> living in a society that treats lack of income as deserving of whatever pains and suffering
What does the opposite society look like? Universal income?
What does the opposite society look like? Universal income?
Instead let’s break away from opposites and into pieces. What would be _different_ in a society that doesn’t judge harshly the less fortunate?
I’d suggest that would include ensuring that nobody starves or sleeps on the street for want of work.
Universal income protects only basic needs and it does so in part. Even if you have income, you need to have housing, clean water, food that isn't poisened and some form of healthy environment to live a good life: income doesn't guarantee it.
On the other end of the income spectrum is the unlimited amassing of wealth. After some point, wealth turns into power. For example, Musk is able to buy twitter influencing public opinion, and Starlink can make or break the battlefield.
If we are talking only about income, I think we would need both a minimum (universal) income and a maximum (a cap on wealth). If we do not, then we will eventually lose democracy.
Step one would be to help them get into a situation where that wasn’t true
You’re correct. A society filled with people with this view can’t work
In the Europe, like several rich western countries, we mostly replaced the extended family with the government welfare state, for better but mostly for worse.
So current young workers are contributing to a failing state ponzi pension system that will leave them in poverty by the time they retire in several decades, and they will also lack the care of the extended family unit that was the norm decades ago thanks to collapsed birth rates. Double whammy.
The median cortical volume fails beyond dunbars number, so some kind of compensation is needed