Wednesday, 22 March 2017

JUST PHILOSOPHISING ON STATES OF BEING - BEING UNEMPLOYED IN A MARKET ECONOMY. THE END!





Being jobless in a consumerist society carries with it some significant risks. 

It is a status which is fraught with vulnerabilities. It can deprive you of or lessen your significance as a human. 

Not only does it places you at the disadvantage of not being able to pay for your food, accommodation, and other necessities such as clothes and warmth, if you live in the northern hemisphere. 

But it also places you in a stigmatised category of 'the unemployed', 'those who are not contributing towards the social well-being of society.' 

You fall among the 'non-tax-paying' element of society, and achieve the status of becoming 'them', and at least potential victims of the negative assumptions associated with 'themness.' 

The unemployed 'who does not want to find a job and work'; 'the scroungers', et al. 

And with that loss of social status, comes personal losses as well. 

The loss of your self-esteem and your self-confidence. You might even withdraw from social interactions with your friends and former colleagues.


As your job loss and loss or reduction in income means that you can no longer maintain the social life you once pursue. 

You mental and physical health might, in time, also become affected, thereby reducing your capacity to compete in the job market and secure another job. 

Risking you falling of the cliff, as you become increasingly unable to cope in the consumerist society. 

Where having a job and being able to have enough money to provide for your basic necessities are indispensable prerequisite for all or most of the participants.


Especially as levels of social welfare provisions are increasingly being cut.

You are confronted with the challenge of having to make a successful adaptation to living both the ascribed and the personal life of being unemployed. 

Of being without a job, in a society where having a job and money are the societally legitimised modus operandi for its citizens.



But, does it always have to be this way; is it still a necessity for all people of working age to have to have a wage-earning job? So as to have both status and the means to pursue a socially and personally valuable life? 

Or is not having a job, has to be 'stigmatised.' because of its perception as a potential disincentive for those having jobs?

This then, is the straight-jacket out of which us humans need to evolve. A box in which we are defined by our employment or unemployment status, and whether we are seen as a 'social creditor or debtor' to society.





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