A Helmet for Poverty in America
We’re all players in the great American game of capitalism. Like football players, we take hits every single day. Only instead of getting decked by 350 pound brutes, we get hit with charges to our bank account for rent, food, and all the other everyday expenses it takes to live. Where are our helmets?
Both the NFL and US safety policies have the goal of protecting their participants. But there’s one big difference: The NFL’s safety helmet policy is unconditionally mandated. Every single player in the NFL is provided with and required to wear a helmet. It’s a simple and effective policy.
The US safety net system on the other hand…not so much. We require a citizen to be desperately poor or disabled before they can even be considered for protection. That’s like letting a football player get bashed in the head without a helmet, then putting one on his noggin once he’s in a wheelchair at the hospital. Doesn’t help much. The damage has already been done.
Living in poverty really is like suffering a devastating concussion. It impairs brain functions throughout adulthood and even leads to an earlier death.
We do provide some protection for citizens in the form of food stamps, etc. But today’s welfare is like the early helmet, flimsy leather. It’s not enough.
The NFL doesn’t measure everyone’s head to determine whose skull is feeble enough to deserve a helmet. That would be absurd. But that’s how our welfare system works!
Everybody deserves basic protection.
The simplest most effective solution to poverty is to just give everybody money unconditionally. It’s an idea that both Martin Luther King Jr. and famous capitalist Milton Friedman agreed on. Basic Income will be voted on in Switzerland next year. If it passes: Every single citizen will receive 2,500 francs every month unconditionally. (Adjusted for the Swiss’s higher cost of living that would be about $1,000/month in the US.)
Would basic income make people soft?
Did the safety helmet make football soft? No. American football is more competitive than ever. Not having to worry about basic survival, like not having to worry about getting your face smashed in, frees you up to focus on the tasks at hand. Whether that’s raising a family, a career, or just catching a football.
Many people today bash social safety nets just as people in the early 1900's used to label anyone that wore a football helmet “a pansy”. But in 1943 as soon as helmets were mandated for everyone, they all put on those fucking helmets. Not because they were pansies. But because they’d be a fucking idiot not too. The increased safety that a helmet provides far outweighed any minor cost or inconvenience. It’s undebatable.
In Life as in a Football Game
Violent head and face injuries don’t need to be the price of playing a fun but rugged game. And homelessness and hunger do not need to be the price of a productive society. Nobody wants their father or son out there on the field without a helmet. But that’s how we’re all living in our economy. Injuries and inequality are part of the game. We can’t eliminate them. But we can limit them with a basic income for every citizen, a safety helmet mandate for every player.
Hey you, thanks for reading! I’m Matt Orfalea. My work is entirely crowdfunded so if you enjoyed this piece please consider sharing it around, watching me on Youtube, liking me on Facebook, and supporting my work on Patreon.
