WALL OF TEXT: BOOTSTRAPS

 

 

WALL OF TEXT: BOOTSTRAPS. We are told that we are obligated to pull ourselves up by our bootstraps—that if one works hard enough, one will move up in society. Therefore if one is poor, one deserves to be. If one is homeless and in medical debt, these are merely just desserts. Obviously all you need to do is get a job and everything will be fine. But I recently learned Doordash will refuse to give you an account if you have a DUI on your record. If even the poor are shut out of the gig economy, how are they supposed to lift themselves out of poverty? One mistake is all it takes to shut you out of employment that is not even considered employment. Employers check credit scores and can deny you a job based on that alone. Landlords can refuse to rent to you if you have bad credit. We decry China for its Citizen Score, but the USA had one decades prior. One mistake can put a person in a pit from which all the bootstraps in the world cannot pull them out. A truly progressive society recognizes that the worker should not be made to feel guilty for his lack of employment. After all, his self-sufficient craft was taken from him long ago. The burden should rest on the employer; if nobody will hire someone, how is he or she or they to blame for their lack of employment? The corporation should be tasked with keeping the people employed, and the law should require a living wage because people are not self-sufficient. They once were, but now they depend on an employer for a wage, therefore the corporation should be obligated to employ the people. The point of earning a living is to prove that one is worthy of existing. Well, if people are unemployed, we must face the fact that there is no reason for them to exist, so now what? But mandatory employment has been tried and proved to be a disaster, so what now? What is the purpose of employment? Why must individuals prove themselves useful to someone else in order to justify their own existence? If Capitalism is to continue, we must question the idea of a monetary society.