Discussion What would happen if 10% of those in financial despair ctb?

[Life'sA6itch]

Let's use US citizens as an example & exclude those who are in financial despair due to personal bad choices. What if 10% of Americans ctb because of crushing costs of life? Do you think the US would offer euthanasia or do you think the US would whiplash into forced "treatment" of varying types? Or, do you think there would actually be any changes by companies to divert and share in profits rather than funnel them to the top few in the company? I would guess #2, what do you think?

 

[cemeteryismyhome]

I don't think anything would change, unfortunately.

 

[lemonadeandgrapes]

That's assuming a lot of things, so let's set the parameters of the argument. Firstly, the 10% would have to be assumed to be working individuals, or families of working individuals. Secondly, they would have to be citizens as you mentioned. Third, we have to assume the regular laws of human rights are still in place. The likely happening would be nothing even with these assumptions, private companies would not be able to be forced into diverting profits and assuming that most companies are profit maximising firms, they would not be incentivised to divert profits to those individuals as those within the lowest earners (who would be in that 10%) are typically an expendable workforce and so there plenty of reserve labour that would be able to meet the demand that would have been created by the deaths. Secondly, there is an issue of the government and the system of the US, since it's is a federal system it would be immensely hard to enforce anthing nation wide in terms of euthanise accessibility and hence if anything were to happen it would likely be an asymmetric access of euthanasia and hence there would be some states more affected than others. Assuming that the US is still predominantly christian in the south, it would be those states which would not enforce euthanasia and so there would be a larger effect on other states. Secondly, whilst it does work in the favour of the US and businesses to have a certain number of workers who are in financial despair (as it means that they typically have less meaningful ability to get higher wages and hence cheaper costs for firms.) The fact that the population of workers is greater than the demand it will likely have no impact. Additionally, if we assume that these people are not actually workers, there would be even less incentive, as they will likely be on benefits or some sort of state funded living and hence it would be beneficial for the US to allow their death as it would mean less money spent on these measures. Also, if it is only 10% one off then the effect will be maybe an increase in wages for the rest of the population in the lowest areas, however only marginal and likely not a large increase and overall the effect will be minimal. The US would also face a human rights crisis if they allowed euthanasia, as the reason for it would be something along the lines of, 10% have already killed thmslesv, so we should allow greater access for these people. That is not a good argument and most major companies would be opposed as 10% being killed would not affect them but more than that killing themselvs would have an impact on their profits as it would mean that slowly there would be not enough labour for the demand and hence they would have to pay more in order to incentivise the smaller labour workforce to join them. So, it would be larger ocmaoneis lobbying against anything to do with access to euthanasia and hence nothing would likely happen.