In reply to SVreX (Forum Supporter) :
I've killed a couple of replies over the last two hours because I'm not a skilled enough writer to accurately express the nuances about how I view the role of government. No one wants to read one of my meandering posts.
It'll have to suffice to put it like this:
Governments exist to enforce an agreeded upon social contract. That's the basic Locke and Hobbes theory of the formation of a state.
As it stands the US has always valued individual freedoms so care was taken in our initial social contract to cripple the state in such a way that the rights of the individual should be protected.
Unfortunately during the industrial revolution large organizations found that they could attack the social contract with very little resistance by state since the state was crippled by the foundational social contract. There were some movements and counter movements to reign in that power, but fundamentally the Rockefellers and Carnegies succeeded upon the success of the Regan moment. Big money is involved in every level of government, and that fundamentally altered the way that government legislates. That can lead to pre-labor union type issues as the government backs the industrialists, though these days that violence is more economic than it is physical. Having done a lot of reading on the pre union era, and watching the situation unfold with the meat packers and warehouse employees, I would really like the kind of controls foisted upon on large organizations in the 50's through 70's back.
To your unemployment benefits story. To me that speaks of the issues involved with the constant austerity measures propagated by billionaire funded beltway think tanks. These organizations have convinced governments that the level of benefit abuse was so high, that and money was so tight, that you need to have that kind of Draconian enforcement in place to provide the meager benefits offered up as a "safety net." Had the US just had a UBI, even if it were just under a certain income level, and universal healthcare you'd have had some money to live on while you looked for another job and wouldn't have had to worry about what would happen if you happened to get sick from something like COVID. That seems way less invasive then what you described. At least to me. (Again refer to the UBI links for the common arguments against it.)
Why would billionaires fund those kinds of think tanks and put out that kind of messaging? Because in order to have benefits, you have to be employed. By them. At that point the organization, with the backing of the state, has power over you through the kind of economics required to exist in todays society.
Really what it comes down to is I view large organizations as unaccountable unassailable states. I don't see our government as that because we choose to get rid of government representatives and the state is reigned in by that initial social contract. Unfortunately as long as large organizations wield more influence over the actual state than the citizens, the citizens are in a bad position.
This obviously leaves aside the clusterberkeley following 9/11 but if I ever make it down to the Challenge I'll buy you a couple rounds of beers and tell stories about my previous job where I said some things and had people asking questions about why I hold the kind of security clearance I do.
I don't have any fundamental issue with work, I'm not one to sit on my couch all day binging Netflix and playing video games, I just enjoy imagining a situation where I, or anyone else, could quit their job try to start their own business, or try their hand at being an artist, or go learn a new skill at trade school all without doing without some level of basic income or healthcare as things get off the ground. Yea, they could save up and do it. If that is an option. But it simply isn't for many people in the US. So they go to work every day at an Amazon warehouse or meat packing plant with no prospect of moving up or getting out.
As for philanthropy, I'll just say it's a double edged sword. I certainly don't look down on it but it has it's own darkside.
*Crap this turned into a long post anyway.
