“ Our current economic system is predicated on there being 30–40% of the population who remain as a poor underclass…”
That’s a dubious claim.
“…food insecure…”
What does “food insecure” mean?
In a nation of over 300 million people, the number of people with whom anyone is personally acquainted is statistically zero. Nevertheless, we generally do care that some of us are hungry or homeless. There is a food stamp program. People make voluntary donations to local food banks. `Those are just a couple of examples.
Here is an article I published centered around an anti-hunger event in which I participated.
Unfortunately, despite those programs, there are still hungry people. Why is that so? I don’t know. It is a complicated problem that is hard to solve. But we are trying. People do care. Your claim that no one cares is unduly pessimistic.
If it were true that no one cared, dismantling a system and constructing a new one would not make anyone care.
“…we are going to need to radically transform the way that we relate to each other.”
I can radically transform the way I relate to other people, and you can radically transform the way you relate to others. But I can’t transform how you relate to others, and you can’t transform how I relate to others. Neither of us can transform anyone else without using coercion.
We have reached a fundamental, unresolvable difference of opinion. You believe that social problems are caused by a system that must be dismantled and replaced. I perceive them as the result of human character flaws, among which are ruthlessness and manipulativeness.
You hold a system responsible for individual misbehavior; I hold individual misbehavior responsible for the system.
Individuals behave as they do in response to the conditions and circumstances in which they find themselves. Massive concentrations of population, an industrial, technological economy and society, available luxury and wealth, and lack of personal acquaintanceship with most members of society are some of the conditions and circumstances to which individuals are responding.
You place a high priority on social activism and reform. It is a low priority in my life.
I am skeptical that anyone can design a working system to replace the existing one. Does anyone know how to manipulate the forces that produce social structure and achieve predictable results?
“…racial, gender, sexual, or other kinds of equality can never be achieved…”
Time will tell.
