It's not just health care. As I see it, the underlying question is: do we, as citizens, want a system in which the highest ethical value is making more money, down to the last penny, no matter what else is lost in the process? Especially when some of the players who are doing the "down to the last penny" strategy already have vast resources and don't have to act like turn-of-the-century coal barons in order to survive and prosper. Quite apart from aesthetics (like, would you rather have a downtown in your small town or deserted storefronts and a Wal-Mart on the edge of town), there are real drawbacks for everyone in the "down to the last penny" strategy. For example, if you're a big-box store that doesn't pay its employees enough for medical care, doesn't include any medical insurance in the pay package, and doesn't allow employees to stay home when they are sick (all common practices), you're a major incubator site if someone walks into the store with pandemic flu, active drug-resistant TB, or bird flu (mutated for human-to-human transmission). In such a case, do you really think that the flu or the TB will stop at the end of the Wal-Mart parking lot? Especially if the local public health infrastructure is starved for funds because Wal-Mart and other major property owners have not been paying taxes.
I might add in passing that, in most of human history, the ownership of large amounts of property--especially real estate--usually goes with large obligations. If Wal-Mart were in classical Greece, for example, they would be expected to pay for producing Euripides' latest play at the festival of Dionysus and buy a ship for the navy. This wasn't written law, but the penalties in loss of community prestige and influence--if they didn't pony up--were extreme. And the owners would be legally required to furnish horses, armor, and swords, and to be in the front lines if their city-state was at war with anybody. I wonder what would happen if Wal-Mart's major shareholders and corporate officers had to perform the equivalent functions today. They might have to underwrite part of Sundance film festival; build ships for the U.S. Navy; and personally go to Iraq as tank commanders in tanks they bought themselves (since, of course, a mounted, armored knight was the ancient and medieval equivalent of a tank). I'll bet if you gave the major shareholders of WalMart (and similar companies) the choice between going to Iraq and driving a tank and building (for example) nuclear submarines, in the classical Greek pattern--and paying taxes, slightly higher wages, and minimal medical insurance--they would unhesitatingly choose the latter. --Constance Warner ************************************************************************ * ==> QUICK LIST-COMMAND REFERENCE - Put the following commands in <== * ==> the body of an email & send 'em to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <== * Join the list: SUBSCRIBE COMPUTERGUYS-L Your Name * Too much mail? Try Daily Digests command: SET COMPUTERGUYS-L DIGEST * Tired of the List? Unsubscribe command: SIGNOFF COMPUTERGUYS-L * New address? From OLD address send: CHANGE COMPUTERGUYS-L YourNewAddress * Need more help? Send mail to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ************************************************************************ * List archive at www.mail-archive.com/computerguys-l@listserv.aol.com/ * RSS at www.mail-archive.com/computerguys-l@listserv.aol.com/maillist.xml * Messages bearing the header "X-No-Archive: yes" will not be archived ************************************************************************
