Tapsearch Com EditorElite class in denial about the bottom (LINK)
April 10th 2008 22:36
The surgery is a success. A working poor class has been created cutting out a vast middle class of the past. Fourty years ago, the young graduated from high school or college and eagerly pursued their share of the American Dream.
In the 1950s, it took a college graduate a few years to catch up with their high school class mates economically who chose to go directly to the steel mill or other production jobs. The factory foremen, took the young off the streets and provided them with a skill. In return, the young could get married, raise a family and buy a home. In the 1960s, you could buy a nice home for $25,000 and a brand new car for about $3,500. They helped send their children through college in the 1970s and 1980s. Little did they know that their children would not be able to repeat what they did.
Elite economic powers had other plans. They loaded emerging nations with loans for expansion, but it did not work. The next plan was simple: move factories to the third-world debtor nations, employ cheap labor, bring back the finished goods to America and extract loan payments through extra manufacturing profits. ( John Perkins tells the story about his part in this in his book The Confessions of an Economic Hit Man. )
James Baldwin once wrote that many people who live with complicity in the destruction of other human beings do not know it and do not want to know it..... It is the innocence which constitutes the crime. Today , the inner cities that were once the muscle of manufacturing have been stripped as if some kind of highly contageous disease cover miles of main streets. Only things left were miles of empty store fronts and empty factories. It took more than a 100 years to build this economic dream and it was smashed in only a fraction of that time.
As Christians and other people of good will we find we are part of the innocent in denial about what happened. We have accepted raw Capitalism and vote more in the check out line than we do in the voting booth about what kind of society we want. We have voted for a diseased consumer economy that has partitioned society in extreme ways. We know that we are all God's children and members of one human family and our economic lives should match up with this belief but it has not. "The least of among us" are hidden from our thoughts with the homeless, the underemployed and unemployed someone elses problem. We even have accepted a low unemployment rate statistic that does not compute with what we see all around us.
1. A fundamental moral measurement of any economy is how the poor and the vunerable are faring. However, we accept the fact that the government counts even a single mother making only $100 a month as employed. We ignore the fact that only about 38 percent of all workers qualify for unemployed insurance in the USA.
2. We forget that the economy exists for the person , not the person for the economy.
3. Economic choices and institutions must be judged by how they protect or undermined the life and the human dignity of the human person, support the family and serve the common good. Today human dignity in the workday has been smashed.
4. All people have a right to life and to secure the basic necessities of life ( e.g. food, clothing, shelter, education, health care, a safe environment, economic security ).
5. All people have a corresponding duty to work, a responsibility to provide for the needs of their families and an obligation to help those who are not enjoying the rewards of work as they should even though they are working hard.
6. In economic life, free markets have both advantages and limits. If the market does not provide a balance of economic life, government must help seek this balance without taking control. Today the "free enterprise" system is under attack by giant corporate entities with many more powerful than nations. Governments have joined hands with these powerful forces outside the will of the people. This is the most wounded part in our economic life. The free market is no longer a free one.
7. Workers, owners, managers. stockholders, consumers, corporations are moral agents in economic life. They are not separate entities with each playing its part for the good of all. One can not take advantage of the other has we are doing in our times. The surgery is complete in dividing and partitioning these groups into selfish interests. It has to change.
8. The global economy is centralizing all that is bad instead of bringing all things good to the table. The investment community has taken on a life of its own outside the need and will of the people. Free trade is not trade. Free trade is about moving production from place to place for the sake of the the cheapest labor markets of the world. The balance between value of work and products has been shattered. The real commodities are now human beings put on a world trading block to compete with one another for the same jobs.
The above is based on the Framwork for Economic LIfe - a pastoral letter, Chuck Harder and other articles
In the 1950s, it took a college graduate a few years to catch up with their high school class mates economically who chose to go directly to the steel mill or other production jobs. The factory foremen, took the young off the streets and provided them with a skill. In return, the young could get married, raise a family and buy a home. In the 1960s, you could buy a nice home for $25,000 and a brand new car for about $3,500. They helped send their children through college in the 1970s and 1980s. Little did they know that their children would not be able to repeat what they did.
Elite economic powers had other plans. They loaded emerging nations with loans for expansion, but it did not work. The next plan was simple: move factories to the third-world debtor nations, employ cheap labor, bring back the finished goods to America and extract loan payments through extra manufacturing profits. ( John Perkins tells the story about his part in this in his book The Confessions of an Economic Hit Man. )
James Baldwin once wrote that many people who live with complicity in the destruction of other human beings do not know it and do not want to know it..... It is the innocence which constitutes the crime. Today , the inner cities that were once the muscle of manufacturing have been stripped as if some kind of highly contageous disease cover miles of main streets. Only things left were miles of empty store fronts and empty factories. It took more than a 100 years to build this economic dream and it was smashed in only a fraction of that time.
As Christians and other people of good will we find we are part of the innocent in denial about what happened. We have accepted raw Capitalism and vote more in the check out line than we do in the voting booth about what kind of society we want. We have voted for a diseased consumer economy that has partitioned society in extreme ways. We know that we are all God's children and members of one human family and our economic lives should match up with this belief but it has not. "The least of among us" are hidden from our thoughts with the homeless, the underemployed and unemployed someone elses problem. We even have accepted a low unemployment rate statistic that does not compute with what we see all around us.
1. A fundamental moral measurement of any economy is how the poor and the vunerable are faring. However, we accept the fact that the government counts even a single mother making only $100 a month as employed. We ignore the fact that only about 38 percent of all workers qualify for unemployed insurance in the USA.
2. We forget that the economy exists for the person , not the person for the economy.
3. Economic choices and institutions must be judged by how they protect or undermined the life and the human dignity of the human person, support the family and serve the common good. Today human dignity in the workday has been smashed.
4. All people have a right to life and to secure the basic necessities of life ( e.g. food, clothing, shelter, education, health care, a safe environment, economic security ).
5. All people have a corresponding duty to work, a responsibility to provide for the needs of their families and an obligation to help those who are not enjoying the rewards of work as they should even though they are working hard.
6. In economic life, free markets have both advantages and limits. If the market does not provide a balance of economic life, government must help seek this balance without taking control. Today the "free enterprise" system is under attack by giant corporate entities with many more powerful than nations. Governments have joined hands with these powerful forces outside the will of the people. This is the most wounded part in our economic life. The free market is no longer a free one.
7. Workers, owners, managers. stockholders, consumers, corporations are moral agents in economic life. They are not separate entities with each playing its part for the good of all. One can not take advantage of the other has we are doing in our times. The surgery is complete in dividing and partitioning these groups into selfish interests. It has to change.
8. The global economy is centralizing all that is bad instead of bringing all things good to the table. The investment community has taken on a life of its own outside the need and will of the people. Free trade is not trade. Free trade is about moving production from place to place for the sake of the the cheapest labor markets of the world. The balance between value of work and products has been shattered. The real commodities are now human beings put on a world trading block to compete with one another for the same jobs.
The above is based on the Framwork for Economic LIfe - a pastoral letter, Chuck Harder and other articles
| 30 |
| Vote |
Subscribe to this blog
Comment by Anonymous