This does leave the question of what the prostitute is to do, once her
(or his) job evaporates. To answer the question of how we deal with the
desperate circumstances that drive women (and men) to such
drastic and unfortunate measures, how about....
- recognizing that equality of educational and vocational
opportunity, up to the limits set by one's abilities, are
fundamental rights that may not legitimately be denied
on the basis of poverty. Restore financial aid for education
and set price caps on tuition which has been rising at several
times the rate of inflation for the last few decades.
Yes, I know that will create a shortage of positions in college.
In supplying commodities, this is a bad thing, which is why we
let the market set grain prices, for example. In education,
"shortage of positions" translates into "competition for
positions". Tell me, if you go to the doctor, would you rather
know that he was one of the 90 best applicants for his position
in medical school or one of the 90 richest? To allow the market
to set tuition and thus eliminate the competition for
positions is to create a situation in which advancement is
dependent, not on individual ability, but on access to funds.
This is an injustice to the applicant and detrimental to
society, when the less than optimal applicants begin private
practice.
- Extend the age discrimination laws to protect those between 18
and 40, also, and restore the presumption in favor of the
plaintiff in discrimination cases. (At present, if one doesn't
have access to the complete employment records for the company
(something that an individual plaintiff will find almost
impossible to obtain and definitely impossible to analyze on
his own, given the sheer bulk of records involved), AND the
employer declines to give a reason for the hiring decision in
question, proving discrimination is next to impossible).
- Establish job creation programs that make use of the student's
skills in socially useful areas, and make a point of paying
above market rate. The job lasts, either a certain number
of reasonable job offers (in terms of salary, location, and
safety, among other criteria) come in, counting permanent offers,
from non job program agencies.
Make the same offer, to everyone who is unemployed.
Make it more expensive to keep people idle than to keep them
working, by a good margin. If the corporate community doesn't get
the point, let some of those job creation agencies start
producing goods and services, as if they were private companies,
and continue at this, until either people are hired away or the
organization is functioning well enough to survive as a company
on its own (and establish it as one, and set it free). Bring in
the indefinitely laid off, or involuntarily retired senior
managers as advisory personnel at appropriate wages levels
(guaranteed by contract with the corporate entity that the
government releases from further obligations to it, upon "freeing
the company") to the lower paid, younger managers taking over.
(Here, we refrain from putting those senior managers in charge,
due to considerations of the risk of unexpected mortality and
disruption of company operations, during transition).
Until placement in work, support for basic needs (food, shelter,
health, etc.) to be guaranteed by public support - but only until
then, and don't let that be long.
Consider all of the things that need to be done and never can
be done, because there isn't enough profit in it. (For example,
environmental reclamation, the developing of medicines for rare
diseases, basic research in general,.....)
Let's not pretend that it would be hard to find worthwhile
things for people to do, or even interesting, worthwhile things
for them to do. Maybe we should consider the blasphemous
possibility that with the decreases in the market demand for
labor due to increasing automation, that large scale public
sector hiring will eventually become a regular necessity
eventually and that in the not too distant future, pure
capitalism, as opposed to a mixed system, may have outlived its
usefulness, if not its viability as a system that reasonable
people may support in good conscience.
How horrific must a system's failures be, before it is changed? How
seriously may those who hold power in a society expect others to take
their values, when they stand by and allow their daughters (and their
sons) to be cornered into selling their bodies for prostitution or
medical experimentation, in order keep the market absolutely "free"?
Acting in willful ignorance of the often perverse or predatory motives
that influence the behavior of that market, in the untidy reality that
exists outside of the idealized picture offered us by ideologues, and
conservative economists?
And when they grow old, if they grow old, and it is those sons and
daughters who now rule, how much forgiveness can they expect if they never
acted on their children's behalf, and allowed these things to be done to
them?
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