The Other Side of the Fence - The Rights of the Rich (well maybe not rich but tax-payer anyway)

In my last blog I was ranting about the inevitable (in my belief) rise in unemployment due to technology replacing many occupations. At some stage in my rant I felt myself starting to argue that most people who are unemployed do not wish to be jobless and they are not worthless human beings; so who foots the bill for all the unemployed who should not be denied assistance aka "a hand out"?

This got me on the slippery slope of wanting to say that those who make more should be forced to pay for those who make less or who are unemployed. But whose right is it to force anyone into paying for somebody else? Especially if those who are unemployed do not wish to or can't ever become employed, up skill or contribute to the society?

An example of where a generous state has been abused is England. In this case I believe that they have been picked out as having a soft touch so to speak. A country who lets in all and sundry and doesn't keep proper tabs on those it lets in to make sure they are becoming assets to the society. Now I'm not saying that all of the people who enter England are abusing the system, but I think that enough are so that the liberal immigration policy has been more hindrance than help.

Regardless of different races, creeds and cultures; a country cannot sustain itself by allowing more and more people to immigrate who end up unemployed, uneducated and cannot communicate in the nation's official language and who end up burdening the society.

As I said above, the original problem is not an issue of race, but it becomes an issue of race. There is a brewing undercurrent of racism and resentment towards anyone who doesn't look British, no matter how many generations their families may have been there. If you look like an immigrant, you pretty much are an immigrant in their books. And while I don't condone any adverse affects from this view; I can understand the resentment of the people who have watched their country slide down in part because of this added financial burden on their society.

Unfortunately, England's attempt at altruism as bitten them in the backside. And adds to my conflict about whether a government has a right to demand that the wealthy pay for the poor and take out the money out of someone's tax.

Now I know that this example of many unemployed immigrants is different from many people being made redundant who have lived and worked in that country all their lives but in the end it comes down to whether the rich should be forced to pay for the poor.

This is probably the main point that makes people feel a bit uncomfortable about the ideas of the Occupy Wall Street movement. Is this movement, as many people say, just about a group greedy people who are envious of the lifestyles of the rich and believes the world owes them a living? Personally I don't think so at all; at least, I don't think this is the motivation for most of the protesters.

I assume that these types of discussions are the kind that are occurring between the protesters putting heads together and I hope someone has some kind of breakthrough to some kind of system that is fair but keeps people's personal freedoms intact. A noble prize should go to that person.

Technology's Role in Forcing a New World Order.

Before you immediately assume I'm going to attack technology and its increased presence in occupations - I'm not.

Fact - technology will continue to be developed and implemented to make most jobs performed by people today obsolete for logical reasons of increased productivity and keeping costs down.

Fact - the speed of technology replacing jobs is far outstripping new jobs being created.

Outcome - unemployment will likely increase in the future, even discounting any economic recessions due to this technological progress.

I'm not referring to some science fiction story, this is actually happening. And I am not against it. Technology has (nearly) always been used to improve our lives and free up our time to think and pursue our dreams and potential. But we need to realize that as we enter in to this new era (which like the dawn of the computer age will likely gain it's own momentum and get faster and faster) we need to think a further down the road and how this will affect people in employment.

As this article argues (http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/wired-success/201109/are-jobs-we-know-them-becoming-obsolete) we already have enough resources to provide for everyone's needs on the planet. So why aren't we doing this?

I think it comes down to the common belief that people are only entitled to resources if they work for it and contribute to society (to be honest I'm one of these people who thinks this, however my thoughts on this have been challenged of late).

Some of the unemployed people may actually be really lazy and may never want to work and be part of society but I have a hunch the the overwhelming majority of unemployed people wish they had a job. And this is where it upsets my way of thinking - when people want to work and prove to society that they deserve a share - and for whatever reason - various disabilities, economic recession, poverty (that contributes to lack of education and being well presented), technology making them redundant - these people all slip through the cracks and are no longer deserving of a slice of the pie.

In the words of the Love Police (a movement, not a band) "If you do not have a job, you are a worthless human being".

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=188975267784344

And I've been there for only 3 weeks - I was unemployed and I did feel like a worthless human being. I can only imagine the heart ache and then eventual numbness of a person who has been in unemployment for a long period of time. Feeling the gazes of judgement on you and then being ignored totally as a lost cause.

I always feel a storm of mixed feelings when I see a person begging - anger, sympathy, pain, sickness, helplessness. I am angry at them for being there and making me feel confused and upset and never knowing what to do. They make me feel angry because I am fearful about what circumstances happened in their life to put them in that position and what are the chances that that could be me one day for whatever reason? Would people walk around me so easily? How would I ask for help? Would I sit there with a sign? Carry a baby or a dog around? Spend my days playing the same three songs over and over again on my harmonica at the train station?

Then I wonder what the government is doing to help them. Why are there people here stalking the metros and people brush it off as completely normal?

But coming back to the point that there is a universal (from what I have seen) belief that you are only entitled to resources if you are employed and that someone who isn't working for whatever reason is viewed as a "worthless human being" looking for a "hand-out" and who's opinions are worth less than a person who is in employment.

So as unemployment rises does this means that a smaller amount of people will have a say in the governing of the country (hypothetical country not any in particular) and go back to a situation echoing medieval times when only those with land could participate in matters of state? Or will the "99%" as it were, vote to change system in a way that will benefit the growing number of unemployed?

We may have to accept that something needs to change to create new opportunities for the unemployed and I don't mean we stop technological progress. That would be out and out stupid. But this is a situation that we will be confronted with. Something will have to change eventually.

"Resource based economy" is a phrase that is bandied about a lot these days. Some sort of utopic (is that even a word? Utopia -utopic?) vision of a world where resources of food and power are in abundance because of technology. But then with so many jobs no longer filled by people, what do all these unemployed people do exactly with their "free time" and that still does not resolve the question about who gets what of the resources. To think that this would be under the control of a huge "nanny state" has echoes the Chinese Cultural Revolution and the rationing of resources and people's choices were dictated by a government which had their "best interests at heart".

I would hope that enough people would have learnt from history to not replicate this mistake. But the biggest mistake the Chinese people made in allowing this situation to unfold was to not question authority. And this is why FREEDOM OF SPEECH is so critical to uphold. (See the above link on the Love Police - funny and compelling).

Who really knows what will happen, I just hope that we can all be prepared for change when it does eventually come.

Aside note - I realize that this argument has some huge holes in it, especially when it sounds I'm suggesting that people should get used to the fact that there are going to be more unemployed people and that the employed will just have to suck it up and pay for them. I will jump on the other side of this argument in my next blog.