In the 1980s, the then Prime Minister famously declared that there is no such thing as society. She encouraged a free-for-all so that people would claw themselves higher. Of course, it came at the expense of ordinary working people who were not very good at clawing.
They didn’t have the advantage of money or power or friends in the right places.
They were simply consigned to the rubbish heap.
How can anyone expect people to care when the society is run by self-seekers? People aren’t stupid – they know when they are being robbed blind.
And the dominance of big business doesn’t help to make anyone feel they are a meaningful member of society.
Yes, it is for each person to bear responsibility for their personal actions and to behave ethically no matter what they see around them – or at least to do so as much as possible.
But responsibility and allegiance are not the same – and people are trying to survive in the cracks left in the framework of a system that doesn’t care about them.
People will put up with a lot when they know that they share the burden with everyone. But when social and economic justice are absent – anyone will question why he or she should owe allegiance to anything.