A burgeoning world population has brought with it a decline in the respect given to other people, especially by governments, who look upon people as mouths to feed.  Hitler was exhibit No.1, de-humanizing those he despised.  But modern politiciansare only slightly better:

Lord Freud (a name to conjure with?) recently referred to the changing number of disabled people in the UK as “a bulge of,  effectively, stock” .  The British Department of Work and Pensions describes people  entering the government’s work programmes for between 3 to 6 months as “3/6 month stock”,  and recommends using  credit reference agencies to “cleanse the stock of fraud and error”.

Benefit claimants in England don’t live in houses, they live in “benefit units”, defined by the government as “an adult plus their spouse (if applicable) plus any dependent children living in the household”.  If you die while on a government work programme you are termed a “completer”.

It is not only the British who dehumaize  the population.   All over the English-speaking world people are known as “human resources”.  Norwegian health company refers to its patients as “biomass”, and Israeli military commanders refer to the death of 2,100 Palestinians , mostly civilians, in Gaza, as “mowing the lawn” (getting rid of inconvenient Palestinians).

American CIA “operatives”‘  operating drones, refer to their targets as ‘bug splats”, innocent lives taken are “collateral damage”, shooting and bombing is “kinetic activity”, homes are  “compounds”, and kidnapping and torture is known in the trade as “extra-ordinary rendition”. All of which makes referring to employees  as “operatives” or “human capital” fairly innocuous.   We are quite deliberately made to feel superfluous “consumers”.    ( Extracted from an article by George Monbiot 31/ 10/ 14).

Epicureans  would never dream of using derogatory expressions such as these.  Epicurus valued the lives of everyone, regardless of class and gender.   We should all be valued members of the human race with something to offer.