...if you have not covered it already? It is the special circumstances of the exploitation of the elderly. They are often in poor health, defenseless and vulnerable; some of them are dying as a result. I myself was evicted by a corporation at the age of 70, and lived in my car for ten months. That experience led me to wonder how such things could happen, and I have learned SO much from the work of both you and Chris Hedges. Thank you, VirginiaL
In capitalist societies, especially when they are under pressure, the worth of human beings tends to be calculated in terms of whether and how they are useful to capitalism (as workers, as investors, as buyers, etc.) Once workers age beyond a certain point most of them are "less valuable" and so get treated less well than when they were younger. Whatever wisdom their lives acquired is deemed less valuable (if recognized at all, unlike many human societies of the past) than their reduced usefulness as workers. Likewise, if age brings a shrinkage of disposable income (which, for majorities in most capitalist countries, it does), the value of people as consumers/buyers likewise shrinks and again they become discarded. In non-capitalist societies, older persons were often revered as wise, experienced, leaders, etc in economic systems not driven to calculate human beings' worth in the way capitalism trains people to "evaluate" others.
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