The blithe idiocy and naive idealism of youth desires to reorient the American economy around care

Oh, the profound ignorance of youth.  Intending to click on one link, I accidentally arrive at Vox, the news site for young adults.  Specifically, I arrive at The world as we know it is ending. Why are we still at work? by Anna North.  A suitable reminder of why I never visit Vox when I am seeking facts, truth or news.  Ms. North opens with:

For a moment in early 2020, it seemed like we might get a break from capitalism.

What kind of monster is she?  A break from the system which has lifted almost the entire world out profound poverty?  Which has made us healthier, longer lived, wealthier, more knowledgeable than any other system ever experienced?  Why would we want a break from that.  

Of course, those immensely desirable outcomes are actually the interplay of the Age of Enlightenment mindset, of which free markets and the capitalist system are a mere part, albeit a critical part.  You also have to have consent of the governed, rule of law, equality before the law, universal humanism, due process, scientific method, natural rights and all the other critical elements of the Age of Enlightenment.  

None of that for Ms. Anna North.  Apparently naive idealism, authoritarianism or anarchy are her preferred states rather than the wonders of capitalism.

She is the epitome of the anxious, fractious, deluded mainstream media. 

Now it’s been nearly two years since the beginning of the pandemic — a time that has also encompassed an attempted coup, innumerable extreme weather events likely tied to climate change, and ongoing police violence against Black Americans — and we’ve been expected to show up to work through all of it.

Looking at that list of assumed realities and you can see why their minds end up with such inconceivable, and dangerous, muddles.  Out in the real world, there was a protest which turned into a semi-riot, there is weather just like there always is, and the police shoot ever fewer people (blacks, hispanics, asians and whites) a year than ever before.  It is no wonder that these people end up with such ridiculous solutions when they are living in such an imaginary world.  

The rest of the article is just retreaded Marxist claptrap as boring and invalid today as it was fifty and a hundred years ago.  The proclivity of English majors, writing for platforms which have to beg for donations, to see Marxism (or any of its multitudinous variations) as a solution is one of the mysteries of life.  

The crises are always changing but the solutions are always the same old tired solutions they have always been.  

Experts say what’s needed is, at minimum, a new approach to employee well-being and, at a maximum, a full rethinking of the meaning of work in America.

Companies can start by taking the onus off individual employees and offering time off to everyone in difficult times. Even if management encourages people to take time off, employees may fear repercussions if they actually do it, Anderson pointed out — plus they’ll be coming back to a mountain of work on their return. A better strategy is to simply give time off to all employees without requiring them to request it. Nike, for example, gave all office employees a week off earlier this year, and Bumble and LinkedIn enacted similar policies.

Beyond time off, more companies are also offering wellness perks from art classes to visits from therapy dogs, said Rebecca Rice, a professor of communication studies at the University of Nevada Las Vegas, who studies how organizations work during emergencies. Such extras can be nice, but ultimately they’re “a temporary fix to a broader feeling of everyone being overextended,” Rice said.

[snip]

More broadly, the disasters of the last two years should prompt a reexamination of what work is really for, some say. For Remes, the pandemic has shown the importance of care labor, from teaching to elder care to nursing. “That should actually be the essential thing that we do with our lives,” he said. “Everything else should support that as opposed to that care and maintenance supporting the production of consumer goods.”

Reorienting the American economy around care would mean fairly compensating workers in fields like child care and elder care, which routinely pay poverty-level wages. It would also mean providing other workers with the paid leave, flexibility, and reasonable schedules necessary for them to attend to their own care responsibilities at home.

Instead of a system where everyone tries to find ways to add value to other people's lives at the lowest cost possible (the capitalist system) North reverts back to the old authoritarian approach where the vanguard of enlightened English majors decide how to redistribute the goods of the economy and then take from those they don't like and give to those whom they do.

Same old story.  Always destructive.  Always fails.  Always leaves people in misery.  And is always beloved by shallow thinkers of little talent or humanity.