4 ms·

In general, conservatives tend to regard poverty as a self-inflicted state, or at least that remaining in poverty is a failing of the individual by not escaping

In general, conservatives tend to regard poverty as a self-inflicted state, or at least that remaining in poverty is a failing of the individual by not escaping it, and thus addressing poverty should be left to that individual. Liberals think of poverty more as a systematic social condition that individuals bear little responsibility for, either getting there or remaining there, and thus addressing poverty should be undertaken by formal social support systems. It's not ruthless as much as different views of why poverty exists and how to address it, and like many issues, not all conservatives hold 100% conservative views. It's common to refer to conservatives who have a more liberal view of poverty as "compassionate", but it's just a word, not a judgement.

r00fus 10y ago
One of these views is more factually valid and supported by data.
- tomcam 10y ago
  I would like to see your citations
  - jernfrost 10y ago
    Actually it is rather obvious, that is HAS to be social structures and not the individual. Look at any statistics about any aspect of a persons life, and it is almost always determined by that persons environment or genes. Evidence from the last years point towards that there is no such thing as free will. Studies show e.g. that we make our decisions way before we are conscious of it. Our rational for the choices we make, are most of the time post-rationalization. We makeup reasons after the choice has been made. Put a random person from a bad neighborhood in a good one and they will almost always radically improve. You can look at IQ studies, correlation between IQ and genes is very high for a middle class, but very low for the poor. Hence middle class children reach the full potential of their genes while the environment is holding back the poor. Look at the difference between West-Germany and DDR or North and South Korea. Huge difference in the outcome of each individual, yet it has nothing to do with personal traits but everything to do with the different society structures imposed on the people. Focusing on the individual instead of society is also rather pointless as one can change society through policy but there is no way of changing an individual directly.
    - tomcam 10y ago
      So, no citations
paulddraper 10y ago
That is the usual narrative, but conservatives contribute more to charity than liberals.
- jernfrost 10y ago
  I don't think that is given. My home country Norway is mainly liberal but we give a lot to charity. But as a liberal myself, I don't really favor charity. I favor government solutions. I'd rather pay more taxes than pay to a charity directly. The problem I see with charity is that (1) they can't provide comprehensive solutions, (2) vulnerable to the free rider problem, (3) inefficient as much resources needs to be spent collecting donations. By comprehensive solution I mean that a lot of poverty is caused by complex set of factors. E.g. the person might lack job skills and have a mental health problem. Thus they need mental health care and a job training program. Putting together something like that is something a modern welfare state is quite capable of doing, while charity doesn't really have a solution. Charity is for giving you food when you are hungry or giving your emergency care. Charity is poorly suited for having a long term medical follow up e.g. of high risk groups. E.g. Norway has one of the worlds best statistics for infant mortality. A lot of that is because there are extensive checkups through the pregnancy. Everything related to a pregnancy is completely free. For other health care there is usually a minimum fee. The US in the contrast has terrible infant mortality rate and that is mainly due to poor checkups. Charity in the US has been unable to solve that problem. All they can do is give hungry people food or patch them up. Charity can't solve systematic problems.
  - paulddraper 10y ago
    The problem I see with government welfare programs is that (1) they must provide comprehensive solutions with legal obligations, making the system prone to abuse (2) vulnerable to the "give me everything I want or I'll take it by force" problem (3) inefficient as much resources needs to be spent on re-election, playing politics, and dodging budget cuts.
  - thomastjeffery 10y ago
    > The problem I see with charity is that (1) they can't provide comprehensive solutions, (2) vulnerable to the free rider problem, (3) inefficient as much resources needs to be spent collecting donations. The problem I see with government solutions is that (1) they can't provide comprehensive solutions, (2) vulnerable to the free rider problem, (3) inefficient as many resources need to be spent collecting and distributing taxes.
humanrebar 10y ago
> ...conservatives tend to regard poverty as a self-inflicted state... Conservatives see poverty as being at least partly a social problem. They just don't see bureaucratization as a healthy solution to the problem. It's common to refer to conservatives who have a more liberal view of poverty as "compassionate", but it's just a word, not a judgement. > It's common to refer to conservatives who have a more liberal view of poverty as "compassionate", but it's just a word, not a judgement. Let's flip this around and see how it sounds: "It's common to refer to liberals who have a more conservative view of poverty as 'intelligent liberals'". Point being, "compassionate conservative" comes across judgy, no matter how it was meant. George W. Bush coined that line during the 2000 presidential campaign and was criticized along these lines back then, too.

r00fus 10y ago

One of these views is more factually valid and supported by data.

tomcam 10y ago
I would like to see your citations
- jernfrost 10y ago
  Actually it is rather obvious, that is HAS to be social structures and not the individual. Look at any statistics about any aspect of a persons life, and it is almost always determined by that persons environment or genes. Evidence from the last years point towards that there is no such thing as free will. Studies show e.g. that we make our decisions way before we are conscious of it. Our rational for the choices we make, are most of the time post-rationalization. We makeup reasons after the choice has been made. Put a random person from a bad neighborhood in a good one and they will almost always radically improve. You can look at IQ studies, correlation between IQ and genes is very high for a middle class, but very low for the poor. Hence middle class children reach the full potential of their genes while the environment is holding back the poor. Look at the difference between West-Germany and DDR or North and South Korea. Huge difference in the outcome of each individual, yet it has nothing to do with personal traits but everything to do with the different society structures imposed on the people. Focusing on the individual instead of society is also rather pointless as one can change society through policy but there is no way of changing an individual directly.
  - tomcam 10y ago
    So, no citations

paulddraper 10y ago

That is the usual narrative, but conservatives contribute more to charity than liberals.

jernfrost 10y ago
I don't think that is given. My home country Norway is mainly liberal but we give a lot to charity. But as a liberal myself, I don't really favor charity. I favor government solutions. I'd rather pay more taxes than pay to a charity directly. The problem I see with charity is that (1) they can't provide comprehensive solutions, (2) vulnerable to the free rider problem, (3) inefficient as much resources needs to be spent collecting donations. By comprehensive solution I mean that a lot of poverty is caused by complex set of factors. E.g. the person might lack job skills and have a mental health problem. Thus they need mental health care and a job training program. Putting together something like that is something a modern welfare state is quite capable of doing, while charity doesn't really have a solution. Charity is for giving you food when you are hungry or giving your emergency care. Charity is poorly suited for having a long term medical follow up e.g. of high risk groups. E.g. Norway has one of the worlds best statistics for infant mortality. A lot of that is because there are extensive checkups through the pregnancy. Everything related to a pregnancy is completely free. For other health care there is usually a minimum fee. The US in the contrast has terrible infant mortality rate and that is mainly due to poor checkups. Charity in the US has been unable to solve that problem. All they can do is give hungry people food or patch them up. Charity can't solve systematic problems.
- paulddraper 10y ago
  The problem I see with government welfare programs is that (1) they must provide comprehensive solutions with legal obligations, making the system prone to abuse (2) vulnerable to the "give me everything I want or I'll take it by force" problem (3) inefficient as much resources needs to be spent on re-election, playing politics, and dodging budget cuts.
- thomastjeffery 10y ago
  > The problem I see with charity is that (1) they can't provide comprehensive solutions, (2) vulnerable to the free rider problem, (3) inefficient as much resources needs to be spent collecting donations. The problem I see with government solutions is that (1) they can't provide comprehensive solutions, (2) vulnerable to the free rider problem, (3) inefficient as many resources need to be spent collecting and distributing taxes.

humanrebar 10y ago

> ...conservatives tend to regard poverty as a self-inflicted state... Conservatives see poverty as being at least partly a social problem. They just don't see bureaucratization as a healthy solution to the problem. It's common to refer to conservatives who have a more liberal view of poverty as "compassionate", but it's just a word, not a judgement. > It's common to refer to conservatives who have a more liberal view of poverty as "compassionate", but it's just a word, not a judgement. Let's flip this around and see how it sounds: "It's common to refer to liberals who have a more conservative view of poverty as 'intelligent liberals'". Point being, "compassionate conservative" comes across judgy, no matter how it was meant. George W. Bush coined that line during the 2000 presidential campaign and was criticized along these lines back then, too.