Begining of the end?

Are the welfare states on the verge of collapse? No matter how I might dislike it, present signs increasingly point towards that.

The concept of sharing and caring, which emerged from the runis of world war II, when people understood the importance of a collaborative soceity in a hard way, seems to be easily forgotten within just sixty years.

The hurricane of biggest world war flattened many barriers quickly:  The strong class barriers and elitism were swept away. It even eroded the centuries old gender discrimination to a large degree and propelled the feminism to a new height. The scarcity of working age men opened the hetherto closed doors to women whose competence dispelled age old myths about "gender-suitable" jobs.

But all these are coming back in a new look. We are seeing a new generation of nouveau riche "celebs" whose socio-emotional gossips in page 3 attracts many more readers than the actual news. The feminism has also taken a back step in the recent years whith the increasing number of stay at home mums; espsecially where the affoardable child care is not available.

In the recent years the welfare states were under big pressure due to increasing demand of the growing population and stagnating economy of the developed nations. The recent economic downturn seemed to work like the last straw that broke the camel's back.

Yet if we look carefully, it seems to be more like a shift in attitude rather than a solely economic one. The neo-elite rich, who once again are controlling the money and power in the society care about nothing but themselves.

Their greed, incompetence and selfishness brought the banking sector to the brink. But the biggest irony is these very people were put in charge to draft the rescue plan where they protected their interest unashamedly while preaching austerity measures for the rest of the soceity.

Wheather it is Obama's incapacity to put stimulous to the economy, or EU's bailout packange to Greece with some absurd conditions of austerity or Cameron's latest rhetoric on benefit cuts....it's the different facets of the same agenda: save the interest of the rich at the expense of common public.

It's fine to destory the best public health care system in the world (NHS) or to terminate the housing benefits for unemployed youth or to cut the child care allowance for struggling families. But you can't take a farthing away from the hefty bonuses of the bank bosses.

As Gandhi once said:"There is enough for everybody's need, but not enough for anybody's greed"!