Macro-economics and macaroni-onics I

FROM SOCIETY TO ECONOMY: The transformation from personal to corporate welfare in Western countries

As westerners we have a natural/cultural belief that families and children are the backbone and future of our society. The generation that preceded us baby boomers, developed a vision of Canadian society which recognizes that we each have a responsibility to each other's basic needs, medical care, education, housing and ability to participate in democratic life.

As is clear to most and more clear to those in most need, this positive vision has been supplanted by new policies that has moved us from citizen empowerment and wellbeing.
The elitist emerging values see human capital as worthy of support and deference to our economic potential. While it is clear that the working public and the private sector working in a synergist manner is the only way to generate the resources to support our society and its members.

Many are not clear that this value orientation began to change in the early and mid 1970's. Academia, led by the University of Chicago School Economics lead by Milton Freedman. Freedman's approach to economic management, coined "Trickle Down Economics", postulated that social spending transferred from citizens to corporations would empower this sector such that it could support the population by creating full employment, thus increasing the wellbeing and tax revenue potential of western societies. Thatcher, Regan, and Mulroney all believed in this top down economic approach. Each changed and to lesser or greater degrees, the modern social and economic contract. Friedman's theories pushed the social contract back toward free market capitalism of a Dickensonian, survival of the fittest sort

We chose, beginning early last century, reforms in income security for seniors and the unemployed evolved first as a means to quell social unrest and conflict between capital and labour.

By mid-century, in response to voter unrest and new economic understanding, a new economy was further forged. In WWI, the Great Depression and WWII each contributed to the advancement of
Women's rights,
Child welfare,
Better access to healthcare
education
and income security.

From the end of WWII until the mid 1970's, socio-economic philosophy, and citizen activism had forged a new, more humane approach to government responsibility and economic management.

The parents of us baby boomers were at the political heart of the mixed private and public economies.

Two influential economic philosophers, Keynes, a Brit, and Galbraith an American, articulated the first new western economic system since Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations almost two centuries prior. The functionality, stability, efficiency and moral superiority of a "demand side" mixed economy had thus been proven in the twentieth century.

Keynes' and later Galbraith's "demand management" approach puts money (income security for seniors, the unemployed, families and the sick). By virtue of spending on food to cars to fridges, supports, stabilizes and grows people, the economic corporate structure, and the tax base.

This philosophy includes the provision of resources (education, healthcare, day care, housing) in the hands of the citizens.
Taxes on individuals and corporations, capitalize the new more equitable and empowering social contract structures and processes.

Beginning in the mid-seventies intellectual, corporate and ruling elites re-adopted aspects of the two hundred year old laissez-faire economics of Adam Smith. In the Regan administration Reganomics-laissez-faire form created the ability to drop taxation on corporations and transfer huge amounts of public money to private corporations.
Not only have we seen a devolution of social justice, we have endured the effects of a massive transfer of public capital from the public economy to the private economy...

Category:

Education

Tags:

• social
• policy

[oiuoiu988]

oh yea, and it was these social welfare programs increasing the governments role in our lives that decreased the role of the family. it CERTAINLY didnt have anything to do with milton friedman, reagonomics or "too much freedom".

[oiuoiu988]

the social programs failed miserably leading to the devaluation of the dollar AND it was eisenhower who warned us about the military industrial complex.

[medicinesocks]

appreciate your 5 star take on economic history. i'm subscribing!

[utubehayter]

You are a social worker.. right? Who pays your salary?

[psikeyhackr]

There have been 200,000,000+ cars in the US since 1995. When do economists talk about what we lose on DEPRECIATION of cars every year?

When do economists talk about the PLANNED OBSOLESCENCE of automobiles? So how much unnecessary pollution has contributed to global warming which economists have said nothing about for the last 50 years?

That is FOUR TRILLION DOLLARS in depreciation for the US alone since 1995. What about the entire world?