Skip to content

LETTER: A social experiment exploring capitalism and wages would be interesting

System seems to be designed to keep people in poverty
11133333_web1_copy_9002542_web1_171017-MRN-M-homeless-camp-2
The B.C. government is listening to people around B.C. as it writes a poverty reduction strategy. File photo

In Scott Burrows March 2 letter to the Star “No guaranteed income …”, his argument seems founded on the “nature of capitalism”. While that particular “ism” has helped develop our current state of innovation and material wealth, it has also created huge inequalities in the distribution of wealth. In the land, labor, and capital paradigm – labor is the one factor that can be manipulated to increase profit. Globalization has taken this aspect to the extreme. At present, we have people working full time and yet living in poverty. We have people who are unable to work and caught in a social service system that is expensive to administer and, at times, seems designed to keep people in poverty. I don’t know if guaranteed income is the same as living wage; but they seem related. Just as our current energy-based economy is dealing with a need for change, capitalism may need to be re-evaluated in terms of how it serves the greater good of society. Guaranteed or living wage would provide an interesting social experiment for change. The poverty alternative cannot sustain a vibrant community.

Ron Robinson,

Nelson