From: Mike Lorrey (mlorrey@yahoo.com)
Date: Tue Apr 08 2003 - 01:06:19 MDT
--- Matthew Gingell <gingell@gnat.com> wrote:
> Lee Daniel Crocker writes:
>
> > Why do we think it's somehow "right" to forbid contracts for pay
> that's
> > not sufficient for living alone? Since when do we expect that
> everyone
> > capable of working should also be capable of living alone?
>
> It's a point of ideology. The notion is anyone willing to work a 40
> hour week, to contribute meaningfully to the well being of the
> broader community, is entitled to a subsistence standard of living
> and a measure of basic human dignity. That entitlement is
> independent of the amount of value one actually produces, and it's
> more important that the system be approximately just than perfectly
> efficient.
It also is a principle of natural law, as well. Man, in a state of
nature, generally had to work x hours a day to satisfy his needs (of
course, this varied by climate, local ecology, etc). If a society is
based on natural law, as ours is, and as libertarian principle is, it
should regard such a number of hours as a standard average work week
for an average standard of living, independent of technological
development or local resource availability.
As I stated in a recent post, I earn approximatly in the 48% level at
the present time. Does my standard of living reflect this, though? No,
it doesn't. My current housing is significantly substandard, yet I am
paying the same amount I paid two years ago for a decent two bedroom
apartment. I am paying approximately the percent of my income for
housing that financial counselors would recommend one should pay for
housing.
Now, my local economy is being significantly distorted by governmental
policies, specifically an anti-family housing policy that has severely
restricted the development of housing available for non-senior citizens
who are not high-income earners. They are giving property tax
exemptions to senior owned or occupied housing, while jacking up
property taxes on everyone else to pay for increased education costs
(even those of us without kids). They are blocking approval of family
oriented housing developments and zoning amendments to make housing
more affordable.
In a community of 13,000 people, there is a housing deficit of 1800
units. Those that can't afford it are being economically exiled. It is
ethnic cleansing by economics rather than by death squads. Long time
residents are being forced out to the hinterlands while the town is
taken over by white collar, highly educated professional transplants
from elsewhere who are turning the entire town into a country club.
Everyone else being forced out makes up the body of the local
workforce, anybody who is not a doctor or college professor, etc.
I am tempted at changing the welcome sign to the city to "Welcome to
the Lebanon Country Club, servants enter via Rte 4 only".
At the same time that local cost of living is increasing due to housing
policy, incomes remain at levels below even national averages for any
but the upper echelons, yet employers have difficulty filling slots,
and either outsource to other regions, or import low wage labor that
increases pressure on local resources. Employees face ever longer
commutes with no improvement to roads.
Lebanon was ranked the second most livable small town seven years ago.
Today it is accelerating toward a status as a socio-economic battle zone.
=====
Mike Lorrey
"Live Free or Die, Death is not the Worst of Evils."
- Gen. John Stark
"Pacifists are Objectively Pro-Fascist." - George Orwell
"Treason doth never Prosper. What is the Reason?
For if it Prosper, none Dare call it Treason..." - Ovid
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