Poverty Rate in US Rises to 12.7 Percent

[MaxS]

No, i expect you to tell me what you think would happen if we hypothetically brainwashed everyone into working really really hard and assuming the most generous of circumstances (there are jobs available, they all have places to live, they all have skills and education, ect.). What would happen to proverty? Do you think it would merely cease to exist?

Actually under those extremely idealized conditions yes.

It is because people don't have the opportunities that poverty exists, no?

 

[ron damon]

assuming the most generous of circumstances (there are jobs available, they all have places to live, they all have skills and education, ect.)

hmm, I think this is where most people get lost, since if all of the above (or most, or even some) is a precondition to prosperity, how did it ever arise in the first place?

 

[Smurf]

Actually under those extremely idealized conditions yes.

It is because people don't have the opportunities that poverty exists, no?

I disagree.

hmm, I think this is where most people get lost, since if all of the above (or most, or even some) is a precondition to prosperity, how did it ever arise in the first place?

What on Earth are you talking about?

 

[MaxS]

I disagree.

Er... I'm lost then, I always thought so. Enlighten me =D

 

[Smurf]

Er... I'm lost then, I always thought so. Enlighten me =D

Poverty is unavoidable in this system even under ideal economic conditions. I was going to illustrate that, but he refused to respond.

 

[MaxS]

Why? If everyone is able to get a good education and find a good job, why would there be poverty?

 

[Smurf]

Why? If everyone is able to get a good education and find a good job, why would there be poverty?

Well there's a difference between being able to get a good job and there being jobs "available" (which there arn't - but hypothetically). Also, if everyone in poverty got a good job one day, someone has to, in time, take their place as the bottom of the hierarchy, if there is no poverty it will be created. Capitalism can not sustain equality.

 

[MaxS]

Ah but poverty has nothing to do with equality.

Poverty is about subsistance living. If you make just enough to live, or less, you are in poverty. If you make anything more than what is necessary, you are not in poverty.

 

[Smurf]

Ah but poverty has nothing to do with equality.

Poverty is about subsistance living. If you make just enough to live, or less, you are in poverty. If you make anything more than what is necessary, you are not in poverty.

Yes. Capitalism, in such inability to sustain equality, will push some people up and some people down, some people will be pushed too far down - inevitably. That's what I meant. Even if we brainwashed everyone to work real hard they still would not be able to get out of poverty (or they would, but someone else would take their place).

 

[loseyourname]

Yes. Capitalism, in such inability to sustain equality, will push some people up and some people down, some people will be pushed too far down - inevitably. That's what I meant. Even if we brainwashed everyone to work real hard they still would not be able to get out of poverty (or they would, but someone else would take their place).

Saying that there is a theoretical impediment to a capitalistic economy providing the very basics to stay above the poverty line to an entire population does not make it the case, Smurf. In practice, it's never happened, because of both the inability to work of some, the refusal of others, and the non-availability of jobs to others (I'll never understand why everyone has to be such an absolutist on the causes of poverty when it seems obvious to an agendaless viewpoint that there is a huge litany of reasons), but there is no a priori impossibility of universal non-poverty. Capitalism is an economy in any way predicated on human manufacturing and/or service requires inequality, but it does not require anybody to "pushed down" in an absolute sense. Having people live in poverty is not doing anything to help capitalism. Not even the most ingenious corporate bloodsucking shark has devised a way to profit off of the unemployed receiving government assistance, much less the homeless and neglected.

 

[Burnsys]

in 2001 we had an economic crisis here in argentina. in a period of 2 months poverty increased from 25% to 50%, we have a population of 35.000.000. With your theory ron damon, i gues that in 2 months 875000 people decided togheter they wanted to be poor..

 

[loseyourname]

I think he's addressing poverty in the US. Not to say that he's right, but bringing in examples from other countries doesn't do anything for this particular thread. "US" is in the title, after all.

Edit: Just to be fair to Ron, also, I think we can assume that he will grant that, during times of crisis at least, there will be causes of poverty other than human laziness, even in the US.

 

[ron damon]

in 2001 we had an economic crisis here in argentina. in a period of 2 months poverty increased from 25% to 50%, we have a population of 35.000.000. With your theory ron damon, i gues that in 2 months 875000 people decided togheter they wanted to be poor..

The Argentinian debacle is an entirely different situation, which involves macroeconomic mishandling and a political class that is corrupt to the bones.

 

[ron damon]

I think he's addressing poverty in the US. Not to say that he's right, but bringing in examples from other countries doesn't do anything for this particular thread. "US" is in the title, after all.

Edit: Just to be fair to Ron, also, I think we can assume that he will grant that, during times of crisis at least, there will be causes of poverty other than human laziness, even in the US.

What I'm addressing are more long-term phenomena like the backwardness of the Mezzogiorno, or the East German economic freeze after reunification.

Also, labeling it as "laziness" is an extreme mischaracterization. What it involves is the problem of why some groups of humans are able to effectively transform the world to their advantage, while others remain like deers caught in the headlights, utterly unable to advance their own happiness and self-realization, even while others under similar or worse conditions zoom ahead.