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I
agree with your analysis, Ed.
Social
change is ongoing and new alliances will be formed---but out of necessity.
The three groups you mention don't have to work together or even acknowledge
each other as long as good hearted middle class folk are handing out free
food. Turn off the tap and you will see cooperation and shared
understanding aplenty.
arthur
Ed, when the poor kick back politicians will
act.
I agree, and in some cases they have on
matters such as housing, for example. But they can't seem to present any
kind of unified front. The people I described as using my food bank,
older guys from the valley, embarrassed young mothers with kids, and the young
who graced us with their presence really wanted to have very little to do with
each other. What we need is a unification of the poor and politicians
who pay attention to them, but we seem to have run out of people
like Tommy Douglas, Stanley Knowles and David Lewis and we now seem to
have a plethora of people like Peter MacKay, Stephen Harper and Paul Martin,
people who pay far more attention to the rich than the poor. In the past
few decades, the political drift has been rightward, and the drift of
society as a whole has been toward the establishment of a middle class
identity that sees poverty terms of personal flaw and the poor as
undeserving.
Ed
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Monday, December 08, 2003 10:37
AM
Subject: RE: Slightly extended (was Re:
[Futurework] David Ricardo, Caveman Trade vs. Modern Trade
Ed, when the poor kick back politicians will act.
I'm not laughing, Harry. I've just accessed
a report by the Canadian Council on Social Development that shows that
poverty in urban areas, including poverty among the working poor,
increased in Canada between 1990 and 1995. It has probably
continued to increase since then. I'm not sure of what can be done
about it, but I would agree with Arthur that foodbanks are not the
answer. Neither is kicking the poor harder, as politicians seem
increasingly to want to do.
Ed
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Monday, December 08, 2003
4:09 AM
Subject: RE: Slightly extended (was
Re: [Futurework] David Ricardo, Caveman Trade vs. Modern Trade
Ed,
Not only to liberty and justice not taste too
well, when they aren't there to taste, you will be sure that ends will
not meet.
Two hundred years ago, Ricardo postulated the
"Iron Law of Wages" and about 125 years ago George picked it up and ran
with it. Of course that's all Classical stuff - out-of-date for
these complex modern economies.
So, we have welfare for people with full-time
jobs who can't survive on what they get. We even have a name for them -
the working poor. We have a law to force employers to pay a minimum
wage, when in the England of half a millennium or so ago - there
was a law to keep wages down (the Statute of
Laborers).
Why don't we laugh? Even though it might sound
a trifle hollow.
So, in ten years, or twenty, or a hundred, will
we still be trying but failing to provide something for an ever
increasing number of the poor?
On second thoughts, don't
laugh.
Harry
********************************************
Henry George School of
Social Science of Los Angeles Box 655 Tujunga CA 91042
Tel: 818
352-4141 -- Fax: 818 353-2242
http://haledward.home.comcast.net
********************************************
From:
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Ed
Weick
Sent: Thursday, December 04, 2003 6:08 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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