Dreaming the Future Closer

Modern capitalism’s history is filled with various sorts of mutual aid societies that provided its members and their families with some degree of security.  Yet, most proposals to deal with poverty seem to ignore this, choosing to focus upon increasing the size of the middle class.

In itself, this wouldn’t be problematic if the idea of the middle class were not so closely attached to the idea of the nuclear family, detached from extended support networks.  This unit is not terribly resilient.  It uses a lot of resources to sustain itself and it doesn’t have a lot of places to go if those resources get scarce (like a bad job market).

A community with strong legal underpinnings (perhaps taking recent communes as a model) offer an interesting alternative.  Not only do these communities have an element of choice (often absent from communities of necessity like extended families), but can acquire a good deal of legal muscle if thoughtfully established.

I’m really curious, too, if such communities might also be powerful agents in the reformation of the health system.  As corporate entities, they might be better suited to negotiating better insurance rates for their members.  As composite entities, they might also be able to provide insurance to their members even when those members fall on hard times.  the weight will be distributed across dozens rather than two or three. 

What happens, too, if those communities themselves become sources of production?  They could provide the tools for traditionally ‘freelance’ careers to acquire powerful economic and social support.

Political talk of poverty tends to fall into one of two camps.  The first tends to take the position that the poor will always be with us so why bother trying to do anything about them.  The second tends to preoccupy itself with how there are so many more poor people these days and we need to fix that, bring more people into a middle-class lifestyle.

However, the environmental and economic costs of a strong middle-class may not be something we can pay indefinitely, especially as the number of people we want to bring into that lifestyle grows.  What if the real answer to poverty is not its elimination or dimunition, but its transformation?

Poverty, in terms of not being able to participate in the capitalist ideals of consumerism, is not in itself bad.  What is terrible about poverty is the way in which the poor are cut off from the most basic things that make life livable, things like medical care and a vibrant community life. 

To take one very basic problem: the way in which those in poverty do not have access to regular, good medical treatment and advice leaves them in a position that makes them more likely to become sick, to suffer. 

Moreover, without good treatment, the complications of sickness snowball, leading to further losses.  It makes it extraordinarily difficult for them to choose a ‘better’ life or to provide that choice to those under their care. 

Other poverty issues function in a similar way.  It is not necessarily bad for a home to house many people.  In fact, it can be an environmentally and economically sound choice in terms of resource management.  However, it becomes problematic when housing developers assume the nuclear family as its ideal customer, forcing those who break that mold to live in a space poorly suited to them.