THE FUTURE OF MONEY Bernard A. Lietaer - library.uniteddiversity ...

that we can always create jobs by psychoanalysing each other to deal
with the breakdown.
In practice, the Conservatives tend to deny the existence of any
structural employment problem. When faced with the social tensions,
which result indirectly from unemployment, they will often deal with
the symptoms in the sequence in which they appear. This amounts to
clipping the branches while the roots remain intact. For instance, one
slogan on the right is that jobs are gone because immigrants take
them from you, therefore let us crack down on immigration. Another
solution is tougher laws on crime. As a consequence, prison building
has become one of the biggest growth industries in the US.
Learning from the past on the right?
Building more prisons may well be seen in retrospect as the most
expensive welfare system in history: paying $20,000 per person per
year to keep someone in prison for ever is unlikely to prove to be the
most cost-effective method of tackling the vicious circle of
unemployment.
The most likely outcome of this scenario is what has already
happened in many Third World countries. Instead of indefinitely
putting more people in prison, what happens is that those who can
afford it lock themselves up in 'golden ghettos', or other gated
communities. Whatever the level of luxury or comfort that these
golden ghettos can provide, it still boils down to a self- imposed
prison system. In parallel the majority of society those who cannot
afford the golden ghettos - is left to fend for itself in a gang-infested
urban jungle. Is that really an acceptable evolution for a democratic
society?
Solution from the political left