc. etc.
If we want to not go down the moral decency road, we at least need to see this from the enlightened self-interest pov.
October 1, 2009 4:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
Good points. All of them.
What can I say? It helps demonstrate some of the problems I mentioned, but illuminate others!
It's not easy.
October 1, 2009 4:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
Harlem Kid Zone is an excellent example of spending money on providing a wholistic approach to breaking the cycle of poverty. Here the kids (once provided the attention, materials, etc available to the more well-off schools, along with programs that support the parents both in terms of access to benefits and parenting courses) perform just as well as those kids in well-off schools.
We need to move from the idea of "supporting people" as just giving them their hand out, but rather as providing a comprehensive network of economic, social, and medical support that enable them to both survive in the immediate moment and increase their self-sufficiency in the long-term.
And that there will be those who never seize the opportunities, for whatever reason, but they will be a small portion, and worth tolerating for the benefit it brings everyone for those who do take the opportunities.
October 1, 2009 4:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
Special programs to teach people how to be parents?
Must be one of them Obama brainwashing things!!!
Obviously (I hope) sarcasm ;)
October 1, 2009 5:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
Actually it is Harlem Children's Zone. Excellent interview with the Director Geoffrey Canada on This American Life.
http://www.thisamericanlife.org/Radio_Episode.aspx?sched=1311
October 1, 2009 7:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
Obrigado.
October 2, 2009 4:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
And while there are many social programs, there are many barriers.
One example: you are junkie on the street and want to get clean. Good luck in finding an open bed in a decent rehab center. And while you wait, strung out or jonesing, go to the seven or eight different non-profit and government locations and fill out all that paperwork, providing all the necessary documentation.
And just how many people die because they lack health insurance.
And how many people are thrown out of their homes because of medical bills, creating worse health conditions for them and their families, shortening their lives if nothing else.
October 1, 2009 4:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
Right on.
Maybe I'm wrong, but I don't think I'm alone, when I say that I do have my limits wrt to this subject.
For example, I have nothing but compassion and understanding for the mentally ill. I know a lot of homeless people are there because they are simply very ill. Absolutely don't mind doing whatever it takes to help these people forever.
Drug addicts... I have some compassion for them, too. But not as much, you know? Absolutely in societies best interest to see that they get housed and treated. Help them recover and get back to living... Clearly in everybody's best interest... But forever? Well... I suppose. Yes. ...but it's harder for me to commit to that... especially if they continue to go back and go back and go back. My heart breaks for them... I know they, too, are ILL...
Even people who aren't necessarily hooked on hard drugs nor paralyzed with mental illness, but still find themselves unable to hold a job (or even get a job), I must imagine that they have their reasons. They have some Demons of some kind... you know? So, they need compassion and understanding in large amounts.
So... Morally it seems that we simply MUST care for all of these groups of people. Of course.
And I truly believe that we are all in this together and there will be a tomorrow and we should plan accordingly.
But then part of me wonders about Personal Responsibility.
What does Personal Responsibility mean? And does it apply to everybody?
October 1, 2009 5:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
I hear you.
Personal responsibility should be held up as an ideal, something to strive for. And I think we as a culture can have this ideal, and to pass this to each generation at the same time we hold up compassion as an ideal. I just think we, as a culture, get caught in the idea that an individual's worth is related to the degree in which they are able to achieve an ideal.
And I have my times, sometimes a lot of time, when I have my qualms about helping people who use the system, who can't get their act together (even when me myself am struggling at getting my act together and getting support from others). I'm no Ticht Naht Hahn.
And while we hope that all of us strive equally hard to be responsible, to not be screw-ups and freeloaders, that it does apply to everybody, at the same time we understand some (all) fall short of this ideal, others fall way short. And that energy that could be directed elsewhere, a direction we would prefer, must be directed to reaching out to them.
Which means in the end we have to make a sacrifice. A sacrifices are difficult. And we will, myself very much included, will balk when that need for sacrifice is called upon when it is difficult to wrap the sacrifice up in a nice package.
It is easier to sacrifice for freedom than it is to sacrifice for a 50 year old junkie who has spent a life of drugs and stealing, and who at times doesn't seem to really want your sacrifice.
October 1, 2009 7:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
An irony there though is that some of the most personally responsible cultural areas are just as apt to be liberal with social services as not. You won't find a much stronger work ethic than you will in Minnesota. But then again, you find the same work ethic in conservative North Dakota or Nebraska.
I think personal empowerment is as important as responsibility. You have to believe it is possible for you to succeed. I think they beat that out of a lot folks in the south. Why try if you have no chance? If you believe you have an equal chance to do well you are more apt to feel shame if you don't measure up.
Unfortunately, some of the efforts to build self-esteem among the disadvantaged didn't tie the esteem to achievement.
October 1, 2009 8:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
One of the big barriers to helping others is messaging from the GOP. Marx is Satan, but "From each according to his ability to each according to his need" makes a lot of sense once one defines "need". Also, the jealousy that rises when one pictures the welfare Mom in a Cadillac. This picture suggests the Mom has all thr trappings of others with Cadillacs, but really, that car is probably all they really own, and it is no late model, and at the end of the day, is it really theirs by the fruit of their labor? Do they atually feel they earned it?
As a workers comp claims examiner, working in a field whre the GOP picture has people getting rich on Comp, I saw the real picture. The people who got money were broken in one way or another. One might argue how much was related to work, but the evidence did reveal brokeness. Second, did they get "rich"? No. No one gets rich on worker's comp, even if they score a six figure settlement. The attorneys get rich and the broken get a brief respite in their misery, then abandoned, to find some other means to sustain themselves. That is what they get and I never begrudged them that. Of course, by the time they did get a settlement, it was very well shown they were broken and their con dition was work-related. Scammers seldom get very far when a claim has a high-dollar value. Sure, there are some claiming and working elsewhere, but they don't get rich either and eventually their scam falls apart.
October 2, 2009 1:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think this comes down to how one views human nature, or to the extent one believes one can know human nature. Personally, I believe that it is instinctive (ie biological) for humans like other sentient beings to be productive, ie not to be just a freeloader on this earth.
Yet both genetic and environmental factors come into play that can lead to a state of being, of body, of mind that can lead someone to "freeload" off of others.
In my experience, I have met few who prefer public housing over being in a place in their lives where they can afford their own residence. What they need is opportunities, a hand up, not just a hand out, as the saying goes. And some patience. Overcoming the outcome of years of the genetic/environmental interplay is not always easy. One just has to throw in something like addiction to really make the road to self-sufficiency (non-laziness if you want) incredibably difficult.
October 1, 2009 4:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
Well... You and I have had different experiences, clearly.
I have worked in the same pharmacy, serving the same DEPRESSED area of Lexington, KY, for over 20 years... I am serving my 4th generation of patients now...
I have many families where I provide care for Grandmother, Mother, Daughter, and Granddaughter...
I can tell you with absolute certainty that there are PLENTY of people who are very comfortable with public housing, medicaid, "food stamps" (or whatever the equivalent is now called). They are very content to NOT WORK AT ALL and visit their doctors twice a month.
Those on Medicaid make up approx 25% of my business (some places in Eastern KY have as much as 80%+). Granted not all of them are generational medicaid recipients... but the VAST Majority of them are.
And they are passing this "way of life" forward to each new generation.
I have known more than a few that have "Tried" to work... but they HONESTLY (I'm not kidding) tell me that they don't like to work so they quit.
I have one patient who literally (when she's not in prison!) gets a job only so she can get hurt and get Workers Comp! No shit! She comes by it naturally... her mother taught her everything she knows... And she has a 5 year old dauther now...
I know these represent a minority of the total population... and I realize that my own personal perspective is skewed because of my profession and how long I've been in this one spot...
But, I guess I'm just pointing out that there are PLENTY of people who are very satisfied to waste their lives away like this...
October 2, 2009 11:19 AM | Reply | Permalink
From one perspective, yes there are plenty of people like the ones you have encountered. And on the surface many will say they prefer this way. I think though that are many of those of whom you speak that if one was able to get them to really dig down deep, we would find that they would prefer a life that is different. But as you point out, it is in many way generational, the culture of poverty. It is the only way they know.
In the extreme example, a female grows up with an abusive father. Then marries a guy just like him, subjecting herself and her children to the same abuse she encountered as a child. In this case, there are few of us that would say she "prefers" a life filled with abuse over one without. And many times it takes years and years to help her arrive at a point where she is willing and able to do what is necessary to get out the situation.
This is not saying that to be poor is to be abusive to your children. It is just that how we are nutured and conditioned as we grow up, from what we expect of ourself to what we expect of the world, is a major factor that leads us to behave in ways that, deeper down, we don't want to.
October 2, 2009 12:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
"very satisfied"?
It seems to me these people have zero, none, not one iota of experience with "satisfaction", never mind being "very satisfied". These people are lost. They are training the next generation to stay lost. This is why public education is so critical. It is from these places some of our best citizens emerge, so I would not give up on them. But I would only provide subsistence and that is all they earn with their numerous workers comp claims, subsistence. It is highly unsatisfactory after one has had a good meal, and come to know a standard of living with many good meals.
October 2, 2009 1:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
Speaking as a lazy idiot, I thank you for your time and consideration in this matter.
Good post.
October 2, 2009 6:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thank you all for your thoughtful and though-provoking responses.
October 3, 2009 12:22 PM | Reply | Permalink