Goodbye and Good Luck -- Gillian Bennett.docx
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John Gear
Aug 31, 2014, 1:28:26 PM8/31/14
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The only part she's wrong about is that the welfare state is NOT a Ponzi scheme. The amount of wealth available to support the people has never been greater, and far outstrips even our vast degree of overpopulation. But overpopulation is a problem because of real, physical, environmental limits on natural resources (limits that no amount of wishful thinking by economists and techno-optimists can overcome), not because we lack the monetary wealth needed to maintain the welfare state.
The number of workers to the number of elders is only the right way to count up our ability to support the welfare state if assets are distributed equally.
In developed countries, and especially in North America, we have more than enough wealth to provide good care and a decent level of comfort for all, including lifetime health care from womb to tomb and a free education that would allow each person to maximize their potential.
We have all that wealth and more, except that the top 1% and especially the top 1% of those and most especially the top 1% of those have gained control of so much of the wealth that they have the resources needed to run a ceaseless campaign of propaganda aimed solely at convincing the rest of us that there's no way we could ever afford any of that, and that the rest of us should be grateful for whatever scraps we are able to pry out of their vaults.
The number of workers to the number of elders is only the right way to count up our ability to support the welfare state if assets are distributed equally.
In developed countries, and especially in North America, we have more than enough wealth to provide good care and a decent level of comfort for all, including lifetime health care from womb to tomb and a free education that would allow each person to maximize their potential.
We have all that wealth and more, except that the top 1% and especially the top 1% of those and most especially the top 1% of those have gained control of so much of the wealth that they have the resources needed to run a ceaseless campaign of propaganda aimed solely at convincing the rest of us that there's no way we could ever afford any of that, and that the rest of us should be grateful for whatever scraps we are able to pry out of their vaults.
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