2003-08-12
Crisis of Insecurity
Richard over at Living on Less has an a few words to say about living without health insurance. While I've had steady employment for the past 10 years I've only had health insurance for 2 of those years and I can relate to the sense of insecurity being discussed. His case is different because his employment is not as secure as my own.
Of course it's more than just health or job security. These exist in a much larger context.
I agree with his suggestion that "The capitalist system itself is characterized, at least for workers, by constant insecurity." This is something I've thought about for a long while. Insecurity is fundamental to our development within the context of capitalism. It begins when we are children. It's the fear of being smacked down by a parent. It's nurtured in the competitive environment of a school system which largely functions as a system of indoctrination. We are taught that nature is the survival of the fittest and that all of life is a competition. We are socialized into a system of domination which consists of various layers of hierarchy: man over woman, white over non-white, human over non-human... and the list goes on. We are socialized to accept these hierarchies and told that the rules of the game are sacred and cannot be changed. Beat or be beaten.
It's a dog eat dog world.
Found via this post by Dru Blood.