Re: Slightly extended (was Re: [Futurework] David Ricardo, Caveman Trade vs. Modern Trade

Fri, 05 Dec 2003 07:15:32 -0800

Title: Re: Slightly extended (was Re: [Futurework] David Ricardo, Caveman  Trade vs. Modern Trade
As I said.  There is no incentive to change.  I hate to say it but food banks are part of the problem. 
 
arthur
 
But what's the solution?  People that use the foodbanks are not activists.  Most have no faith in politicians and many dropped out of the system long ago.  Middle class donors want to keep giving pasta and tuna because it makes them feel they are doing something.  Newly elected politicians discover, to their horror, that the previous government has left them a mess, just as their government will leave a mess to be discovered by the next government.  There are organizations that are active on behalf of the poor, but they make little headway against neo-con governments concerned with the bottom line.  Movements toward a GAI based on direct payments or a negative income tax appear to have stalled a decade ago.  Public concern now is not about the poor, but about personal safety and security in the face of terror and a downsizing economy.
 
I was a kid in Saskatchewan when the newly elected government, under Tommy Douglas, first brought in programs like universal health coverage.  There was a receptivity to social programming at the time because people remembered the Great Depression and not being able to afford visits to the doctor.  The cooperative movement was still a strong feature of the Canadian social landscape.  The poor were considered respectable.  They were us and our neighbours, good church going people who just wanted a "square deal". 
 
What has changed most since then is our attitude toward the poor.  The proportion of the population that considers itself middle class has grown enormously, while the poor, now crowded down to the bottom as minimum wage earners and welfare recipients, are no longer respectable.  They are seen as flawed losers who must be forced to mend their ways through upgrading and workfare programs.
 
My diagnosis is that programs that were once considered new and even radical, like universal Medicare, employment insurance, the Canada Pension Plan, the Child Tax Benefit, and various Provincial welfare programs have now become part of the accepted background buzz of daily life.  They are old and tired and just there, no longer really interesting.  And people who work for large organizations have good pension, drug and dental plans.  People who are not really well-off but who, via double or even triple incomes, manage to stay above low income cut-offs, can convince themselves they are doing OK by buying the latest status goods, as Keith Hudson calls them.  They abhor the thought of paying more taxes to reinforce the health and social safety net because that would cut into their ability to buy an SUV, even if they have to buy a used one.
 
It's the kind of world that does not suggest the possibility of revolutionary change.  Something cataclysmic would have to happen to shake us out of it.  Personally, I hope it doesn't because I enjoy my middle class life style.  Yet I know that major social change has always depended on drastic events.  It would seem that revolutionary programming, like the Canadian social programming that followed WWII, has always eventually begotten encrustation and that something rather nasty, like a major economic downturn, has to happen to get us unencrusted.  Until that happens, I'll keep helping to operate a food bank because even the poor need the comfort of food.
 
Ed
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Thursday, December 04, 2003 4:48 PM
Subject: RE: Slightly extended (was Re: [Futurework] David Ricardo, Caveman Trade vs. Modern Trade

-----Original Message-----
From: Ed Weick [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Thursday, December 04, 2003 4:35 PM
To: Cordell, Arthur: ECOM; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: Slightly extended (was Re: [Futurework] David Ricardo, Caveman Trade vs. Modern Trade

I agree with the concept of a basic income or guaranteed annual income, but I don't think there's been much discussion of it in government since the early 1990s, and certainly nothing very recently.
 
Ed
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Thursday, December 04, 2003 4:16 PM
Subject: RE: Slightly extended (was Re: [Futurework] David Ricardo, Caveman Trade vs. Modern Trade

As my colleague who was born in India says, the first picture of a Canadian child dying with a distended belly will be the spark that ignites governments to end this current (farcical) set of activities.
 
There will be no starvation in Canada.  There will be panhandlers on street corners and panhandlers using the food banks.  Dignity is lost all around: Those who receive and those who give (although they feel mighty righteous at the moment.)
 
We can end poverty.  There can be a basic income.  Somehow there is little incentive to change.
 
We live in a democracy.  As Amartya Sen said, there is no history of starvation in democracies.
 
As I said in my earlier posting, the current system may be remarkably stable.
 
arthur
-----Original Message-----
From: Ed Weick [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Thursday, December 04, 2003 1:12 PM
To: Cordell, Arthur: ECOM; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: Slightly extended (was Re: [Futurework] David Ricardo, Caveman Trade vs. Modern Trade

So what if all the righteous middle class people stopped sending their unused canned goods to the food banks?  Well the hungry people might just vote in a government that promises radical change.   Right now everyone wins: political parties promise change and don't; middle class feels good about sending food to the food bank; working poor can supplement their foodstock by heading to the food bank.  The system may be quite stable.  Maybe there really is no wish to change.
 
arthur
 
I'm on the Board of a downtown foodbank and have spent a little time there.  The people who came to pick up food fell into several groups.  There were older men, fifty plus, who had migrated to Ottawa because there was nothing for them in the valley communities.  Their education and skills were limited, so there was nothing in Ottawa either.  There were young mothers, some with children, who gave you every impression that they didn't want to be there; they hurried in and they hurried out.  There were a number of cocky young people, some perhaps students, some living at the "Y", who acted as though they were indulging the foodbank with their presence.  None of these people acted as though they wanted to change the system.  All they wanted was the food - except for the older guys who also seemed to want to hang around and talk a little.
 
There's an aura of powerlessness about it.  The churches that operate the foodbank know that if they didn't do it, nobody would.  So they keep doing it and their members keep bringing the cans of tuna and the packages of pasta.  The churches might want to take an advocacy position, but that might infringe on their charitable status.  The politicians get themselves elected and their promises become mere promises, not commitments.  Most of the people who use the foodbank hate doing it, but they need to eat.  Watching it without having to depend on it, I wish it would all go away.  But it won't.  It's what the world is like and how it will stay.  Perhaps Canadians, as people who live in the developed world, should feel fortunate that they can afford foodbanks.  Ever so many parts of the world can't, and people starve.
 
Ed

-----Original Message-----
From: Ed Weick [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Thursday, December 4, 2003 9:08 AM
To: Thomas Lunde; [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: Slightly extended (was Re: [Futurework] David Ricardo, Caveman Trade vs. Modern Trade

Thomas, very good posting.  Ontario has just raised the minimum wage from peanuts to peanuts.  Many of the poor are working full time and even double time, but are still unable to meet the rent or buy enough food, let alone get their kids the kinds of in toys ("status goods") that are going around.  They can try eating freedom and justice, but they don't taste very good when you can't make ends meet.
 
Ed
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Thursday, December 04, 2003 3:36 AM
Subject: Re: Slightly extended (was Re: [Futurework] David Ricardo, Caveman Trade vs. Modern Trade


 
They don't need money, Thomas. They need justice and the freedom to enjoy it.
 
Harry
 
Thomas:

In a way, you are right.  Being poor and working with the poor as customers and neighbours let's me see the many ways the poor are lacking justice.  A recent article in the paper made the outstanding statement that 37% of workers in Canada are not covered by the Labour Code and laws.  When wages for the poor are kept artificially low, then the only way to compensate to maintain a survival standard is to work more.  Of course, there are about 4 to 5% who are mentally incapable, or physically disabled or in the case of single mothers, family challenged.  However, the work more solution has only produced the working poor, who still have to use food banks and subsidized housing, if thet can get it.  Not only that, as you suggest, they do not even have the freedom to enjoy what little they have.  I would agree, that justice and freedom would go a long way to compensating for money - or as you might suggest, make the earning and spending of money a by product of an effective system of justice and the freedom and thereby create a surplus to enjoy.

Respectfully,

Thomas Lunde

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