The “Threat of an Arrogant Laboring Class, ...a Threat to the Foundation of Wealth

As you've probably heard, even though we are just beginning to see a way out of a deep recession that has long-term unemployment rising to historic levels, Republicans are blocking the extension of unemployment benefits. Joe Klein explains why:

This Is Getting Good, by Joe Klein: Jim Bunning is doing all of us a favor. As this comment from the Number 2 Senate Republican, Jon Kyl of Arizona, makes clear, the Republicans are turning toward a form of reactionary radicalism that is well to the right not only of traditional conservatism, but also of post-Victorian concepts of government and--not to put too fine a point on it--of common decency as well:

Sen. Jon Kyl of Arizona, the Republican whip, argued that unemployment benefits dissuade people from job-hunting "because people are being paid even though they're not working." Unemployment insurance "doesn't create new jobs. In fact, if anything, continuing to pay people unemployment compensation is a disincentive for them to seek new work,"

The idea that those who have lost their jobs in this Wall Street/mortgage-scam recession are simply deadbeats, choosing to stay on unemployment rather than look for work, seems more appropriate to Scrooge's London than the 21st century. But Kyl has spoken his version of the truth, and we should be grateful for that: this is what the Republican Party is now all about. ...

The quote from Kyl reminds me of a quote from Nassau William Senior (1790-1864). Senior was head of the Poor Law Commission that rewrote the existing laws dictating when relief to the poor would be paid. To give you some idea of what this was all about, note that "Oliver Twist was written in retaliation against the Poor Law."

In his book Three Lectures on the Rate of Wages, Senior explains why he believes that relief for the poor will lead them to acquire the attitude that they have the right to exist without having to do any work:

greater exertion and severer economy are ... resources in distress; and what they cannot supply, he receives with gratitude from the benevolent. The connexion between him and his master has the kindliness of a voluntary association, in which each party is conscious of benefit, and each feels that his own welfare depends ... on the welfare of the other. But the instant wages cease to be a bargain-the instant the labourer is paid, not according to his value, but his wants, he ceases to be a free man. He acquires the indolence, the improvidence, the rapacity, and the malignity, but not the subordination of a slave. He is told that he has a right to wages .... But who can doubt that he will measure his rights by his wishes, or that his wishes will extend with the prospect of gratification? The present tide may not complete the inundation, but it will be a dreadful error if we mistake the ebb for a permanent receding of the waters. A breach has been made in the sea-wall, and with every succeeding irruption they will swell higher and spread more widely. What we are suffering is nothing to what we have to expect.
Let me back up and repeat from an old post (from four and a half years ago):

Continued>>>>
http://economistsview.typepad.com/economistsview/2010/03/nassau-bunning-kyl-and-the-poor-laws.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+EconomistsView+%28Economist%27s+View+%28EconomistsView%29%29

Did you hear that all of you unemployed workers who have the nerve to collect your INSURANCE that you paid into your whole lives. Not only are you lazy, you're arrogant too.

LOL

It's clear that the Republicans want to take us all the way back to the Dark Ages!

CONTAGION be damned. The right is determined to destroy the economy!

:mad:

Diane

Anishnabe in MI

and if they could child labor and paying people in script.

Bad credit can prevent you from getting a job, renting housing, receiving utility service, or opening a bank account.

If nobody starves, THAT'S WEALTH. If nobody dies of preventable illness, THAT'S WEALTH. If nobody shoots himself, his wife and children, or strAngers out of despair over an economic situation that cannot be endured, THAT'S WEALTH. If nobody lives under a bridge for lack of alternatives, THAT'S WEALTH.

You can have a wealthy nation, or you can have a wealthy elite. Our ForeFathers sought the first.