Back to the Future/Forward to the Past

[smokingboot]

It seems horrible to me that some people are having to choose between heating and eating. How on earth did this happen? Food banks and soup kitchens have been around for a long time, but when did they become so necessary for so many? Blinking between centuries; never mind the 1980s, this is a trip back to some strange version of the 1840s, when the lack of welfare safety in Britain may have shored up the entrepeneurial determination of some, but it destroyed many. Philanthropy was at least considered honourable, charity a good thing. Prudence may verged on parsimony, but no-one called greed good.

Much as I love Victoriana, if it ain't steampunk/gothic playtime, I'm getting back in the DeLorean.
We had - still have - something here worth fighting for; an idea. From each according to ability, to each according to need. When did this become anathema?

Just watching as leaves swirl upwards from the tallest trees opposite our house. The leaves blow towards my study window, up over the roof. Between them a plane flies away, and St Paul sits tiny in the distance. I have a lot to do today, so will cheer myself up with this picture of a man taking his crab for a walk. http://imgur.com/QeaGhev

Comments

[caddyman.livejournal.com]

From each according to ability, to each according to need.

I don't think this has ever been properly tried. Don't imagine for a moment that the Soviet, Chinese or Cuban systems ever got anywhere near it. I think Chavez toyed with it, but it turned his country into an economic basket case. Doesn't work in reality.

Nonetheless, the answer is NOT to whip away the safety net and let people drown in their own economic misery. I can't see how, in what is supposed to be one of the top ten economies on the planet, we have to put up with this.

[smokingboot.livejournal.com]

I wonder why it never worked?

I thought it was precisely because it has never been earnestly tried...did Chavez go beyond toying with it?

As to the safety net, I must admit I saw the faces of Osborne, Cameron et al jeering as Ed Balls tried to speak, and for the first time ever, I really wanted to hit them. I dislike Ed Balls, but smirking and hallooing like schoolboys when so many are on the edge of despair is really disgusting. And they act as though there is some deep magic in the understanding that people who make money will have more money to spend on making money if we abandon those who have none!

[nyarbaggytep.livejournal.com]

Someone told me the other day that this year the Red Cross are giving out food parcels, for the first time since WW2. It scares and upsets me in equal measure.

[smokingboot.livejournal.com]

Me too.