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The social service sector has been left trying to fill this gaping hole of human suffering with well-worn Band-Aids and programs such as food banks that were never meant to do anything more than offer a few days of “emergency” food once a month.
If we cannot squarely focus our attention on people’s health and survival during the time of a global pandemic because it will mean the downfall of our economic system, then we have a problem. Surely the most direct and responsible way to tackle this issue would be to transition into a new economic system, not risk lives to protect it. This approach to problem-solving requires a complex form of mental gymnastics.
Imagine for a moment, thinking “outside of the box.” The pandemic has exposed the very real (and pre-existing) fault lines in our economic system – one that relies on never-ending expansion and consumption, which was not working before, but is indisputably unsafe now. What if, instead of spending billions of dollars on preserving something that isn’t working, we asked ourselves what it would take to move towards something better?
Many of us who have been reflecting on another industry in peril – the fossil fuel industry – have been arguing that in order for a humane and realistic transition into something more sustainable, we must invest in re-training/transitioning the workforce and perhaps re-purposing infrastructure. Can we extend this logic to our own industry in peril?
