[lbo-talk] Von Hayek was wrong

123hop at comcast.net 123hop at comcast.net
Sat Apr 2 12:43:29 PDT 2011


But I wasn't arguing against social security and pensions. I was just saying that working for free is a luxury most can't afford.

I mean, programs like "Teach for America," are scabbing enterprises too -- mostly staffed by the children of the well to do....so far as I know.

I might be a boomer, but I've got two kids, seventeen and twenty seven, facing a pretty bleak future. I'm also not too sure what kind of future I'm facing, with no pension and social security next to be robbed.

But I'm curious, according to you, is there such a thing as a scab?

Joanna

----- Original Message ----- From: "Mark DeLucas" <mkdelucas at gmail.com>

"Having someone to support you is like having money."

An excellent argument against social security and pensions, I congratulate you.

Your conception of desperation is limited. Even the rich despair. But a rich person probably doesn't despair as I mean it: to be relatively young and have before you most of your life, possessed of no especially marketable skills, trapped in the service industry*, contemplating the strong likelihood of a life wasted.

Of course, I'm talking to a boomer. All the same, this is a rather incredible conversation -- as if all the statistics of economic gloom that get produced on this list have no actual real world consequence; that things aren't terrifyingly bleak and conducive to desperate behavior, like crime or, even worse, working for free as a means of bolstering one's pathetically unexceptional resume.

*although, to work in the service industry is to be paid money, and to have money is like having money. So, admittedly, it's difficult to see dead-end service work as despair-inducing.



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