Letter from Slim Wolfe
Society – July 2006 – Colorado Central Magazine
Editors:
Once again George Sibley’s column (June Colorado Central) touches on that mother of all topics, the social contract. Though I’ve taken the direction of independence (and near isolation) here in Central Colorado for the best part of thirty years, I grew up in New York City in the nineteen-fifties in a world full of social contract. Parks, schools, recreation facilities, health care, transportation, housing, in short, almost every aspect of life was the taken-for-granted right of every citizen rich or poor. I didn’t have much concept of the private sector except when shopping, and there wasn’t a lot of money for that at all. But it was good: apart from the noise and the crowds there was nothing wrong with life under the social contract. There were lots of options, too, because it was a large and well-developed system. Call it the workers paradise or call it the welfare state, it was the brainchild of progressive thinkers like Jacob Riis who saw the need to help immigrants and poor people keep their heads above water, for the good of the whole world.
