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I have said this to so-called progressives until I am out of breath. Class and economic inequality is the most pervasive and dangerous form of inequality facing

I have said this to so-called progressives until I am out of breath. Class and economic inequality is the most pervasive and dangerous form of inequality facing us today in the rich world. We dwell on forms of inequality that are broadly ostracised and largely eliminated, while the elephant in the room is economic inequality that our business and political leaders endorse as enthusiastically as Confederate leaders embraced slavery. Many people today believe that the poor deserve their lot in life, just as people would have said about African-Americans a century ago. Presidential candidates and senators say it openly and without rebuke. Both houses of Congress are controlled by people who talk euphemistically of the super-rich (who increasingly derive their wealth from inheritance not ingenuity) as "job creators". Meanwhile anywhere from a quarter to a third of our population is languishing with no jobs or shitty jobs, poor health, broken families and is always one parking ticket away from financial ruin. This is the greatest challenge of our generation. We have to fix this.

plurinshael 11y ago
Total agreement. But curious, you've had to explain this to progressives until you're out of breath? The progressives in where I live are the only ones talking about this, and the (so-called) conservatives are the ones able to deftly brush the subject aside. Trippy.
- timr 11y ago
  Yeah, exactly. My impression is that Bernie Sanders (and to a lesser, but more ironic extent, Trump) are getting traction precisely because the mainstream candidates are all more-or-less beholden to different flavors of generational wealth. In my experience, progressives are the ones who are pushing the class issue.
- crdb 11y ago
  Without knowing anything about OP, I could think of a probably too simplistic explanation, which is that both the perceived problem and perceived best solutions would differ and he belongs to the "other" camp. Left: "there's an inequality of ability due to economic conditions, and the solution is redistribution" e.g. affirmative action to push women/minorities/etc. into the workplace, taxes on the wealthy to finance programs for the poor, social housing quotas in every new development... "Right" (usually more libertarian than where the GOP stands these days): "there's an inequality of opportunities due to regulations, and the solution is removing regulations" e.g. Milton Friedman observing that the minimum wage increased black teenage unemployment and pushed many low-skilled black teenagers permanently out of the workforce as they were unable to get that first step on the job ladder; or Uber as a second, ad-hoc source of income for low earners being regulated out as an option as any Uber driver becomes an "employee"; or most extreme, that public schools are always a bad thing because the government monopoly on education means no effective oversight or pressure for teachers to perform.
  - eigenvector 11y ago
    With that remark I've fallen into the trap of separating the entire spectrum of views into two camps: progressive (liberal) and conservative. In reality this is not the case, but in general you can at least divide people into those that profess to care about inequality (and believe the government has a role in solving it, since politics is after all fundamentally about the government) and those who don't think it is a problem. The latter group's views I disagree with, but I can't find much common ground with which to argue from. They don't think it's a problem and they don't want to do anything about it. Among the former (people who would self-identify as progressives), I often find people fixated on certain pet issues relating to legacy social programs (you mentioned a few of them), rather than the broader picture of how a whole swath of the population is falling behind regardless of their colour or gender. These are the progressives who are caught up in, say, pushing for more generous public-sector pay, as if that helps the guy with no high school diploma. Or in fighting housing development on the grounds that it pushes out the poor, without asking why the poor can only afford to live in shitty neighbourhoods to begin with. I feel like many progressives are invested in fighting the symptoms of inequality rather than the causes.
    - tracker1 11y ago
      I'd really love to see reforms that limit corporatist protections, subsidies, and un/under utilized assets owned by companies. Companies are emphatically not people, and should not be treated as such legally.. they are constructs to allow group ownership, and reduce liability as such. We've lost sight of this, and extended it to such a point that corporations literally have more rights than people, while we (as a society/government) work to prevent natural deaths of large companies and protect them at too many turns. I think that if we started by backtracking on a lot of IP based protections, and changed the tax structure so that B2B transactions are taxed, actual investment over gambling could be a lot better. That's just me. We, as a nation and our government no longer legislate to ensure proper competition is allowed to happen and subsidize too much, and too often. Poverty isn't a problem we can spend/indebt our way out of, we can only reduce some of the ways that the income gap has expanded out of control... Raising taxes isn't the solution, reducing loopholes, subsidies and deductions is. As would be making capital gains taxes line up closer to income taxes, with exemptions for directly inherited physical assets. But, that's just my take on it... instead of spend at the bottom, cut from the top.
- guycook 11y ago
  I don't mean to speak for the OP, just to relate my own experience. I grew up extremely disadvantaged - bottom 10% - and that's manifested in a few ways throughout life (ie. it took 7 years to get my bachelor's due to needing to work to support me + family members). Nevertheless, I was recently told by a progressive regarding a tech conference that I was too privileged to offer a diverse perspective ('cause I'm a white guy, you see). From the article: "Sean Reardon of Stanford University has calculated that the race gap in student test scores has diminished, but that the class gap has widened. A half-century ago, the black-white test score gap was 50 percent greater than the gap between the richest 10 percent and the poorest 10 percent. Now it is the other way around, with the class gap almost twice that of the race gap." But for whatever reason progressives (broad term I know) seem to be happy to talk about anything except class and income equality.
  - gohrt 11y ago
    "privileged" and "diverse perspectives" are terms from recent "social justice" theory -- which is newer than "progressive". It's of course very slippery to try to attach labels to any informal political groups, and probably better to discuss ideas, not people's labels.
clamprecht 11y ago
In these situations I like to ask: what other countries have solved this problem, and how? Are there any? If not, why not? Is it solvable? I never assume that every problem has a solution, and I definitely never assume that every problem has a government solution.
- ktothemc 11y ago
  Countries with strong social democratic movements like Germany, Austria and some of the Scandinavian countries are able to provide a very decent quality of life with high education levels. However, they also have other variables like smaller population size (which makes it easier to reach a political consensus) and more ethnic homogeneity.
  - johnchristopher 11y ago
    Didn't Germany just reach 12 millions of poor people ? http://www.euronews.com/2015/02/20/highest-number-of-germans-below-poverty-line-since-reunification/ http://www.euronews.com/2015/02/20/highest-number-of-germans... A smaller population size doesn't make it easier to reach a political consensus. I am from Belgium and we hold a world record in that category: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2013/10/01/589-days-with-no-elected-government-what-happened-in-belgium/ http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2013/10/... 589 days at the time, I don't know if another country has done better since then.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- legulere 11y ago
  What else could solve it other than a change of the regulations that led to the current situation? The only non government drivers of reduction of income I can see are war and financial crashes where the rich loose all of their money
anon3_ 11y ago
> Both houses of Congress are controlled by people who talk euphemistically of the super-rich (who increasingly derive their wealth from inheritance not ingenuity) as "job creators". I disagree. I hear too much talk about solving gaps and creating jobs, and not single shred of sympathy for the simple rich. We need to stop thinking its our problems to solve these so-called "societal injustices". It's not my problem. I'm trying to improve myself! People should mind their own business and try to improve their own situations. If they're in no / shitty jobs, poor health / broken families, they need to figure it out like everyone else! We can't play God and it for them. It just enable this entitlement attitude of your piousness and their own of what they deserve.
- edoloughlin 11y ago
  If they're in no / shitty jobs, poor health / broken families, they need to figure it out like everyone else! Like everyone else who isn't in a shitty job/poor health/broken family? And, by definition, haven't had to figure it out?
- rosser 11y ago
  I hope you never find yourself in dire circumstances, and at the receiving end of this kind of callousness.
  - GauntletWizard 11y ago
    I hope you do. It is not callousness that keeps people down, it is the failure of praise and positive reinforcement to be measured with realism and criticism. Even nasty namecalling can be constructive criticism, if someone is used to criticism and is introspective. The most abject failures I've known in life are those who've been unable to recognize their mistakes, unable to handle criticism, and most clearly, those who've always had a bailout and never hit rock bottom.
    - rosser 11y ago
      Are you seriously wishing for someone to experience rock bottom and be met with, "Screw you, I'm improving myself!"?
lfjmfkekdk 11y ago
30% of Forbes 400 billionaires inherited their wealth, 70% did not. What exactly are you using to claim that the super rich derive their wealth from inheritances?
- chrisacree 11y ago
  But Forbes doesn't include any state or state-affiliated families. Considering the influence that is packaged with a billion dollars, it shouldn't be surprising that in many places wealth and political power are more closely tied than they might be in the US or Europe. How many billionaires in the Middle East aren't counted? High ranking government officials in many countries also are likely billionaires via corruption. It's unclear what proportion would be inherited vs new wealth, but it's another dimension worth considering.
  - lfjmfkekdk 11y ago
    Forbes 400 lists only Americans. It has nothing to do with Middle East billionaires or foreign government billionaires, who are listed under a different category.
    - rawTruthHurts 11y ago
      Which is a good clarification, but his point definitely remains.
- petewailes 11y ago
  The rich are not just the billionaires. Try anyone who has enough that they'd never have to work if they didn't want to. Which is anyone with about $10 million and up.
  - lfjmfkekdk 11y ago
    Well, the numbers are similar for millionaires. This is for individuals deemed in the ultra high net worth category, which is $30 million and up.... "Sixty-five percent of the ultra-rich made their own money, while an additional 16 percent inherited a portion of the wealth that they grew to a larger fortune. The self-made rich have an average net worth of $142 million, versus $130 million for those who inherited their money." http://www.bankrate.com/financing/wealth/myths-about-the-ultra-rich/#ixzz3iOSXrNss http://www.bankrate.com/financing/wealth/myths-about-the-ult...
gohrt 11y ago
I believe "neoliberal" (socially liberal, fiscally conservative) is the label for the "so-called progressives" you are arguing with.
flexie 11y ago
Having lived in the US and three different European countries, I now live in what is supposedly one of the poorest European countries, Bulgaria. Apart from the few third world countries I had visited, I had never seen real poverty until I went to the US. I had expected the US to be like Western Europe with bigger cars and more fast food, but I found infrastructure such as roads, airports, bridges, railroads that were seemingly left unrepaired for decades, public institutions like schools or government agencies were in worse shape than in the better Eastern European countries. They even had power outs not unlike the Eastern European ones. And just about everywhere we drove, even in wealthy areas such as Orange County or Manhattan, one wrong turn would take us to neighborhoods where we literally felt unsafe. A few months ago I visited the poorest regions of Bulgaria, which happen to be (one of) the poorest region(s) of the entire European Union, Severozapaden Region, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Severozapaden_Planning_Region https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Severozapaden_Planning_Region. It's just South of the Danube, in the North western part of Bulgaria. And yes, it is poor, barely any businesses, and young people are moving out of there to find a future elsewhere. But a regular lower middle class suburb in America feels vastly more hopeless, rundown and outright dangerous. I love the US and the US is a great place to be wealthy and I still believe your chances of making it really big are better in the US than in Europe as a whole. But Europe provides for a better life right now, not only for the poor, but also for most of us regular folks with no or little wealth and with lower or upper middle class income.
- rattray 11y ago
  Thanks for sharing that. I've had similar experiences. I grew up in Seattle, went to school in Philly, and just spent a year traveling through 14 countries in Asia (incl 6mo in India). The poverty on the streets of my hometown when I returned was absolutely shocking. And I found the poverty in Philadelphia to seem so much more crushing than what I saw in far poorer areas, like Indian slums or Laotian villages (I'm really struggling to deconstruct exactly why I had this feeling).
  - mithras 11y ago
    I live in a relatively poor village in Laos and have visited many villages way poorer than the one I live in and I think a big part of the reason people can stay happy and have hope on a budget of a few dollar a day is the strong sense of family and community in these villages. The poor in the western world seem much more isolated in comparison.
EdSharkey 11y ago
You said many people today believe that the poor deserve their lot in life. I think the people who believe that are ignorant or indifferent or both. However, an ugly bit about the poor that no one wants to confront is culture. What is to be done about the culture of the poor that locks them in poverty? I don't think throwing more money and resources at the poor helps -unless- it is somehow coupled with culture change. Wasting money/health on cigarette smoking and booze and drugs, credit debt and payday loans and living paycheck to paycheck, dropping out of school, lotto, endless streams of chaotic drama-filled relationships and unprotected sex and babies outside of marriage, junk food and fast food and drinking pop instead of water at every meal... These things to me aren't -only- an education problem, they're -also- a culture problem. It's judgey for a well-to-do guy like me to talk this way, sorry in advance. I just find this culture thing very depressing because I don't feel there is much that can be done. It's very tempting for me to pick a single group to blame, like the banksters (especially re: payday loans) for being the secret hand in causing all this. But in my heart, I know the culture of the poor just really sucks in America, and there's a lot of wasted human potential. Nothing is being done to change that culture based on what I see on the boobtube. If you ask me, the victimhood status we confer upon the poor only serves to lock them in their place. The greater society could do well by shaming bad behavior and try to steer poor culture people onto better paths.
- rattray 11y ago
  I agree with some things you say (culture is a major, problematic component to poverty, especially in America) and disagree with others. For example, shaming bad behavior is likely to be counterproductive, and requiring additional money/resources to be tied to cultural change doesn't strike me as the most pragmatic way forward either. Lots of problems aren't best solved by governments. I don't go to my elected representative when I can't find a good burger joint in town; I tell someone who grills a mean patty to open up a restaurant. Just as many solutions are best done in the private sector (eg; startups), others are best done in "the culture sector" - Hollywood, the twitters. They're just as important, it's true. And it can be helpful to have public outcry to get the culture machine working on it. But I don't think cultural change should be the government's job (not that you explicitly said as such, but many people might leap to that). I also think it's important to keep in mind the importance of economic and educational environment when thinking about culture. If you spend a little while in a Philly public school, talking to kids and teachers, you'll very quickly realize that it's completely unsurprising that kids don't have any faith that they can work hard within the system and see positive results. I'd rebel or lose faith too - there's just so much arbitrary shit that rains down on you, so few things in your life that you really have control over, that it wouldn't make sense to believe you could get ahead just by working hard, being nice, and following the rules. I'm impressed that any do. EDIT: I should add that I completely empathize with where you're coming from emotionally on this. It's super hard, confusing, and frustrating - and I really don't know how much of what I just said above is even correct.
deleted 11y ago
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plurinshael 11y ago

Total agreement. But curious, you've had to explain this to progressives until you're out of breath? The progressives in where I live are the only ones talking about this, and the (so-called) conservatives are the ones able to deftly brush the subject aside. Trippy.

timr 11y ago
Yeah, exactly. My impression is that Bernie Sanders (and to a lesser, but more ironic extent, Trump) are getting traction precisely because the mainstream candidates are all more-or-less beholden to different flavors of generational wealth. In my experience, progressives are the ones who are pushing the class issue.
crdb 11y ago
Without knowing anything about OP, I could think of a probably too simplistic explanation, which is that both the perceived problem and perceived best solutions would differ and he belongs to the "other" camp. Left: "there's an inequality of ability due to economic conditions, and the solution is redistribution" e.g. affirmative action to push women/minorities/etc. into the workplace, taxes on the wealthy to finance programs for the poor, social housing quotas in every new development... "Right" (usually more libertarian than where the GOP stands these days): "there's an inequality of opportunities due to regulations, and the solution is removing regulations" e.g. Milton Friedman observing that the minimum wage increased black teenage unemployment and pushed many low-skilled black teenagers permanently out of the workforce as they were unable to get that first step on the job ladder; or Uber as a second, ad-hoc source of income for low earners being regulated out as an option as any Uber driver becomes an "employee"; or most extreme, that public schools are always a bad thing because the government monopoly on education means no effective oversight or pressure for teachers to perform.
- eigenvector 11y ago
  With that remark I've fallen into the trap of separating the entire spectrum of views into two camps: progressive (liberal) and conservative. In reality this is not the case, but in general you can at least divide people into those that profess to care about inequality (and believe the government has a role in solving it, since politics is after all fundamentally about the government) and those who don't think it is a problem. The latter group's views I disagree with, but I can't find much common ground with which to argue from. They don't think it's a problem and they don't want to do anything about it. Among the former (people who would self-identify as progressives), I often find people fixated on certain pet issues relating to legacy social programs (you mentioned a few of them), rather than the broader picture of how a whole swath of the population is falling behind regardless of their colour or gender. These are the progressives who are caught up in, say, pushing for more generous public-sector pay, as if that helps the guy with no high school diploma. Or in fighting housing development on the grounds that it pushes out the poor, without asking why the poor can only afford to live in shitty neighbourhoods to begin with. I feel like many progressives are invested in fighting the symptoms of inequality rather than the causes.
  - tracker1 11y ago
    I'd really love to see reforms that limit corporatist protections, subsidies, and un/under utilized assets owned by companies. Companies are emphatically not people, and should not be treated as such legally.. they are constructs to allow group ownership, and reduce liability as such. We've lost sight of this, and extended it to such a point that corporations literally have more rights than people, while we (as a society/government) work to prevent natural deaths of large companies and protect them at too many turns. I think that if we started by backtracking on a lot of IP based protections, and changed the tax structure so that B2B transactions are taxed, actual investment over gambling could be a lot better. That's just me. We, as a nation and our government no longer legislate to ensure proper competition is allowed to happen and subsidize too much, and too often. Poverty isn't a problem we can spend/indebt our way out of, we can only reduce some of the ways that the income gap has expanded out of control... Raising taxes isn't the solution, reducing loopholes, subsidies and deductions is. As would be making capital gains taxes line up closer to income taxes, with exemptions for directly inherited physical assets. But, that's just my take on it... instead of spend at the bottom, cut from the top.
guycook 11y ago
I don't mean to speak for the OP, just to relate my own experience. I grew up extremely disadvantaged - bottom 10% - and that's manifested in a few ways throughout life (ie. it took 7 years to get my bachelor's due to needing to work to support me + family members). Nevertheless, I was recently told by a progressive regarding a tech conference that I was too privileged to offer a diverse perspective ('cause I'm a white guy, you see). From the article: "Sean Reardon of Stanford University has calculated that the race gap in student test scores has diminished, but that the class gap has widened. A half-century ago, the black-white test score gap was 50 percent greater than the gap between the richest 10 percent and the poorest 10 percent. Now it is the other way around, with the class gap almost twice that of the race gap." But for whatever reason progressives (broad term I know) seem to be happy to talk about anything except class and income equality.
- gohrt 11y ago
  "privileged" and "diverse perspectives" are terms from recent "social justice" theory -- which is newer than "progressive". It's of course very slippery to try to attach labels to any informal political groups, and probably better to discuss ideas, not people's labels.

clamprecht 11y ago

In these situations I like to ask: what other countries have solved this problem, and how? Are there any? If not, why not? Is it solvable? I never assume that every problem has a solution, and I definitely never assume that every problem has a government solution.

ktothemc 11y ago
Countries with strong social democratic movements like Germany, Austria and some of the Scandinavian countries are able to provide a very decent quality of life with high education levels. However, they also have other variables like smaller population size (which makes it easier to reach a political consensus) and more ethnic homogeneity.
- johnchristopher 11y ago
  Didn't Germany just reach 12 millions of poor people ? http://www.euronews.com/2015/02/20/highest-number-of-germans-below-poverty-line-since-reunification/ http://www.euronews.com/2015/02/20/highest-number-of-germans... A smaller population size doesn't make it easier to reach a political consensus. I am from Belgium and we hold a world record in that category: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2013/10/01/589-days-with-no-elected-government-what-happened-in-belgium/ http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2013/10/... 589 days at the time, I don't know if another country has done better since then.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
legulere 11y ago
What else could solve it other than a change of the regulations that led to the current situation? The only non government drivers of reduction of income I can see are war and financial crashes where the rich loose all of their money

anon3_ 11y ago

> Both houses of Congress are controlled by people who talk euphemistically of the super-rich (who increasingly derive their wealth from inheritance not ingenuity) as "job creators". I disagree. I hear too much talk about solving gaps and creating jobs, and not single shred of sympathy for the simple rich. We need to stop thinking its our problems to solve these so-called "societal injustices". It's not my problem. I'm trying to improve myself! People should mind their own business and try to improve their own situations. If they're in no / shitty jobs, poor health / broken families, they need to figure it out like everyone else! We can't play God and it for them. It just enable this entitlement attitude of your piousness and their own of what they deserve.

edoloughlin 11y ago
If they're in no / shitty jobs, poor health / broken families, they need to figure it out like everyone else! Like everyone else who isn't in a shitty job/poor health/broken family? And, by definition, haven't had to figure it out?
rosser 11y ago
I hope you never find yourself in dire circumstances, and at the receiving end of this kind of callousness.
- GauntletWizard 11y ago
  I hope you do. It is not callousness that keeps people down, it is the failure of praise and positive reinforcement to be measured with realism and criticism. Even nasty namecalling can be constructive criticism, if someone is used to criticism and is introspective. The most abject failures I've known in life are those who've been unable to recognize their mistakes, unable to handle criticism, and most clearly, those who've always had a bailout and never hit rock bottom.
  - rosser 11y ago
    Are you seriously wishing for someone to experience rock bottom and be met with, "Screw you, I'm improving myself!"?

lfjmfkekdk 11y ago

30% of Forbes 400 billionaires inherited their wealth, 70% did not. What exactly are you using to claim that the super rich derive their wealth from inheritances?

chrisacree 11y ago
But Forbes doesn't include any state or state-affiliated families. Considering the influence that is packaged with a billion dollars, it shouldn't be surprising that in many places wealth and political power are more closely tied than they might be in the US or Europe. How many billionaires in the Middle East aren't counted? High ranking government officials in many countries also are likely billionaires via corruption. It's unclear what proportion would be inherited vs new wealth, but it's another dimension worth considering.
- lfjmfkekdk 11y ago
  Forbes 400 lists only Americans. It has nothing to do with Middle East billionaires or foreign government billionaires, who are listed under a different category.
  - rawTruthHurts 11y ago
    Which is a good clarification, but his point definitely remains.
petewailes 11y ago
The rich are not just the billionaires. Try anyone who has enough that they'd never have to work if they didn't want to. Which is anyone with about $10 million and up.
- lfjmfkekdk 11y ago
  Well, the numbers are similar for millionaires. This is for individuals deemed in the ultra high net worth category, which is $30 million and up.... "Sixty-five percent of the ultra-rich made their own money, while an additional 16 percent inherited a portion of the wealth that they grew to a larger fortune. The self-made rich have an average net worth of $142 million, versus $130 million for those who inherited their money." http://www.bankrate.com/financing/wealth/myths-about-the-ultra-rich/#ixzz3iOSXrNss http://www.bankrate.com/financing/wealth/myths-about-the-ult...

gohrt 11y ago

I believe "neoliberal" (socially liberal, fiscally conservative) is the label for the "so-called progressives" you are arguing with.

flexie 11y ago

Having lived in the US and three different European countries, I now live in what is supposedly one of the poorest European countries, Bulgaria. Apart from the few third world countries I had visited, I had never seen real poverty until I went to the US. I had expected the US to be like Western Europe with bigger cars and more fast food, but I found infrastructure such as roads, airports, bridges, railroads that were seemingly left unrepaired for decades, public institutions like schools or government agencies were in worse shape than in the better Eastern European countries. They even had power outs not unlike the Eastern European ones. And just about everywhere we drove, even in wealthy areas such as Orange County or Manhattan, one wrong turn would take us to neighborhoods where we literally felt unsafe. A few months ago I visited the poorest regions of Bulgaria, which happen to be (one of) the poorest region(s) of the entire European Union, Severozapaden Region, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Severozapaden_Planning_Region https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Severozapaden_Planning_Region. It's just South of the Danube, in the North western part of Bulgaria. And yes, it is poor, barely any businesses, and young people are moving out of there to find a future elsewhere. But a regular lower middle class suburb in America feels vastly more hopeless, rundown and outright dangerous. I love the US and the US is a great place to be wealthy and I still believe your chances of making it really big are better in the US than in Europe as a whole. But Europe provides for a better life right now, not only for the poor, but also for most of us regular folks with no or little wealth and with lower or upper middle class income.

rattray 11y ago
Thanks for sharing that. I've had similar experiences. I grew up in Seattle, went to school in Philly, and just spent a year traveling through 14 countries in Asia (incl 6mo in India). The poverty on the streets of my hometown when I returned was absolutely shocking. And I found the poverty in Philadelphia to seem so much more crushing than what I saw in far poorer areas, like Indian slums or Laotian villages (I'm really struggling to deconstruct exactly why I had this feeling).
- mithras 11y ago
  I live in a relatively poor village in Laos and have visited many villages way poorer than the one I live in and I think a big part of the reason people can stay happy and have hope on a budget of a few dollar a day is the strong sense of family and community in these villages. The poor in the western world seem much more isolated in comparison.

EdSharkey 11y ago

You said many people today believe that the poor deserve their lot in life. I think the people who believe that are ignorant or indifferent or both. However, an ugly bit about the poor that no one wants to confront is culture. What is to be done about the culture of the poor that locks them in poverty? I don't think throwing more money and resources at the poor helps -unless- it is somehow coupled with culture change. Wasting money/health on cigarette smoking and booze and drugs, credit debt and payday loans and living paycheck to paycheck, dropping out of school, lotto, endless streams of chaotic drama-filled relationships and unprotected sex and babies outside of marriage, junk food and fast food and drinking pop instead of water at every meal... These things to me aren't -only- an education problem, they're -also- a culture problem. It's judgey for a well-to-do guy like me to talk this way, sorry in advance. I just find this culture thing very depressing because I don't feel there is much that can be done. It's very tempting for me to pick a single group to blame, like the banksters (especially re: payday loans) for being the secret hand in causing all this. But in my heart, I know the culture of the poor just really sucks in America, and there's a lot of wasted human potential. Nothing is being done to change that culture based on what I see on the boobtube. If you ask me, the victimhood status we confer upon the poor only serves to lock them in their place. The greater society could do well by shaming bad behavior and try to steer poor culture people onto better paths.

rattray 11y ago
I agree with some things you say (culture is a major, problematic component to poverty, especially in America) and disagree with others. For example, shaming bad behavior is likely to be counterproductive, and requiring additional money/resources to be tied to cultural change doesn't strike me as the most pragmatic way forward either. Lots of problems aren't best solved by governments. I don't go to my elected representative when I can't find a good burger joint in town; I tell someone who grills a mean patty to open up a restaurant. Just as many solutions are best done in the private sector (eg; startups), others are best done in "the culture sector" - Hollywood, the twitters. They're just as important, it's true. And it can be helpful to have public outcry to get the culture machine working on it. But I don't think cultural change should be the government's job (not that you explicitly said as such, but many people might leap to that). I also think it's important to keep in mind the importance of economic and educational environment when thinking about culture. If you spend a little while in a Philly public school, talking to kids and teachers, you'll very quickly realize that it's completely unsurprising that kids don't have any faith that they can work hard within the system and see positive results. I'd rebel or lose faith too - there's just so much arbitrary shit that rains down on you, so few things in your life that you really have control over, that it wouldn't make sense to believe you could get ahead just by working hard, being nice, and following the rules. I'm impressed that any do. EDIT: I should add that I completely empathize with where you're coming from emotionally on this. It's super hard, confusing, and frustrating - and I really don't know how much of what I just said above is even correct.

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]