An Honest Living ?

Sunday, October 6, 2013 9:08:00 AM

An Honest Living

What would be a Reasonable Manner by which someone could make an Honest Living,

As Opposed to someone engaged in some Criminal Activity,

Or A Disabled Person on The Dole

Or A Hobo.

Let’s start with a Hobo first; & let us further define The Hobo as someone that is Not a Criminal Hobo, but A Hermitic Hobo that lives in A Box or Barrel near The Town Dump, Wanders The Alleys at night, Fishing through Garbage Cans to find something to Eat, & when Sick, Suffers through it without seeking help & Dies without anyone holding his hand.

Is such a Person making an Honest Living ?

There are Two Considerations :

Is The Hobo a Burden on Society ?

Is The Hobo Contributing to Society ?

Is your Cat a Burden to Society, or Does your Cat Contribute to Society with sufficient Vitality to ‘Pay their Way’ ?

That last Question is The Real Measure of How we might Define an Honest Living.

The Criminal may be Economically Active; But The Thinking is that The Criminal Causes more Harm to Society than they Contribute.

The Victim suffers More than The Criminal & The Criminal’s Customers Benefit.

Of Course; There are many occasions when The Victim’s Suffering & Loss are Less than The Benefits that The Criminal & The Criminal’s Customers Accrue. In these Cases; Is The Criminal Making an ‘Honest’ Living According The Measurement Index of The Society ?

Certainly; There are many entirely Legal Occupations which result in The Suffering & Loss of Life of Its Workers & Customers, Which Further Enriches only The Business Owners & Investors, With little or No Benefit to The Society ( ! )

The Hobo ( Classes of : )

The UnProductive Hobo that Panhandles is A Burden On Society & Does Not make an Honest Living.

What about a Street Juggler ?

But there may be ‘Productive’ Hobo’s that are A Community’s ‘Character’ that most Citizens themselves Enjoy Watching or On other days, Hearing about their MisAdventures, & this May, Under Ideal Circumstance, Result in A Greater Value for The Society than The Costs or Burden of The Hobo’s Sustenance.

Such as A Village ‘Idiot’ ? Which everyone in The Community Finds Amusing & often refer to when considering any given Social Commentary ?

So that The Two Remaining Categories ( We’re Now Considering )

Are :

The Worker

The Freeloader on The Dole.

In each case: What are they Contributing to Society & Is That Contribution ‘Enough’.

Obviously; The Freeloader on The Dole will almost Certainly fall below that Threshold, but Alternatively; The Freeloader may be Contributing Any Number of Various Services which they are Not being Paid to Perform, But which Are A Benefit to The Community or Society or World Culture.

The Last & Truly Defining Question is :

How many Honest Workers that receive A Paycheck that keeps them & their Families Housed & Fed, Are somehow Not Contributing ‘Enough’.

One Example would be The Office Worker that is simply Very Unproductive, but has been lost in The Bureaucracy & has escaped being fired.

But another that occurred to me is someone that is providing a ‘KeyStone’ Critical Service to a Very Limited Number of Recipients, But without this Service; Other Peripheral Services or Production Lines would Collapse or Suffer from its Absence.

The Way that this Service Provider Survives is by OverCharging their Few Recipients, which are too dumb to realize they’re being ripped off, or perhaps, The Recipients are Addicted to The Service in A Psychopathological Manner, which prevents them from Severing their Ties to this Superfluous Service.

Examples of this :

Prostitution which acts as a poor man’s Therapist to keep them happy enough to continue grinding away at their soul charring job on an assembly line.

Repair Services for Obsolete Machines which their users continues to service because they can’t afford, Financially or Psychologically to Replace.

Software Producers which have Monopolized A Critical Sector of Computer Functionality.

Fashion Designers that Manipulate Their Consumers to Covet A Label over Their Product’s Quality.

The Entire Gallery Art Racket.

Any Given ‘Bubble’ Market.

Padro’s Principle states that for any (x;

80% of The Value of (x is Produced by 20% of The Service Providers.

This Idea Applies to Many Venues & Genrés.

Does this Account for How a Society can Function with So Few Productive Workers ?

It seems to me that there is a Second Threshold that allows The ‘UnProductive’ Freeloaders to Squeeze by as Viable Honest Laborers if they Produce Genuinely Unique Products & Services that Contribute to The World’s Culture. Such that Future Generations may ‘Pay Backwards in Time’ for The Services that They Generated during their Lives.

An Author of A Book that sold poorly during The Writer’s Life, but is now a ‘Classic’ of Literature would qualify under this Category.

The Paintings of Vincent Van Gogh.

Good Musicians that aren’t ‘Popular’.

Good Artists that are Competing with a Saturated Market of Trash Art.

Anyone that Keeps an Active Blog or Extensive Flickr Album Collection or Some Other Web Presence will continue to ‘Serve The World Culture’ long after they’re Dead, would be The Best Example, because it applies to so many ‘Ordinary’ Folk.