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> There is a break in your logic: your conclusion would only make sense if not producing wealth is the only way of becoming poor. I read the strong obligation
by tie_ 11y ago
> There is a break in your logic: your conclusion would only make sense if not producing wealth is the only way of becoming poor.
I read the strong obligation of stopping people becoming poor as stopping any people from becoming poor, rather than stopping some people from becoming poor. If there is a single feasible way to become poor, then some people would go that way, and we have failed that obligation. The flaw is not in my logic.
Even with strong social security net, you cannot stop people from being poor. The strong social security net would represent the lowest level of income. At the lowest level of income in a society, you're poor, as everyone else is making more than you do. If someone was working and making less than what the social security provides, then they can just stop working and be better off at the security net level.
No matter how strong the social security net, the people resting on it will always be the poorest in the society.
Speaking from experience (grown up in a communist country, living in Western Europe atm), even the strongest form of state-forced salaries/job availability did not prevent people from becoming poor. Unsurprisingly, the current Western European societies are not preventing this either.
- sangnoir 11y ago> At the lowest level of income in a society, you're poor, as everyone else is making more than you do. That doesn't sound like the correct definition of being poor. To me - poverty isn't relative but absolute: if you live on less than $X amount a day, you're poor. The amount may vary, depending on who you ask (and where), and this amount depends on the cost of living rather than income percentiles. If most people makes more than you, you are poorer than them - but not necessarily in poverty (or poor). I can safely say there are no poor Apple engineers, regardless of the existance of someone being the least paid Apple engineer.
- tie_ 11y ago> To me - poverty isn't relative but absolute: if you live on less than $X amount a day, you're poor. I agree that the poverty that we should be fighting against is the absolute one. The complaints about "income inequality", however, are by definition dealing with the relative type of poverty. Indeed, if the topic was "increasing the wealth/well-being/opportunities of the poorest", the discussion would be completely different. Alas, inequality, implying rich people robbing poor ones is so much juicer of an idea. The second part, about "live on less than $X amount a day" I find badly defined. It's not about money, but about having access to basic wealth (food, clothes, shelter, etc). The money (in any currency) that can buy that wealth changes not only by region, but with time as well. Money is far too fast moving of a target, and it doesn't bear an intrinsic value. I'd wager that what a poor man has nowadays is way ahead than what a poor man got 50 years back. As somebody above pointed out, the vast majority of households below poverty level in the US have TV set, DVR, cell phone, air conditioning, etc. I don't think that a poor guy in the middle of the last century would think twice about changing places with a poor guy today.