kathleenmariekg
Active Member
The poor are expected to put themselves in greater danger to give lesser protection to the rich. I understand that my life is considered of less value than those that I might come in contact with. It has been like this for most of my life, except when it wasn't, and others were expected to sacrifice their lives for mine while I was under the protection of a powerful person. I have lived at both extremes of the class divide.
I found this article in the NYT intersting. I cannot post a link, because I got access through the library and my only link includes info about my 3 day pass. I am not saying we should become more social! I'm just posting this about the increased compliance of those who are BENEFITING from social programs and class inequality.
New York Times
Behind Low Vaccination Rates Lurks a More Profound Social Weakness
It turns out that the real vaccination divide is class.
For poorer and working-class people ... Covid-19 is only one of multiple grave threats. In the South Bronx, one man who works two jobs shared that he navigates around drug dealers, hostile police and shootings. ... Another man said he lost his job during the pandemic and slipped back into addiction. “Most of my friends are dead or in jail,” he said. Neither one plans to get vaccinated. Their hesitancy is not irrational: When viewed in the context of the other threats they face, Covid no longer seems uniquely scary.
Most of the people we interviewed in the Bronx say they are skeptical of the institutions that claim to serve the poor but in fact have abandoned them. “When you’re in a high tax bracket, the government protects you,” said one man who drives an Amazon truck for a living. “So why wouldn’t you trust a government that protects you?” On the other hand, he and his friends find reason to view the government’s sudden interest in their well-being with suspicion. “They are over here shoving money at us,” a woman told us, referring to a New York City offer to pay a $500 bonus to municipal workers to get vaccinated. “And I’m asking, why are you so eager, when you don’t give us money for anything else?” These views reinforce the work of social scientists who find a link between a lack of trust and inequality. And without trust, there is no mutual obligation, no sense of a common good.
In the mid-’60s, the number of government-funded social programs targeting the poor and communities of color skyrocketed. ... when people feel supported through social programs, they’re more likely to trust institutions and believe they have a stake in society’s health. Only then do the ideas of social solidarity and mutual obligation begin to make sense. ...
as the public purse shrunk in the 1980s, politicians insisted that it’s no longer the government’s job to ensure people’s well-being; instead, Americans were to be responsible only for themselves and their own bodies. ...
Universal programs inculcate a sense of a common good because everyone is eligible simply by virtue of belonging to a political community. In the international context, when marginalized communities benefit from universal government programs that bring basic services like clean drinking water and primary health care, they are more likely to trust efforts in emergency situations — like when they’re asked to get vaccinated.
If the world is going to beat the pandemic, countries need policies that promote a basic, but increasingly forgotten, idea: that our individual flourishing is bound up in collective well-being.
I found this article in the NYT intersting. I cannot post a link, because I got access through the library and my only link includes info about my 3 day pass. I am not saying we should become more social! I'm just posting this about the increased compliance of those who are BENEFITING from social programs and class inequality.
New York Times
Behind Low Vaccination Rates Lurks a More Profound Social Weakness
It turns out that the real vaccination divide is class.
For poorer and working-class people ... Covid-19 is only one of multiple grave threats. In the South Bronx, one man who works two jobs shared that he navigates around drug dealers, hostile police and shootings. ... Another man said he lost his job during the pandemic and slipped back into addiction. “Most of my friends are dead or in jail,” he said. Neither one plans to get vaccinated. Their hesitancy is not irrational: When viewed in the context of the other threats they face, Covid no longer seems uniquely scary.
Most of the people we interviewed in the Bronx say they are skeptical of the institutions that claim to serve the poor but in fact have abandoned them. “When you’re in a high tax bracket, the government protects you,” said one man who drives an Amazon truck for a living. “So why wouldn’t you trust a government that protects you?” On the other hand, he and his friends find reason to view the government’s sudden interest in their well-being with suspicion. “They are over here shoving money at us,” a woman told us, referring to a New York City offer to pay a $500 bonus to municipal workers to get vaccinated. “And I’m asking, why are you so eager, when you don’t give us money for anything else?” These views reinforce the work of social scientists who find a link between a lack of trust and inequality. And without trust, there is no mutual obligation, no sense of a common good.
In the mid-’60s, the number of government-funded social programs targeting the poor and communities of color skyrocketed. ... when people feel supported through social programs, they’re more likely to trust institutions and believe they have a stake in society’s health. Only then do the ideas of social solidarity and mutual obligation begin to make sense. ...
as the public purse shrunk in the 1980s, politicians insisted that it’s no longer the government’s job to ensure people’s well-being; instead, Americans were to be responsible only for themselves and their own bodies. ...
Universal programs inculcate a sense of a common good because everyone is eligible simply by virtue of belonging to a political community. In the international context, when marginalized communities benefit from universal government programs that bring basic services like clean drinking water and primary health care, they are more likely to trust efforts in emergency situations — like when they’re asked to get vaccinated.
If the world is going to beat the pandemic, countries need policies that promote a basic, but increasingly forgotten, idea: that our individual flourishing is bound up in collective well-being.
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