I don’t have to agree to that at all. I took it he was commenting, in a humourously exaggerated manner, on the hardships of a slacker’s life. The underlying (and serious, or at least seriously meant) message remains: those who work for “the man” are a bunch of suckers and the hardships of poverty and a life spent ripping off the system are worth avoiding such slavery.
My question stands: if this is a “satire”, it must surely be a satire of something. If so, what? The notion that anyone would actually hold these attitudes? But obviously at least some do.
I quite disagree with this. It appears self-evident to me that social parasitism cannot be a good thing, though admittedly this particular form of parasitism - collecting EI payments to which one is not actually entitled - is self-limited.
I had a conversation once upon a time with someone who had lived for a time in Columbia. At the time, Columbia had no form of social welfare. We both agreed that a certain percentage of any society’s population is not going to contribute in a meaningful way. What he observed in Columbia was, that percentage gravitated to a life of crime. At the time he was there, property theft was rampant.
In the US, we have a miminal level of support that can keep most people feed and off of the street.
So, we ended up asking ourself, given that a small percentage of our population is going fail to contribute, what would we rather have? A welfare system that let’s them sit in their backsides, or a higher level of crime?
I prefer the welfare system because it is also available for people who will contribute, given the opportunity. But, I also accept the fact that it can be taken advantage of. It’s just part of the package.
Perhaps there are many on the right with that reaction, but I’m not one of them. I don’t extrapolate this single story into any sort of lesson about social support nets as a whole, and I have said so quite explicitly above.
I can certainly agree with that, as a matter of policy. The trick is to craft a set of social programs that accompishes these goals:
Does not discriminate against those genuinely suffering from an inability to work for some legitimate reason such as injury (and indeed discriminates in their favour);
Provides sufficient resources to avoid actual need on the part of anyone (thus to avoid crime caused by actual need); and
Yet is not so generous as to create a positive dis-incentive for actual work on the part of those capable of working.
Not an easy goal (defining appropriate level of need is difficult for one) but not impossible.
Many of the rules associated with UI are there to attempt to reduce the abuse, in fact many of these rules do nothing to stop the abuse, and are at odds with the intended purpose of unemployment insurance. I understand rules vary from place to place, the examples below are based on New Mexico rules.
-You must make two employment contacts per week. Why is this a problem? Well, what you really should do, if you want to get back to work, is make like 20 contacts per week. The problem is that if have any sort of specialized skill set, then after a couple of weeks making 20 contacts/week you will have exhausted the local market. Those same 40 contacts would last most of the 26 weeks. Two contacts/week is not too much of a burden for the abuser…but it tends to discourage honest folks from looking really hard…makes it a bitch to meet the requirements next week. A four or six week running average would be a better job search strategy.
-You are penalized for any money you earn. In NM, it is 1 for 1 reduction in benefit. Odd jobs, temping, seasonal work etc. are great ways to network, show your not shiftless, and find permanent work. But the UI rules effectively make you do it for free up to the amount of your UI benefit. What they should do is either reduce the benefit, but extend the coverage period to compensate. (I understand Colorado does this) Or reduce the benefit by some fraction of money earned.
-NM has some programs to help un or minimally skilled workers find jobs. They have essentially nothing to help skilled workers.
At first I couldn’t understand if you meant Colombia, which is a country in South America, or Columbia, the capital of the state of South Carolina. Then I realized it worked either way.
Yes, its a shame when you get a part time job to stay busy, still get the same income, only now you’ve got additional expenses.
Amd I like to add that the criteria here in Canada to determine the weekly benefit does not take into account the family status of the insuree. There;s no question that a 20 year old construction worker with no one else to support, living with Momma, has much less incentive to get off UI and his ass then someone like me struggling to keep my family alive in the lower middle class.
A while ago, I was friends with some “free-gans”, a group of young adults who lived without touching money. They squatted in the woods and in abandon houses. They ate food from trashcans, stuff that grows in the forest and roadkill. They walked or rode bikes from scavenged parts everywhere they went. Now and then they would trade their time and skills for something of equal value. Some shoplifted and did ethically questionable stuff like stealing abandon bikes (they’d leave their phone number at the site the bike had been in if the person who left it there wanted it back.) Most didn’t do that sort of thing.
When I knew this crowd, I was a bit old running around like this. But it sure was discouraging when I was working over 40 hours a week to pay rent and food, and these people were literally swimming in food. Grocery stores, restaurants, bakeries and factories throw away an embarrassment of food. Once they had a gourmet chocolate party with 40 pounds of chocolate from a world famous gourmet brand that was thrown away because it had been processed on machines that had previously processed peanuts and the lables didn’t state that. Now and then I’d go on their dumpster runs and come with a bounty of day-old bread, bruised fruit and expired cheese. Many times I wished I had it in me to get off the treadmill and join these kids walking in the sunshine, eating like kings, and spending their time making art and making love.
Now, we can argue none of this was completely free. Most were on a little vacation from their middle-class parent’s lifestyle and knew they could “drop back in” to regular life if they need to. For example, I don’t think anyone was going to tough it out through a serious illness. They couldn’t do this without America’s vast expensive health care system behind them. But let’s put this aside for a minute…
Anything wrong with living a life without normal work if you are not using the resources of others?
I think this article was an expression of unfocused frusteration at the American lifestyle. We work. Our jobs expect more from us than they give from them. Even perfect workers can’t count on having a job tomorrow. We work more than anyone else iin the industrialized world. And our reward is being able to pay our inflated rents and have something leftover to spend on trinkets that take our mind of how much we hate our jobs. Would you rather have a bigger TV or more time with your family? Don’t you ever wish you could have a life that was more than working or recovering from working? We live so much of our lives for someone else.
And this makes some people frusterated. But they don’t see many viable alternatives. So they focus their anger on the wrong things.
Which underscores the importance of finding a line of work in which you feel like you’re not simply trading in 40 hours a week of your life for a few shekels. It doesn’t even have to be “do what you love and the money will follow” or “what you would do for free” but a least something that you’re at peace with and like doing for the most part. That said, even the most worthy of pursuits can be made a living hell if you have a lousy boss, but I digress…
Which attitudes do you refer to. The attitudes of the slackers or the attitudes of people moved to post an OP about a piece of satire as if it were real?
Your question does not still stand. It’s been answered already. Frankly it’s a bit shocking to me that you couldn’t even begin to formulate what the satirical point might be, even if it were not the intention of the author! The satirical point would be to skewer the idea that indolent, indulgent slackers are happy to suck the government teat, and particularly that our society makes a social net so sweet that people can live a life of convenience while doing so.
Furthermore, why is it obvious that at least some hold these attitudes, as you proclaim?
Phone numbers of the various coffee houses, radical political party headquarters and used bookstores they haunt.
Anyway, I don’t think they’ve found the secret of good living or anything. I don’t think anyone but a young person with rich parents could do this, and then only for a couple years at the most. The point is I’d like to know you guy’s opinions on a non-leeching non-working lifestyle.
I take it you have not been reading this thread, then, or indeed the comments section attached to the article at issue.
For a “satire”, there are seemingly plenty willing to hold the very attitude that you claim the authour is satyrizing the very notion that anyone could hold!
Or are you claiming that there are in reality no one who abuses the system and attempts to free ride, such that the very idea of free riders is an absurdity? That’s an extraordinary claim, which I doubt you will find many to agree with; most people know at least some who hold some variant of these notions.
If that is the target of satire, it misses the mark so far as to be absurd. I was expecting something rather more intelligent, like even sven’s notion that it was an expression of frustration at the working lifestyle. I don’t agree because I think that gives the authour too much credit … but it sure makes more sense that the notion he’s making fun of the very idea that there could be free-riders.
I don’t see that there’s anything wrong with the “freegan” lifestyle, other than the ethically questionable activities you mentioned. By dumpster-diving, they’re increasing the utility of resources that would otherwise be discarded. In some ways, they’re serving the function of the Dalits that seem to be lost in most of Western society. While similar discrimination could develop here, the difference is that the freegans can make a choice to adopt the lifestyle.
I think it’s great, as it’s not so much parasitism as it is living in symbiosis with the wasteful part of society.
Not in my book. Though I do doubt it is truly possible to do it in my city - winters would be difficult to survive without using some resources other than found objects, unless of course you organized it into some sort of recycling business and paid for heating and housing … at which point you would be back to “working” again.
It isn’t parasitism (excluding the shoplifting stuff).
Again, please specify which “attitudes” you are referring to, because you aren’t very clear. From this thread and from the comments that I did read in the link several days ago now, what I see is nearly universal condemnation of the attitude expressed by the author of the piece. Do you see otherwise? If not, then doesn’t that tell you something about the piece itself? It’s sure a very bad effort at persuasion, for one thing. Secondly, this person and the editors of the source of the article appear to be very, very clueless about where the beliefs expressed in the article might fall on a range of beliefs. I find it much more likely that this was an effort at satire than something else.
No, I wouldn’t make such a claim, but then again, it’s not remotely necessary for such a claim to be made in order for this to nevertheless be an attempt at satire.
Did you think it would be necessary for someone to make such a claim? What then, is your understanding of the defintion of “satire”?
