6 ms·

Relative poverty is insoluble without totalitarian levels of redistribution to a very low common denominator, and that is unlikely to include the inevitable oli

by hirundo 10y ago

Relative poverty is insoluble without totalitarian levels of redistribution to a very low common denominator, and that is unlikely to include the inevitable oligarchs. Absolute poverty is rapidly being solved (https://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_shows_the_best_stats_you_ve_ever_seen?language=en https://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_shows_the_best_stats_...) by markets and globalization, and radical redistribution such as a basic income tends to interfere with that.

ktRolster 10y ago
By some measures, poverty already is a solved problem in the United States. Relative poverty is all we have left to solve....
- jbmorgado 10y ago
  There are quite a lot of people in the USA that consistently starve. I'm quite sure that according to most definitions that's clearly absolute poverty, not a relative one. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunger_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunger_in_the_United_States
  - fiatmoney 10y ago
    "Food insecurity" is not remotely the same thing as starvation. I would wager a fair amount that no one in the US has starved to death due to lack of money (ignoring neglect of children, catatonia, etc) in quite a while.
    - sgnelson 10y ago
      I'm pretty sure he was talking about food insecurity and not actual starving to death, though his use of the word in this case is actually quite correct. Starve does not solely imply starvation unto death, Mr. Pedant. And his point still stands, it's an issue in the US that has yet to be solved.
      - ktRolster 10y ago
        In the US, "poverty is not a direct causation of hunger."
  - ktRolster 10y ago
    A quote from your link: "poverty is not a direct causation of hunger." (Of course, that's referring to the United States)
tn13 10y ago
Poverty is an issue long solved in USA. We are talking about relative poverty and governments are trying to push totalitarian redistribution schemes everywhere.
- Jtsummers 10y ago
  > Poverty is an issue long solved in the USA. When? How? EDIT: While I disagree with the parent poster, primarily because I've seen plenty of homeless, underemployed, malnourished individuals in my travels around the US my entire life, and no significant decline in the past several years, my questions were not meant entirely sarcastically. If poverty is solved, explain how or by what measure you consider it to be solved. My viewpoint: From a purely technical standpoint it could be considered solveable. We have sufficient housing, clothing, food for literally everyone in this country, and more. The issue becomes one of distribution. But just having the resources doesn't mean that the problem itself is solved.
  - RankingMember 10y ago
    I was going to say "Well jeez, can someone please alert the media? Where's the photo op with "MISSION ACCOMPLISHED" banner in the background? :P
  - dionidium 10y ago
    The grandparent's POV is a pretty common one. Just about anybody can get a job making minimum wage, which will bring home at least (7.25 × 40) × 4 = $1,160 each month (more in some places). That is enough money in most places to rent a basic apartment and buy plenty of food to eat. Plenty of people in that bracket also have cable TV and a car and a smart phone. It's not easy and it's not all that much fun, but you're not going to starve or freeze to death and the Wheel of Fortune you watch every night is the same Wheel of Fortune that Bill Gates watches. That's the definition of "solved" that's in play here.
    - Jtsummers 10y ago
      Which isn't actually a solution, we still need to connect people to those jobs somehow. Many people live in areas where those jobs simply aren't available. I drive through those towns all the time. There's insufficient money invested in the area in other businesses to offer a middle class that can support a lower class making minimum wage. These people need to move, which is a non-trivial cost. There's no guarantee they'll get a job when they go to, say, Atlanta. And they'll be paying more in rent or living in even worse living conditions (crammed into small apartments with more people). They'd be giving up their connections to family and friends and a community that they've been a part of. The problem of poverty will only be solved when no one is in poverty for any reason but choice. Calling it solved because technically there may be enough minimum wage jobs for everyone is the same as saying hunger is solved because technically there's enough food for everyone.
Retric 10y ago
Many people are still homeless in the US. Calling that 'relative' poverty is abusing the term enough to become meaningless. The most enlightening thing about this debate is the idea that we don't care about peoples basic standards of living and are happy to pretend there is no problem. PS: Although the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development in January 2012 annual point-in-time count found that 633,782 people across the United States were homeless, other counts vary widely. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homelessness_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homelessness_in_the_United_Sta... Note: Many people end up homeless temporarily which makes counting complex.
- toosmart4u12 10y ago
  Absolute poverty is pretty much a solved problem. Homeless people are a very small percentage, and continues to fall.
- pavel_lishin 10y ago
  There's probably a significant percentage of homeless people who are homeless because they have untreated mental illnesses. They'd likely be homeless even if they weren't monetarily impoverished.
  - Retric 10y ago
    I don't think it's all that clear cut. Living on the street likely promotes a range of mental health problems. Though, most of this is temporary. One out of 50 children or 1.5 million children in America will be homeless each year. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homelessness_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homelessness_in_the_United_Sta...
  - sgnelson 10y ago
    And what if they could afford health care (or rather the state stepped in) to help with that addiction/mental illness? A study just done about a year ago in the City I live in, housed a fairly large number of the non-temporary homeless people (between 20 and 50 I want to say, the numbers escape me) in an apartment complex that provided basic social services and access to health care. They found that in actuality, this helped solve many of the long term problems (even if it did not solve all the problems for all the people), as these people now had access to health care, _AND_ it saved money, because these people were no longer ending up in the emergency room or the local jail (and a few other cost saving measures as well) I'm pretty sure you don't know what you're talking about.
soperj 10y ago
When you haven't even fulfilled the bottom tier of Maslow's hierarchy of needs, I don't think that it matters whether the poverty is relative or not.
tomp 10y ago
You could simply introduce more taxes. For example, one interesting idea is a universal land tax - with more expensive/desirable land being taxed much more - the idea being that there's no fundamental reason why the right to use a piece of land would belong to one citizen and not the other just by the virtue of their birth. So those who want to use scarce land (wealthy people, corporations) would be paying rents to the rest of the society. That would quite quickly restore inequality back from inherited inequality to just meritocratic inequality (people who produce more would be richer).
- refurb 10y ago
  not the other just by the virtue of their birth What makes you think most land is owned through birthright? Any stats to back that up? I would assume most land was purchased. And if you levy a big tax on property, be prepared for the value of that property to drop dramatically. Money flows freely from one asset to another. If land becomes unattractive, those dollars will just go elsewhere.
  - tomp 10y ago
    > What makes you think most land is owned through birthright? Any stats to back that up? I would assume most land was purchased. Purchased from whom? I would imagine a lot of land in the most desirable locations (cities etc) are owned by private individuals or family trusts/companies, so they have been/will be inherited (even if the owners change in between). And if it's owned by a corporation, I guess the same logic could apply. > And if you levy a big tax on property, be prepared for the value of that property to drop dramatically. Money flows freely from one asset to another. If land becomes unattractive, those dollars will just go elsewhere. Yeah, that's kind of the point. Land used for investment is the purest form of unproductive rent-seeking.
    - mason240 10y ago
      So no actual stats, just your gut feelings about how you think things work.
    - 10y ago
Analemma_ 10y ago
The fact that you even think "totalitarian levels of redistribution" is a cogent concept is a strong indicator that your opinion on this topic isn't worth much.
- fixermark 10y ago
  ... unless, of course, that individual votes. "Your opinion is worthless" isn't a useful debating tactic when you're talking to people with as much political power as you yourself have.
  - Analemma_ 10y ago
    Who said I wanted a debate? Perhaps I'm having a bad morning and simply wanted to vent at the uninformed adolescent libertarianism all too common on HN.

by hirundo 10y ago

ktRolster 10y ago

By some measures, poverty already is a solved problem in the United States. Relative poverty is all we have left to solve....

jbmorgado 10y ago
There are quite a lot of people in the USA that consistently starve. I'm quite sure that according to most definitions that's clearly absolute poverty, not a relative one. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunger_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunger_in_the_United_States
- fiatmoney 10y ago
  "Food insecurity" is not remotely the same thing as starvation. I would wager a fair amount that no one in the US has starved to death due to lack of money (ignoring neglect of children, catatonia, etc) in quite a while.
  - sgnelson 10y ago
    I'm pretty sure he was talking about food insecurity and not actual starving to death, though his use of the word in this case is actually quite correct. Starve does not solely imply starvation unto death, Mr. Pedant. And his point still stands, it's an issue in the US that has yet to be solved.
    - ktRolster 10y ago
      In the US, "poverty is not a direct causation of hunger."
- ktRolster 10y ago
  A quote from your link: "poverty is not a direct causation of hunger." (Of course, that's referring to the United States)

tn13 10y ago

Poverty is an issue long solved in USA. We are talking about relative poverty and governments are trying to push totalitarian redistribution schemes everywhere.

Jtsummers 10y ago
> Poverty is an issue long solved in the USA. When? How? EDIT: While I disagree with the parent poster, primarily because I've seen plenty of homeless, underemployed, malnourished individuals in my travels around the US my entire life, and no significant decline in the past several years, my questions were not meant entirely sarcastically. If poverty is solved, explain how or by what measure you consider it to be solved. My viewpoint: From a purely technical standpoint it could be considered solveable. We have sufficient housing, clothing, food for literally everyone in this country, and more. The issue becomes one of distribution. But just having the resources doesn't mean that the problem itself is solved.
- RankingMember 10y ago
  I was going to say "Well jeez, can someone please alert the media? Where's the photo op with "MISSION ACCOMPLISHED" banner in the background? :P
- dionidium 10y ago
  The grandparent's POV is a pretty common one. Just about anybody can get a job making minimum wage, which will bring home at least (7.25 × 40) × 4 = $1,160 each month (more in some places). That is enough money in most places to rent a basic apartment and buy plenty of food to eat. Plenty of people in that bracket also have cable TV and a car and a smart phone. It's not easy and it's not all that much fun, but you're not going to starve or freeze to death and the Wheel of Fortune you watch every night is the same Wheel of Fortune that Bill Gates watches. That's the definition of "solved" that's in play here.
  - Jtsummers 10y ago
    Which isn't actually a solution, we still need to connect people to those jobs somehow. Many people live in areas where those jobs simply aren't available. I drive through those towns all the time. There's insufficient money invested in the area in other businesses to offer a middle class that can support a lower class making minimum wage. These people need to move, which is a non-trivial cost. There's no guarantee they'll get a job when they go to, say, Atlanta. And they'll be paying more in rent or living in even worse living conditions (crammed into small apartments with more people). They'd be giving up their connections to family and friends and a community that they've been a part of. The problem of poverty will only be solved when no one is in poverty for any reason but choice. Calling it solved because technically there may be enough minimum wage jobs for everyone is the same as saying hunger is solved because technically there's enough food for everyone.

Retric 10y ago

Many people are still homeless in the US. Calling that 'relative' poverty is abusing the term enough to become meaningless. The most enlightening thing about this debate is the idea that we don't care about peoples basic standards of living and are happy to pretend there is no problem. PS: Although the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development in January 2012 annual point-in-time count found that 633,782 people across the United States were homeless, other counts vary widely. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homelessness_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homelessness_in_the_United_Sta... Note: Many people end up homeless temporarily which makes counting complex.

toosmart4u12 10y ago
Absolute poverty is pretty much a solved problem. Homeless people are a very small percentage, and continues to fall.
pavel_lishin 10y ago
There's probably a significant percentage of homeless people who are homeless because they have untreated mental illnesses. They'd likely be homeless even if they weren't monetarily impoverished.
- Retric 10y ago
  I don't think it's all that clear cut. Living on the street likely promotes a range of mental health problems. Though, most of this is temporary. One out of 50 children or 1.5 million children in America will be homeless each year. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homelessness_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homelessness_in_the_United_Sta...
- sgnelson 10y ago
  And what if they could afford health care (or rather the state stepped in) to help with that addiction/mental illness? A study just done about a year ago in the City I live in, housed a fairly large number of the non-temporary homeless people (between 20 and 50 I want to say, the numbers escape me) in an apartment complex that provided basic social services and access to health care. They found that in actuality, this helped solve many of the long term problems (even if it did not solve all the problems for all the people), as these people now had access to health care, _AND_ it saved money, because these people were no longer ending up in the emergency room or the local jail (and a few other cost saving measures as well) I'm pretty sure you don't know what you're talking about.

soperj 10y ago

When you haven't even fulfilled the bottom tier of Maslow's hierarchy of needs, I don't think that it matters whether the poverty is relative or not.

tomp 10y ago

You could simply introduce more taxes. For example, one interesting idea is a universal land tax - with more expensive/desirable land being taxed much more - the idea being that there's no fundamental reason why the right to use a piece of land would belong to one citizen and not the other just by the virtue of their birth. So those who want to use scarce land (wealthy people, corporations) would be paying rents to the rest of the society. That would quite quickly restore inequality back from inherited inequality to just meritocratic inequality (people who produce more would be richer).

refurb 10y ago
not the other just by the virtue of their birth What makes you think most land is owned through birthright? Any stats to back that up? I would assume most land was purchased. And if you levy a big tax on property, be prepared for the value of that property to drop dramatically. Money flows freely from one asset to another. If land becomes unattractive, those dollars will just go elsewhere.
- tomp 10y ago
  > What makes you think most land is owned through birthright? Any stats to back that up? I would assume most land was purchased. Purchased from whom? I would imagine a lot of land in the most desirable locations (cities etc) are owned by private individuals or family trusts/companies, so they have been/will be inherited (even if the owners change in between). And if it's owned by a corporation, I guess the same logic could apply. > And if you levy a big tax on property, be prepared for the value of that property to drop dramatically. Money flows freely from one asset to another. If land becomes unattractive, those dollars will just go elsewhere. Yeah, that's kind of the point. Land used for investment is the purest form of unproductive rent-seeking.
  - mason240 10y ago
    So no actual stats, just your gut feelings about how you think things work.
  - 10y ago

Analemma_ 10y ago

The fact that you even think "totalitarian levels of redistribution" is a cogent concept is a strong indicator that your opinion on this topic isn't worth much.

fixermark 10y ago
... unless, of course, that individual votes. "Your opinion is worthless" isn't a useful debating tactic when you're talking to people with as much political power as you yourself have.
- Analemma_ 10y ago
  Who said I wanted a debate? Perhaps I'm having a bad morning and simply wanted to vent at the uninformed adolescent libertarianism all too common on HN.