| چکیده انگلیسی مقاله |
Human beings faced economic problems first, some 900 Thousand years ago, when forced out of Africa due to resource shortage compared to their numbers and needs. The start of a communal life some 40 Thousand years ago, gave them more protection and strength and their numbers, as well as their needs increased further. The term Oikonomos meaning prudent management of the household resources and means was coined in Greece, when individuals formed families and forced to take care of their own material affairs, perhaps some three thousand years ago, when they enjoyed their freedoms in city state political units. Human beings struggle to gain back some of their political economic freedoms took them more than two thousand years, and still only a small number of them called entrepreneur managed to gain power and position to run their own affairs and lead the way to early forms of democratic governments and a more or less free enterprise system with all its shortcomings. It has taken the individual citizen, the worker, the wage earner almost another one hundred years to have a real saying in the formation of governments, and in their duties and responsibilities towards the people specially those in need. Today in a democratic society, with an economy controlled anti managed by the people, social security of all the people even of the under privileged groups is of prime importance. The combination of democracy and free enterprise has made continuous economic growth and prosperity a reality in a large part of the world. People in Industrial countries in particular, with the highest gains, can afford to think more and more of their own well being and the well being of their fellow countrymen. Incomes are. growing fast anti a larger and larger portion of it is set aside for social security and welfare, people, aside from housing life insurance, and numerous savings, pay more anti more for health insurance, covering not only illnesses, injuries, operations hospitalizations, drugs, rehabilitation needs, also the loss of income for the time spent to recover and go back to work. Governments in countries with free enterprise systems, have made mandatory, a lot of social security coverage. People themselves have aungmented those coverage by devising new programs, new institutions, as well as new instruments. Put together, People living in democratic societies with free enterprise system, today have "safety nets" providing, them with Pensions unemployment insurance, health insurance, old age ]tension, casualties, job hazards and many more coverage for the employed. There are many programs to help the blind, the poor, families with dependent children the head start for preschool poor children, the food stamp for the poor, child care for working mothers, housing for the low income families and the homeless. There are also supplemental security income, mediaids and medi care programs and so on, for low income families, which of course dose not mean that the coverage is universal anti everybody in need is being help out. A developed economy with a more or less free enterprise system allocates between 10 to 15 percent of its GDP directly for health related services and the government share is increasing much faster than of the private sector. The safety net contains many diversified programs to meet the new emerging needs, under a new industrial - social environment. A comprehensive social security and welfare scheme is a luxurious but necessary consumer product, provided only by free enterprise in a democratic society, where the social conscience have the chance to germinate. |