China (admittedly capitalist in all but name)? North Korea? Sudan? Rwanda? Afghanistan (before the US occupation)? Iraq? Feudal England?

We wouldn't find any lost souls there, now would we?

Seems to me most people have a much better chance under capitalism than any of the other options.

They're not here because capitalism reduced them to this inhuman level.

They're here because America is the only place where they wouldn't be exterminated, drafted, interned, exiled or imprisoned. Just about anywhere else, society would recognize them for the waste of potential that they are, and make some concerted effort to utilize that potential, orneutralize the waste.

That said, I think the issue relates far more to immediate government policy than it does to the fundamental structure of the economy. Specifically: what social programs are available to these people? Are these programs enough? (Obviously not.) What needs to be changed? Once these questions are resolved the problem will begin to get better.

This country does not use capitalism in its pure form - no government does. It is a welfare state and therefore ensuring a basic quality of life for all citizens is part of the government's mandate.

Capitalism and compassion do not have to be mutually exclusive.

Now there are good arguments on both sides of the involuntary confinement issue, but to say homelessness is purely economic is wrong.

As far as services for the mentally ill - there are hardly any.

I worked in social services for 7 years, for people who have developmental disabilities, and I can tell you there's a huge disparity between state-funded services for the DD community and programs for those who suffer from mental illnesses.

People with genetically detectible disorders, or disorders that our scientists have declared intrinsic to the body - like downs syndrome, and other developmental disabilities - are subsidized. All of the clients I worked with received some combination of direct support staffing, SSI and SSA payments, Section 8 housing subsidies, work training, and other subsidies and services. Several of the clients I worked with recieved state-support packages that could be valued above $100,000 a year.

For the poor who are mentally ill? There's Seattle Mental Health, and - the same services that exist for the non-mentally ill poor - almost squat nil.

The capitalist system - including the one we've dolled up as the "American Dream" - tends to separate the poor into two camps: those that are poor through no fault of their own, and those that are poor because they are lazy. Unfortunately, we still classify the mentally ill in the later category.

Before it was commonplace for women to work outside the home, single mothers – who were judged to have been abandoned by their men - regularly received payments from the state. As soon as the "American Dream" started requiring a second income to achieve, and women went off to work, (and here I'd really like to dodge a difficult feminist critique, seeing as I'm only making an economic argument) we redefined welfare to take poor single mothers – now referred to as “welfare queens” – away from their children.

As our culture changes, different people are put into the "lazy" category. As soon as we see a group as lazy, we take away their money.

This post was merely a Marxist reflection on the failures of market based societies to its most vulnerable; it wasn’t an attack of those left behind. But does the market owe anything to its most vulnerable?

Where Charles (and Marx) are wrong is in their belief that the lumpenproletariat are so destroyed by society that they are already dead and lack class consciousness. Marx argued that they were unproductive and regressive, bu if you look at most revolutionary movements throughout the world; the bravest of the brave have always been the lumpenproletariats who were indeed engaged in class struggle.

So yeah, don't act like America is the only place with homeless junkies. there are plenty in every country. Have you been to the slums of Berlin? Of Paris? Of Prague? You would see, if you wandererd into the poor areas.
Fuck Marx.

I love eating at Seattle's fine restaurants, especially eggplant sandwhiches and spicy calamari. The homeless stench ruins my meal, and seeing these insects ruins my view.

Who are these people that keep saying finding a $75k job is easy? Uh, right.

@Monique: the services lacking for the poor aren't for treating headwounds from earning $20 in a bum fighting video (ie, service you'd pay for). Rather, it's the lack of sustained mental health and drug care that these people need. You can gripe about the bums, and you can gripe about paying for their treatment, but unless you're willing to commit genocide, you have to either pay to help them out, or hold your breath as you step over them. They obviously can't help themselves.

Imagine yourself having an accident and ending up with a brain injury - something that allowed you to function but left you with the faculties of a three year old. Lucky you if you have a family than can support you...if not you're a hell of a lot closer to the street. It's not as far off as some like to believe.