6 ms·

The only "algorithm" proven to fight poverty was discovered a long time ago and its really simple: 1. good jobs paying living wages (so parents have economic s

The only "algorithm" proven to fight poverty was discovered a long time ago and its really simple: 1. good jobs paying living wages (so parents have economic security) 2. decent, free education (so the children can have a future) 3. Well funded social welfare (because shit happens and people get sick) Aka, "social mobility" $1.16 billion is a lot of money to give to companies when it could pay for a good number of other things.

kharak 8y ago
That's not all there is to it. Germany has the lowest social mobility of all Europe, despite having all three of your points.
- Novashi 8y ago
  And America falls below Germany for social mobility, precisely because it doesn't have those things: https://www.epi.org/publication/usa-lags-peer-countries-mobility/ https://www.epi.org/publication/usa-lags-peer-countries-mobi...
- geezerjay 8y ago
  Truth be told, social mobility and poverty are two separate concepts.
  - dsfyu404ed 8y ago
    Usually the ruling class wants the masses to be content with whatever their predicament is. That's why the focus is always on making subsisting at your present level bearable (social safety nets, minimum wage, etc) and not on mobility. Edit: I don't literally believe this. I'm just saying that most people who have made it are not interested in everyone else making it to their level (that would be impossible, economics aren't zero sum but we can't all be Bill Gates). They're interested in making everyone else content.
    - TheOtherHobbes 8y ago
      It's massively cheaper just to distract people and lie to them than to go to the trouble of trying to set up social safety nets, etc.
    - shaki-dora 8y ago
      Usually the "ruling class" does not actually think of itself as the "ruling class". And even those that do consider their success correlated with that of the society they life in. Just about nobody gets far in capitalism subscribing to the the sort of zero-sum theory you allude to[1]. And even if: it'd be idiotic for them to base their decisions on such a theory, considering the "ruling class" tends to be rather old, while social mobility only has effects over several generations. If you require empirical proof, look no further than the super-rich' historically preferred mode of philanthropy: the scholarship. Scholarships are pure social mobility: take promising young people with limited means and allow them to attend elite schools. Surely the Rhodes Scholarship, Gates Scholarship, Schwarzman Scholarship, New York Times Scholarship, or any of the thousands of these programs would not exist in the cynical world you describe. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schwarzman_Scholars https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schwarzman_Scholars [1]: I had a quip about current presidents being the exception here. But as it turns out, the Miss America Scholarship is among the largest in the US.
    - pinioux 8y ago
      I actually think that the economy is sort of a zerosum game. I think previous economists upon whom we base these ideas subconciously bought into the idea that resources are practically unilimited. And until now we have managed to get everything we need from the earth and the sun. But I think that the limits are aproaching quickly and even things like becoming multiplanetary will not fix things in the short run. It might save is when the third world war breaks loose. Which is innevitability to me, because of the depleting resources. De west VS the east. Technologically the east will first catch up, but the power won't be yielded so easily by the west. Russia and China know this.
    - geezerjay 8y ago
      > Usually the ruling class wants the masses to be content with whatever their predicament is. That conspiracy theory is immaterial to the discussion. The point is that social mobility and poverty are orthogonal concepts. You can have zero poverty but no social mobility, or high poverty and high social mobility. To put it differently, the reason why being born in a middle class family is a strong indicator that an individual will live a middle class life, with a low probability of becoming either upper class or lowe class, is not poverty. > I'm just saying that most people who have made it are not interested in everyone else making it to their level (that would be impossible, economics aren't zero sum but we can't all be Bill Gates). They're interested in making everyone else content. The assertion about "not being interested" is meaningless. I'm not interested in anyone winning the lottery, but that does not mean I don't want anyone to win or even that I intend to take any sort of action to stop anyone from ever having a chance of winning a prize. It just mean that I don't spend any time thinking about others winning lotteries because I have far more interesting and engaging things to do. That's what we all do. How much time do we collectively spend doing anything to actually tackle a hard problem such as hunger and war? Is that an indicator we want everyone to die from a combination of starvation and violence? Of course not. So, why is this vague notion of caring about somethong being conflated with being actively engaged in causing a problem?
- poulsbohemian 8y ago
  I suspect one could find data that would say if you can receive an education, health care, and have supportive work, then at some point you don't need to be "rich" to be content with life. Thus social mobility is moot. Compare to the US, where the base quality of life difference is considerable between median income earners and the top ten %, to say nothing of the top 1%.
saiya-jin 8y ago
You forgot accessible healthcare, if unchecked it will result in clusterf*ck you can see in US. Even relatively well-off can be one rare long term sickness away from bankruptcy. It doesn't have to be completely free, but set in a way that motivates people take care of their health, requires them participate a bit to not overwhelm the system with their petty/untreatable issues, but not ruin them.
- Aushin 8y ago
  Don't say "accessible" Just say free. Say subsidized. Say something less meaningless than accessible. Technically in the USA healthcare is 'accessible' right now. Problem is after I access it I can't pay for it.
- noir-york 8y ago
  Can assure you I didn't! "because shit happens and people get sick)" - indeed a national health service which is free at the point of use is fundamental to eradicating poverty. As someone who's family has benefited (and pays for via taxes) from a well funded national health service I believe it represents significant progress in a nation's development.
thanatropism 8y ago
The easiest way to optimize for social mobility is to randomly reallocate everyone's wealth every X years.
- treerock 8y ago
  That would kill social mobility.
  - gruez 8y ago
    why?
    - treerock 8y ago
      Social mobility requires a lot of work and money and time. How would you get a mortgage on a house, or save for your kids' education if any wealth you accrue risks getting re-allocated? (Guess it depends on your value of X)
      - gruez 8y ago
        >Social mobility requires a lot of work and money and time. I think you're conflating social mobility with income growth. all social mobility means is how easy it is to change your social status in terms of wealth. while it's true that randomly redistributing wealth will disincentivise hard work, it doesn't matter because the shuffling will still change everybody's social status.
        treerock 8y ago
        Sorry but I don't think I'm conflating anything. Social status doesn't change just because you are given money, or have it taken away.
      - TheOtherHobbes 8y ago
        Social mobility primarily requires opportunity and networking contacts - or at a minimum, the skills required to find them. Otherwise the work, money, and time are going to be wasted. As for the second part of your comment - what if you didn't need to go into debt, and education was free?
sandworm101 8y ago
That was true in the 50s/60s, but times change. Poverty today is triggered by a great many things. Today, a health crisis can destroy anyone's savings. A decent living wage means nothing should you or a member of your family get cancer. Either your have to sink all your savings into treatment and associated support or you have to stop work to take care of them yourself, mooting the wage issue. Retirement is also different today. With interest rates essentially zero, a decent wage during working years cannot provide sufficient savings for a multi-decade retirement. So people need either good pensions or ample investment opportunities. Today that is being funded by real estate but that cannot last forever. Looking at someone's entire life and the likelihood that they will suffer poverty, their working wage is only one of many factors.
- noir-york 8y ago
  Very true, but I listed three points, the third one being a well funded social welfare system. As you say people suffer disaster - work place accidents, chronic health care problems, unemployment through no fault of their own. You need well paying jobs, low unemployment, and a social safety net for economic security.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

kharak 8y ago

That's not all there is to it. Germany has the lowest social mobility of all Europe, despite having all three of your points.

Novashi 8y ago
And America falls below Germany for social mobility, precisely because it doesn't have those things: https://www.epi.org/publication/usa-lags-peer-countries-mobility/ https://www.epi.org/publication/usa-lags-peer-countries-mobi...
geezerjay 8y ago
Truth be told, social mobility and poverty are two separate concepts.
- dsfyu404ed 8y ago
  Usually the ruling class wants the masses to be content with whatever their predicament is. That's why the focus is always on making subsisting at your present level bearable (social safety nets, minimum wage, etc) and not on mobility. Edit: I don't literally believe this. I'm just saying that most people who have made it are not interested in everyone else making it to their level (that would be impossible, economics aren't zero sum but we can't all be Bill Gates). They're interested in making everyone else content.
  - TheOtherHobbes 8y ago
    It's massively cheaper just to distract people and lie to them than to go to the trouble of trying to set up social safety nets, etc.
  - shaki-dora 8y ago
    Usually the "ruling class" does not actually think of itself as the "ruling class". And even those that do consider their success correlated with that of the society they life in. Just about nobody gets far in capitalism subscribing to the the sort of zero-sum theory you allude to[1]. And even if: it'd be idiotic for them to base their decisions on such a theory, considering the "ruling class" tends to be rather old, while social mobility only has effects over several generations. If you require empirical proof, look no further than the super-rich' historically preferred mode of philanthropy: the scholarship. Scholarships are pure social mobility: take promising young people with limited means and allow them to attend elite schools. Surely the Rhodes Scholarship, Gates Scholarship, Schwarzman Scholarship, New York Times Scholarship, or any of the thousands of these programs would not exist in the cynical world you describe. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schwarzman_Scholars https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schwarzman_Scholars [1]: I had a quip about current presidents being the exception here. But as it turns out, the Miss America Scholarship is among the largest in the US.
  - pinioux 8y ago
    I actually think that the economy is sort of a zerosum game. I think previous economists upon whom we base these ideas subconciously bought into the idea that resources are practically unilimited. And until now we have managed to get everything we need from the earth and the sun. But I think that the limits are aproaching quickly and even things like becoming multiplanetary will not fix things in the short run. It might save is when the third world war breaks loose. Which is innevitability to me, because of the depleting resources. De west VS the east. Technologically the east will first catch up, but the power won't be yielded so easily by the west. Russia and China know this.
  - geezerjay 8y ago
    > Usually the ruling class wants the masses to be content with whatever their predicament is. That conspiracy theory is immaterial to the discussion. The point is that social mobility and poverty are orthogonal concepts. You can have zero poverty but no social mobility, or high poverty and high social mobility. To put it differently, the reason why being born in a middle class family is a strong indicator that an individual will live a middle class life, with a low probability of becoming either upper class or lowe class, is not poverty. > I'm just saying that most people who have made it are not interested in everyone else making it to their level (that would be impossible, economics aren't zero sum but we can't all be Bill Gates). They're interested in making everyone else content. The assertion about "not being interested" is meaningless. I'm not interested in anyone winning the lottery, but that does not mean I don't want anyone to win or even that I intend to take any sort of action to stop anyone from ever having a chance of winning a prize. It just mean that I don't spend any time thinking about others winning lotteries because I have far more interesting and engaging things to do. That's what we all do. How much time do we collectively spend doing anything to actually tackle a hard problem such as hunger and war? Is that an indicator we want everyone to die from a combination of starvation and violence? Of course not. So, why is this vague notion of caring about somethong being conflated with being actively engaged in causing a problem?
poulsbohemian 8y ago
I suspect one could find data that would say if you can receive an education, health care, and have supportive work, then at some point you don't need to be "rich" to be content with life. Thus social mobility is moot. Compare to the US, where the base quality of life difference is considerable between median income earners and the top ten %, to say nothing of the top 1%.

saiya-jin 8y ago

You forgot accessible healthcare, if unchecked it will result in clusterf*ck you can see in US. Even relatively well-off can be one rare long term sickness away from bankruptcy. It doesn't have to be completely free, but set in a way that motivates people take care of their health, requires them participate a bit to not overwhelm the system with their petty/untreatable issues, but not ruin them.

Aushin 8y ago
Don't say "accessible" Just say free. Say subsidized. Say something less meaningless than accessible. Technically in the USA healthcare is 'accessible' right now. Problem is after I access it I can't pay for it.
noir-york 8y ago
Can assure you I didn't! "because shit happens and people get sick)" - indeed a national health service which is free at the point of use is fundamental to eradicating poverty. As someone who's family has benefited (and pays for via taxes) from a well funded national health service I believe it represents significant progress in a nation's development.

thanatropism 8y ago

The easiest way to optimize for social mobility is to randomly reallocate everyone's wealth every X years.

treerock 8y ago
That would kill social mobility.
- gruez 8y ago
  why?
  - treerock 8y ago
    Social mobility requires a lot of work and money and time. How would you get a mortgage on a house, or save for your kids' education if any wealth you accrue risks getting re-allocated? (Guess it depends on your value of X)
    - gruez 8y ago
      >Social mobility requires a lot of work and money and time. I think you're conflating social mobility with income growth. all social mobility means is how easy it is to change your social status in terms of wealth. while it's true that randomly redistributing wealth will disincentivise hard work, it doesn't matter because the shuffling will still change everybody's social status.
      - treerock 8y ago
        Sorry but I don't think I'm conflating anything. Social status doesn't change just because you are given money, or have it taken away.
    - TheOtherHobbes 8y ago
      Social mobility primarily requires opportunity and networking contacts - or at a minimum, the skills required to find them. Otherwise the work, money, and time are going to be wasted. As for the second part of your comment - what if you didn't need to go into debt, and education was free?

sandworm101 8y ago

That was true in the 50s/60s, but times change. Poverty today is triggered by a great many things. Today, a health crisis can destroy anyone's savings. A decent living wage means nothing should you or a member of your family get cancer. Either your have to sink all your savings into treatment and associated support or you have to stop work to take care of them yourself, mooting the wage issue. Retirement is also different today. With interest rates essentially zero, a decent wage during working years cannot provide sufficient savings for a multi-decade retirement. So people need either good pensions or ample investment opportunities. Today that is being funded by real estate but that cannot last forever. Looking at someone's entire life and the likelihood that they will suffer poverty, their working wage is only one of many factors.

noir-york 8y ago
Very true, but I listed three points, the third one being a well funded social welfare system. As you say people suffer disaster - work place accidents, chronic health care problems, unemployment through no fault of their own. You need well paying jobs, low unemployment, and a social safety net for economic security.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]