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peebo
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Joined: 6 Mar 2006
Age: 49
Gender: Male
Posts: 1,624
Location: scotland

07 Dec 2011, 1:11 pm

visagrunt wrote:
peebo wrote:
do you consider the middle class to be the new proles, visagrunt?


Not by a long shot.

Look at the number of people in our countries who are employed in unskilled or low-skilled work. How many of them are able to purchase a home and save for retirement based on their earnings?

The minimum wage in this province is in the vicinity of $10/hr. Based on full time work, a person can expect to earn $20,800 at that wage. That does not meet the poverty line in this city. A couple in which each partner works full-time for minimum wage will surpass the poverty line, but not if they have children.

What I see as the public policy challenge is that an increasing number of people are falling out of the middle class. In part this is due to underemployment, but it is also caused by inaccessible housing costs.


it appears to me that many of those on the forum who justify capitalism are in favour of this, whether that be explicit or implicit. to state that "creativity" and "innovation" will only arise in a climate where they are rewarded by material gain at the expense of others, would also imply the opposite, don't you think?


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?Civil government, so far as it is instituted for the security of property, is in reality instituted for the defense of the rich against the poor, or of those who have some property against those who have none at all.?

Adam Smith