>I'm sure Chris Reuss's experience is not in the least unique. I
believe
>legions of people learned in our school systems and workplaces that they
>are stupid and good for little else than amusing themselves and staying
>away from authorities' boots. For many of them, there may be little to
>offer now except a decent livelihood and active encouragement to engage in
>positive ways with the communit--and that may not work.
>
>I think this can change for the vast majority when we are willing to put
>the approporiate portion of resources, intelligence and respect into
>educating all our children, making sure their homes are not empty or
>hellish, and offering them as adults a real choice of useful and creative
>activities--some paid, some not--as part of the Basic Income society.
>Otherwise BI will fail many people, being nothing but a check in the mail.
>legions of people learned in our school systems and workplaces that they
>are stupid and good for little else than amusing themselves and staying
>away from authorities' boots. For many of them, there may be little to
>offer now except a decent livelihood and active encouragement to engage in
>positive ways with the communit--and that may not work.
>
>I think this can change for the vast majority when we are willing to put
>the approporiate portion of resources, intelligence and respect into
>educating all our children, making sure their homes are not empty or
>hellish, and offering them as adults a real choice of useful and creative
>activities--some paid, some not--as part of the Basic Income society.
>Otherwise BI will fail many people, being nothing but a check in the mail.
Sally,
I agree with you. I too believe it is a matter of how children are raised and socialized. But I have two concerns. One is that an enormous effort might be required of bureaucrats and the "helping professions" to ensure that homes are not "empty or hellish". This could mean considerable interference in family affairs. My other concern is the ability of both bureaucrats and their clients to put positive spins on things which may not really be all that positive. Perhaps, not coming out of ideal homes, many recipients of BI would behave like Chris Reuss's clients. Perhaps, to avoid embarrassment and controversy, such behaviour would be accepted as falling within the norms of the useful and creative.
A few years ago, the Canadian Federal Environmental Assessment Review Office asked me spend some time in northern Saskatchewan and then write a report on the impact of uranium mining in that area. The following passage from that report illustrates what I'm getting at in the above paragraph:
The growing presence and influence of the bureaucracy, presiding over what some observers have referred to as a "welfare state", has not only been a factor in northern Saskatchewan in recent decades, but in much of northern Canada. Critics of government policies and processes would accept that, at the level of highest principle, intervention is often necessary on grounds of equality of opportunity, service and justice. But they note that what has often resulted at the local level is not the achievement of such objectives, but the bureaucratic capture of the affairs of everyday life. Instead of becoming more self-reliant and more effective in pursuing life by their own traditions, people have become permanently enmeshed in the welfare net. And because there is little hope of escape, what the net provides has become locally institutionalized and woven into the fabric of ways in which people maintain their self-respect. One observer of the situation in northern Saskatchewan puts the matter this way:
"I found it difficult to understand how welfare dependency could be accepted with pride or dignity. The big question for me was how was it justified or legitimized. After a long discussion on the subject in a northern village, I have learned that welfare is considered an aboriginal "right" and a treaty "right". As a "right", pride and dignity is maintained, rationalization is unnecessary, legitimacy is enshrined."
I might add that the observer I quoted was himself an Aboriginal person.
Ed Weick
