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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Commissary, anyone?[/quote]

I’m convinced that so many Service Members struggle when they leave because the cradle-to-grave socialism of the military takes away a lot of day-to-day anxieties. Of course, those anxieties are replaced by other ones - seeing active combat, year-long deployments, etc.

But when socialism works well (see: U.S. military life), people often flounder when they are removed from that structure and tossed into the cold reality of the U.S. civilian economy and society.[/quote]

People flounder when trapped in a capitalist economy, you say? [/quote]

No, people flounder when they have been infantilized and dependent on others and now have to grow up and live independently.

Even our national parks know this; don’t feed the wildlife, they stop learning to forage for their own food [/quote]

That belief only works if capitalist society provides people the means to live independently.  Ever tried supporting a family of four on Walmart wages?  They deliberately underpay their workers, knowing that SNAP benefits will make up the difference.  The government is subsidizing these large corporations.

Seems like the corporations should learn how to forage for themselves.[/quote]

If you are a Walmart shelf stocker trying to feed a family of four, it isn’t capitalism that put you in this situation, but a series of poor choices.

And for the record, Walmart pays very well for people who move up the ladder, like $75k - 130k for middle managers. Upwards of $300,000 for super store managers.

Trying to live of minimum wage with a family is hard, because it isn’t meant to be a career but an entrance into employment. [/quote]

Ah, yes, the "poor choices" theory regarding working people who struggle to get by.

Yes, some people from impoverished backgrounds are ultimately wildly successful. Many are moderately successful, and for some that Wal-Mart job is a big step up from where they started. But you competely ignore the cushions people with more advantages have when they do make "poor choices." It might be help buying a house, it might be not swimming in education debt (this is a topic that comes up from time to time on r/medicine where young physicians feel like failures compared to peers who did not have to take out loans for med school or buy houses), it might be other forms of financial support. It is also practical knowledge resources. And sometimes people from well off families who make poor choices when they are young adults are able to reroute their lives because of family resources when coming from another family, they'd be homeless.

Besides which, financial and other setbacks which have minimal consequence for people who are not poor can be catastrophic for those who are.

There is solid research that poverty, and the stresses of poverty, affect cognition itself, which then affects choices. This is not specifically stress, it's more involved than that. The impact can be equivalent to a 2 digit loss of IQ points.     
 https://lchc.ucsd.edu/MCA/Mail/xmcamail.2013_11.dir/pdfZG9oBsF_YC.pdf         
Science 341, 976 (2013)
Anandi Mani et al.
Poverty Impedes Cognitive Function

“It seems to me to be equally plain that no business which depends for existence on paying less than living wages to its workers has any right to continue in this country. By "business" I mean the whole of commerce as well as the whole of industry; by workers I mean all workers, the white collar class as well as the men in overalls; and by living wages I mean more than a bare subsistence level-I mean the wages of decent living.”
― Franklin D. Roosevelt[/quote]

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