Mother Jones - How Corporations and Local Governments Use the Poor as Piggy Banks
I think the biggest reason for some of the unscrupulous activities mentioned in this article is that we live in a society that almost encourages them. So many people are desperate for any work they can get that employers don’t have much encouragement to treat their employees well. A lot of them know that they don’t need to worry about losing their workers, who are happy just to have any work and income.
Local governments are struggling under increasing regulation and costs imposed upon them by state and national government. Deregulation on a state and national level would ease the burden on local governments, but instead we’re seeing an increase in higher government control, measures designed to fix a problem but which instead break the system more.
What our economy is facing now is likely a national, unstoppable downward spiral which will only end with complete collapse. Instead of trying to delay this inevitability, we should be preparing for it, readying ourselves to rebuild things from the ground up.
