EnMasse

[thwap]

This cartoon attempts to show why blaming poverty on laziness is stupid.

I'm posting this cartoon so that Steve can help me figure out the image uploading function. Please! Fellow EnMassers, submit articles for the frontpage!


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Man! I hate them fancy-lads!

[thwap]

STEVE!!! It fuckin' WORKED!!!!





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Man! I hate them fancy-lads!

[steve]

ETA: And the band agrees that poverty is systemic. How exactly would capitalism work if there weren't any starving masses for the "hard working" to crawl out of?

[lonewolf]

EXACTLY!

Our system needs the "stick" (fear of starvation?) as well as the "carrot" (promise of money and power and the false god of mass consumerism).

It's all about the old pschology that says people will revert to lazy and do nothing if they are not pushed. (Mike Harris/Ralph Klein belief system).

Those in power want to keep it, so they perpetuate the myths.

Great Cartoon!

[thwap]

I'm glad you liked it!

Yeah, it seemed that the existence of poverty and unemployment in places where there are minimal social supports demonstrates that the problems are more structural.

The fact that poverty is greater in the US than in Canada, demonstrates that 1.) our own programs can't be faulted as a cause of unemployment and poverty, and 2.) that destroying these programs isn't going to cause an explosion of personal intitiative and super-charge our economy.
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Man! I hate them fancy-lads!

[Stephen Gordon]

If by 'lazy', you mean that people who would rather do something else with their time than work, then I'm pretty sure that pretty much the entire population is lazy. So the notion that 'laziness causes poverty' is - for want of a better word - pretty stupid.

That said, it's not clear that govt programs aren't entirely innocent in this. For example, in the standard welfare setup (this is changing, and Quebec has a program that tries to correct it), a welfare recipient's income goes down when s/he works outside the home (welfare claw-back + loss of non-monetary benefits). I'm sure many/most people on welfare would like to work in order to improve their financial situation. But if the system is such that going to work will actually make them poorer, then you shouldn't be surprised if they choose to stay home.

It'd be better if the social safety net were structured such that people are always better off when they accept a job. A basic income (Guaranteed Annual Income, whatever) program would be my preferred choice.

[Mr. Anonymous]

On a vaguely related note (intentional laziness, not unwilling un- or under-employment), I somewhat recommend the work of Ernie Zelinski http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_b/102-2600608-0916951?url=search-... and the book "How to survive without a salary" by Charles Long http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1894622375/sr=1-1/qid=1156584563/r...

also "Why Swim With the Sharks" by Diana Salomaa and Henry Dembicki

As for unemployment (in general terms, this is not meant as a reply to our resident economist), the main cause is still the Bank of Canada's adherence to NAIRU theory which states that people *must* be unemployed in significant numbers to keep inflation under control. I suggest anyone lobbying to help the un- or under-employed investigate this and educate others on this mis-direction by certain factions in our society today. There are some links and suggestions on this site, interested individuals can find them by searching for NAIRU using the enmasse search function.
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"Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen."
"The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing."
- Albert Einstein

[Erik Redburn]

Youre really a good artist thwap, I've tried a few single and short frame editorial cartoons before and found they's not as easy as they look. How long it take you to do one of these multi-frame comics on average, you carefully set it all up beforehand or just leap into it when the spirit moves you? (just kinda curious here)
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The time to move is now. Always has been.

[peterjcassidy]

A great work is The Right to be Lazy


http://www.marxists.org/archive/lafargue/1883/lazy/preface.htm

[thwap]

[Erik Redburn]

A few hours you say? Man, it took me hours just to Think of a decent idea, let alone get it down after the 4th or 5th draft. <sigh> Think I'll just stick to opinionating out loud.
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The time to move is now. Always has been.

[thwap]

[Erik Redburn]

Old thread but just wanted to thank Thwap for inspiring me to start drawing again. Laziness is one of the few virtues that comes naturally to me.
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The time to move is now. Always has been.