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plutherusI'm moving one part of a thread from 31seel's thread on smoking in order to just reply to one line in it:
This is precisely why we will never see and end to poverty. In order for some one to be rich, some one has to be poor.
Which I do not agree with, and felt the need to point out why, although it once again distracts me from my post about the play Outrage:
It all depends on your definition of poverty. If you define a poor man as someone who has less money than those around him, then, yeah, we'll always have poverty (unless we institute some kind of super-Draconian communist regime or something, and probably even then).
That's the definition I believed while growing up, when I thought myself poor because I never had the latest toys, and my family only had a single TV, which was black-and-white.
However, I think a better definition of poor would be someone who does not have, or cannot count on having from day to day, the following:
- Enough food to keep them alive and healthy
- A place to sleep sheltered from the elements
- Enough leisure time to pursue activities that would improve their life. (That is, not spending 100% of your waking hours simply trying to maintain the first two)
If the above is the definition of poverty, then we could wipe out poverty altogether. We (that is, the people of the US overall, not any one particular one of us), have more than enough resources to do it easily. The only thing we lack is the political will to do so. (Easy in the US, but even world-wide, it's still a problem of politics, not of resources).
This is precisely why we will never see and end to poverty. In order for some one to be rich, some one has to be poor.
Which I do not agree with, and felt the need to point out why, although it once again distracts me from my post about the play Outrage:
It all depends on your definition of poverty. If you define a poor man as someone who has less money than those around him, then, yeah, we'll always have poverty (unless we institute some kind of super-Draconian communist regime or something, and probably even then).
That's the definition I believed while growing up, when I thought myself poor because I never had the latest toys, and my family only had a single TV, which was black-and-white.
However, I think a better definition of poor would be someone who does not have, or cannot count on having from day to day, the following:
- Enough food to keep them alive and healthy
- A place to sleep sheltered from the elements
- Enough leisure time to pursue activities that would improve their life. (That is, not spending 100% of your waking hours simply trying to maintain the first two)
If the above is the definition of poverty, then we could wipe out poverty altogether. We (that is, the people of the US overall, not any one particular one of us), have more than enough resources to do it easily. The only thing we lack is the political will to do so. (Easy in the US, but even world-wide, it's still a problem of politics, not of resources).
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What I mean is
Date: 2003-03-06 04:07 pm (UTC)So, suppose that your health benefits are costing your employer some money that would best serve some stock holder. They will cut, trim and remove what little benefit you are receiving from working there until you are nothing more than a piece of meat... energy turning over a product for which you are paid almost nothing. Remember the Matrix.
There is a new category... another income bracket known as "the working poor." These are people who make enough money not to qualify for any social services, but cannot afford to pay for the employer offered medical "benefit" if you could call them that. I fit into this category.
A place to sleep - many people can't afford rents. Why? Because it is driven up by the property owners to make as much money as possible.
Medical benefits - you know how much I earn. I am pretty sure I told you. Imagine earning that little, and having to pay $218 per month for a medical plan that has a $500 deductible and a copay. Why? Because the firm I work for doesn't want to pay for its employees to have a decent medical plan. Why? Because some bean counter is trying to put as much money as possible into the hands of the stock holders.
Time - Who the hell has time? We work 8 hours a day. If you sleep 8 that is 16 hours of your day dedicated to work and sleep: both necessary for survival. If you commute to work 1 hour each way, you have used up 18 hours of your day. If you shower and eat breakfast before heading out to going to work, then add another hour to that. 19 hours, so far. Should I keep counting?
The system is set up to benefit a very few. All of us have bought into that game. The only way out is to take the blue pill instead, and pretend that this is healthy. This is the approach most of us will take because boy, we sure do like the false sense of security we get... and the toys aren't bad either. Others will develop intentional communities and stop playing the game altogether. This is hard work.... at first, and most people don't have the patience for it.
Re: What I mean is
Date: 2003-03-07 05:00 pm (UTC)This is a matter of political will, not resources. If all Americans decided tomorrow that all Americans should have full health coverage, we could do it easily. The trick is getting all (or, at least, a majority) of Americans to decide that.
I love the ideals behind capitalism: the idea that people will work harder and be more innovative if they can personally gain from doing so. I love the system that rewards people for contributing to society. However, there needs to be socialist (dare I use the word?) institutions as well. Our public schools are in major crisis because they're constantly having their budgets cut. They're dying (if not already dead) because nobody can figure out a way to make money off of them, and can't see that something that doesn't turn a direct profit is still worth doing. In the system we have now the people contributing the most to society are the ones benefitting the least from it. What's the Bush family ever done for anyone other than the Bush family friends? The idea that rich people are the ones creating jobs hasn't been true since the early 80's, when it was discovered that there was easier money to be made from tearing down the nation's infrastructure than from building it up, and thus the corporate raider was born. Yeah, capitalism is good, but with no checks or balances, we will very quickly get to just a few wealthy landowners, and subsistence farmers working to make them even richer. Welcome back, feudalism.
Anyway, I'm ranting, and it's past my bedtime, so I'm gonna go to sleep now....
You are a moderate socialist
Date: 2003-03-07 06:54 pm (UTC)The sort of social awakening you are suggesting isn't likely to occur, since for the most part the ideal of "rugged individualism" which motivated the expansion westward has been turned into the "look out for number one" philosophy that gave birth to the "me generation." As long as people are able to eat the crumbs as they fall of the Master's plate they will not complain... but praise the Master's generosity. Welcome back to feudalism indeed.