Prime Minister Trudeau said it, “The system is broken and the world is in crisis. Things are about to get much worse unless we change.”
Everything.
The corona virus has brought all that is wrong with our world right out front and center.
But let me just talk about work.
The way we work, is not working.
If the governments and corporations and every place in between say workers will get lazy and not work if we give them a basic income, something is horribly wrong. If they also say, if workers get paid sick leave they will take more leave, then something is wrong with our thinking. The problem is not people, the workers, the problem is deeply hidden in our way of doing things, in our perception of how things ought to be. There is something wrong with our employment if we don’t want to work, because people like to be productive and have value. We like to buy things and contribute to society. We like to have a good quality of life. The problem is with the system, of how we are made to work, and of the values there.
We are forcing humans to behave in non-human ways. Think about it. If we were working in a way that meshed with who we are, we would not be miserable. If we worked where our needs are being met, we would not be miserable. There are people who have accomplished this, and the ones who have, guess what, are the ones who are helping one another, who are cleaning up the environment, who are finding ways to improve our lives without cost to our planet or to their and our well being. People who are creative, who bring beauty to our world. People who are finding solutions. People who care about one another, where we live and the future.
People who do what they love are happy. They tend not to exploit others or our home.
Think about this. The people who sell us stuff often cannot afford to buy that stuff themselves. Nor can they afford the services they provide us with.
There are grocery clerks who can’t buy the very food they sell.
I worked for an optometrist and I could not easily afford the services we provided. It would cost me over two weeks salary to have an exam, tests and get glasses.
I once worked for a high end department store where I had to have one of their credit cards and buy a certain amount of items, and type of items in order to continue my employment. Items I could neither afford nor want, while being paid minimum wage and having to work whenever they determined. One of my fellow employees was already $70,000 in debt! And the worst part was, the company fully admitted that this is how they made their profits, from interest on credit card debt. So much so, they didn’t even worry about the tens of thousands of dollars they lost in theft each year! Theft not from employees, because we were instructed to watch each other and report on each other and there were cameras over every cash register, and not elsewhere in the store. Ask yourself some questions about this set up.
Doesn’t this spell misery?
Employees are monitored in ways that are not unlike a communist regime, or at the very least treated like irresponsible children. If employers think employees are just waiting to rip them off, ask yourself WHY would they be thinking that way? Is it perhaps because employers are ripping them off, or mistreating them? It is not a normal way for people to think or be. We do not normally wish other people misfortune unless we are made to stoop that low, because we are being taken advantage of or mistreated. If we are abused long enough we end up hurting others. This is not who we are. We are social animals who care about things. God said we are stewards and we are. Something has gone amiss.
We have a system called slavery.
This is how people are enslaved. Not paid enough to live on and kept forever in debt.
Something is wrong with this, don’t you think? The system is not in synch with who we are. It is forcing us to behave in ways against our nature. To work beyond our mental and physical capabilities. To be unable to help others because we can’t even help ourselves. To have to choose between eating, our life saving medications or having a roof over our heads. To have someone else control our life completely, whether we live or die.
If you read about how populations are forced to make a state (James C. Scott) you will see that these are extremely unstable entities that cause enormous amounts of suffering to benefit the few. And it is not, in my opinion, a natural way for people to be. I don’t think that most of us condone slavery, pollution, corruption. I think we embrace altruism, and we are being taught this is wrong. We are being educated to think socialism is wrong. Why? People don’t even know what it is but condemn it.
Just asking you to think about this.
If you look at situations where people are allowed to be themselves, you will see them do heroic acts of kindness and self sacrifice. Sure, there are exceptions, but in most cases I think you will see people embrace their true nature of kindness and caring when called upon to do so. We are always looking for ways to help others. We like to give more than receive.
We need to overhaul our work life to properly reflect the values that people are born with.
Along with virtually everything else in this world that man has touched.