In 1818 Sir Robert Peel introduced a bill in the Commons to regulate the working hours of the " poor children in the Cotton Factories". The bill was to prohibit children under 9 from working and limiting working hours to 12 in 24.
It was seen as setting a historic precedent for government interference in privately owned industry. Peel's family owned cotton mills and his fellow industrialists considered him a traitor.
One prominent supporter of the bill wrote--
Quote:The rich manufacturers were blindly justifying such treatment through the "so called" science of political economy, which allowed them to manage human beings in terms of profit and accountancy, as pure abstractions, "like Geometry". It is a science which begins with abstractions, in order to exclude whatever is not subject to a technical calculation: in the face of all experience, it assumes these as the whole of human nature--and then on an impossible hypothesis builds up the most inhuman edifice, a Temple of Tescalipocal*.
*An Aztec god with a throne built of skulls.
Granted we are not in the same situation now but when the fuss generated by the maid in the Strauss-Khan case is considered it is to be expected that any death due to poverty be given at least equivalent consideration if the US is to be absolved of the charge of being neurotically sex obsessed and uncaring about infant mortality in poor areas.
At the time of the election campaign the big word was "CHANGE". At that time the wealth distribution was "X". So change could mean nothing else but to promote an increase or a decrease in X.
According to what I see on CBS and FOX news the wealth gap has increased in favour of the rich during Mr Obama's tenure. Which is "change" and therefore an election promise of great magnitude has been delivered.
But the general point about using scientific abstractions to justify actions unrelated to human experience, and incapable of measuring the effects on people, is relevant to debates about religion and its role. That the ability to determine the age of a fossil (plus or minus about 10 million years) is offered in justification of the eradication of religious influence in schools across the nation is so ridiculous that I often wonder about the sanity of those who present it and those who take any notice of them.
The arguments about requiring the rich to contribute more to solving the financial crisis is going on here as well. It has been announced that 2,000 new tax inspectors are to be recruited with the specific task of getting the rich to pay more. And there is the makings of a split in our coalition government on the issue possibly over whether the 2,000 are going to be the sons and daughters of the rich or rabid, left wing hotheads.
But the main point is that the uneven distribution of wealth is killing people. Children included. And the Sofitel maid's false allegations were blown up out of all proportion to distract us from these matters under the direction of Mr Cyrus Vance Jnr who, I think it is safe to say, got a little bit over stimulated.
