on dependency
I have been thinking over the last few days about dependency. It seems to me that there are at least two different forms of dependency.
The first expects and delivers very little. A homeless person continually travelling around free meals and soup kitchens is kept alive - but if he refuses to engage and participate in the services available never actually addresses the issues which keep him in that particular situation. Indeed, if he extends his foraging to include provision which is not intended for him to access (for example drinking coffee supplied to a church congregation after a service without actually attending the service, to give a very trivial example) there is tremendous potential for conflict and further alienation. Antagonism grows even among positively minded people when they see people taking without ever even attempting to give anything back. Of course, there are many reasons why someone might behave like this, but it seems that many people have become institutionalised to such an extent that they think they 'deserve' all and any free services that are on offer and potentially available.The second is the type of dependency which is caused by being locked into a particular kind of behaviour with little knowledge of how to break out. So a drug dealer might handle large amounts of money be living with his parents and lack the ability to act independently.
It strikes me that these two forms of dependency are at the heart of the trade verses aid debate. if aid has meant that you know that you don't have to work (or do anything very much) to be given food/money/resources, you naturally stop trying. But equally, trade may be no better if it ties you into a system where you have to work long hours for little pay that ends up meeting very few of your expectations for your life. Expectations that most of us reading this would take for granted - proper schooling, decent healthcare, leisure time, fairly varied diet.
What links these two things is that they both narrow the options of the group or individual. I need and deserve aid payments. I have to continue growing coffee even when it is extremely unprofitable to do so. Independence surely means that we widen the options, encourage self-realisation, encourage entrepreneurship, capture the energy that lies within people - before it is too late.0 comments
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