1. Aesthetic Realism asks, What Does a Person Deserve by Being Alive?

• Do People Deserve Health Care?

Times Herald Record, 9/21/07

"Imagine health care that is compassionate and real" by Christopher Balchin

"In early March I got the call every child of an elderly parent dreads: My mother, Kathy Balchin, age 80, had fallen, breaking her left wrist and right leg. Coming home was out of the question. She needed hospitalization, nursing home care, then physical therapy. She was in a state of shock. My father, Robin, 83, was in crisis.
• Imagine this scenario:
• She and my father do not fill out a single insurance form. They don't have to worry about money. Every minute in the hospital and nursing home, and transportation, is free of charge. Is this even conceivable?..." > more

El Diario / La Prensa, 4/24/07

"One Health Insurance, for All, for Life" by Jaime Torres, DPM

"All over this country the crisis in our healthcare system is a burning issue,... Eli Siegel, the great philosopher and founder of the education Aesthetic Realism, showed its central failing when he explained that a healthcare system based on profit is unethical because it is based on “contempt for people.”...." > more

American Medical News, American Medical Association, 2/17/97

"Profit Motive a Major Problem in Health Care" by Jeffrey Sosinsky, M.D.

AMERICAN MEDICAL NEWS, AMA.  Health care in America will be kind when everyone concerned studies this ethical question asked by Eli Siegel: "What does a person deserve by being a person?" > more

New York Newsday (NY, NY) 1/30/2003

" Stop Drug Industry!" by John Stern

I was infuriated to read "Drug Industry's Challenge to Maine Hits High Court" [Newsday, Jan. 23]. The drug industry is challenging Maine's kind program, which reduces bloated drug prices for its uninsured residents. > more

• Do People Deserve Good Housing to Live In?

"Filmmaker Tackles Homelessness Issues" by Carol Parker

NORTHPORT JOURNAL.  What Does a Person Deserve? is the question posed by a film by the same name playing at the Cinema Arts Centre in Huntington. Emmy award-winning filmmaker Ken Kimmelman tackles the issue of homelessness and hunger with a stirring montage...."What Does a Person Deserve? is awesome."  >  more

2. Aesthetic Realism asks, Is Profit-driven Economics a  Success or Failure?

• What Are the Results of the Profit Motive?

Newsday, 9/26/2005

"The Bane of True Democracy" by Timothy Lynch, President of Teamsters Local 1205

Although Northwest Airlines declared bankruptcy, thousands of its employees are still on strike [“Northwest and Delta file for bankruptcy,” Business & Technology, Sept. 15]. In their fight, they stand for all Americans. They're protesting their employer's long-planned scheme to eliminate more than three quarters of them; slash pay and benefits for the remainder by more than 28 percent; and eliminate their hard-earned pensions....The beautiful, democratic solution was explained by Eli Siegel, founder of the philosophy Aesthetic Realism: “Jobs should be for usefulness, not for profit.” > more

The Wall Street Journal, 10/15/96

"Layoffs and Sweatshops Threaten Our Economy" by Timothy Lynch, Teamsters local 1205

WALL STREET JOURNAL. "Contempt is ... what makes one person see another in terms of how much money can be gotten from him or her.  It is what causes some employers to squeeze as much work as possible out of managers, secretaries, assembly-line workers, while giving them as little as possible and hoping to discard them." > more

• The Housing Failure

American Planning Association (http://www.planning.org) Fall, 1999

"Housing in America: a Basic Human Right" by Barbara Buehler

Housing in America is a basic right of every man, woman, and child. It is heartbreaking and shameful that we have gone so far away from our beautiful beginning purpose stated in the Declaration of Independence—to secure for everyone "certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."   >  more

• Road Accidents

"When High Profits Drive Trucking, Accidents Happen" by Timothy Lynch, Teamsters local 1205

LOS ANGELES TIMES.  What is the central reason for a drowsy trucker running over a car and killing four passengers? Why does a trucker "cut corners" and rush to get the delivery made and the truck back for the next load? Because a boss sees every truck, driver and load in terms of profit for himself. The quicker the delivery and the lower the wage he pays, the bigger the profit.  >  more

• The Health Insurance Failure

The Philadelphia Inquirer (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) 1/22/00 "Helping Firefighters Battle Hepatitis C Is Civic Duty" by Richel Clerkin, R.N.

THE PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER.  My heart goes out to the Philadelphia firemen who are being denied medical coverage for Hepatitis C. At least 125 firefighters, or nearly 6 percent of the 2,100 who were tested, have tested positive for Hepatitis C—a rate three times the national average  > more

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3. What Purpose Does Profit Economics Come From?

The writers of these articles ask what is the ethical--or unethical--meaning of some few persons using the hard work of many other people to make big profits for themselves?

• The Economy As a Whole

"Purposes in America...Once and Now" by Ellen Reiss, Class Chairman of Aesthetic Realism

PHILIPPINE POST.  It is often hard to see clearly something we are in the midst of, something that is very close to us. Yet we need to try, or we may make mistakes of a huge kind....[The] seeing of humanity and earth as existing to supply profit for oneself and a few others, is a form of contempt that has caused massive suffering through the centuries.  > more

• Contempt: The Basis

"The Failure of an Economy Based on Contempt" by Ann Richards and Christopher Balchin

TIMES HERALD-RECORD.    In 1970, ... Eli Siegel, founder of the philosophy Aesthetic Realism, explained that economics motivated by profit would no longer work. The profit system, he stated, is based on contempt, the ''lessening of what is different from oneself as a means of self-increase as one sees it." For enormous corporations to up and leave loyal, long-term employees because they can no longer make the profits of once – that is brutal contempt. > more

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4. What Is the Importance of Unions in America?

• The Meaning of a Strike

"Unions Remain Strong, Vital" by Timothy Lynch, President, Teamsters Local 1205

There is now, not a decreasing, but an increasing interest in unions on the part of the American people. That's because the average American is working harder, longer and for less pay and fewer benefits than he or she did 30 years ago. There's a growing awareness in people... > more

Back Stage: The Performing Arts Weekly (New York, New York) 6/23-29/00

"Cheers for SAG-AFTRA" by Anne Fielding, Aesthetic Realism consultant / Director, Aesthetic Realism Theatre Co.

BACK STAGE.  Bravo to my fellow actors of SAG and AFTRA, striking against the advertising industry, demanding fair compensation for their work!  >  more

• Unions and Wealth

"We Actors Deserve Our Share of the Wealth We Help Produce" by Carol McCluer of the Aesthetic Realism Theatre Company

FINANCIAL TIMES of LONDON.  As a member of Screen Actors Guild and American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, who has worked making commercials, I am proud of our strike (since May 1) .... >  more

• Unions, Human Rights, and Study

Long Beach Times (Long Beach, California) 8/23/01

"Union Leader Outlines Most Important Study for America" by Alice Bernstein

LONG BEACH TIMES.  At the 26th Convention of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters in Las Vegas this summer, Timothy Lynch, President of Local 1205 (Melville, NY), spoke in a way that I see as a high point in labor history.  > more