“Old age poverty is the result of deregulation of the labor market and dismantling the social state. Need justice and distribution justice have always existed in the political realm. The task of the social state was to fight poverty and protect citizens from standard life risks, sicknesses, accidents and so forth… Only the rich can afford a poor state.
We have a crisis of the representative system of democracy and not only a crisis of the social state, the economy and the financial market! The socially disadvantaged are so disillusioned that they do not participate in political activities and decision-making processes. A democracy looks different. For me, democracy means that all persons living in a country are able to jointly decide politically about the country’s fate and their own fate. They cannot do this when they are hopeless, if their social security is endangered or hangs by a thin thread because they worry about not being able to pay their rent next month or their electricity and gas may be turned off… The wealth of the country cannot be concentrated in a few hands so hardly anything is left for the great multitude of citizens…”
to read Christoph Butterwegge’s “The Soup Kitchen State Grows” published on 11/25/2013, click on
http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2013/12/426105.shtml
