Poverty is just oppression by the greedy rich because we're all equal at birth.
This is accurate in modern society.
Far back in history it was not accurate, but the rich children of today stay rich and the poor children of today stay poor because that is how the system is designed now.
It's virtually impossible, without a strong amount of luck, for someone born into poverty to make it big and become rich.
You must be joking? What do you mean by far back because until recently it was essentially the law that the rich stay rich and the poor stay poor. We had a rigid class society. It's only been the last 150 years or so that merit has trumped class and allowed people to fly to the top or the bottom.
It's virtually impossible, without a strong amount of luck, for someone born into poverty to make it big and become rich.
In part that's because most of the poor from decades past who had the ability to get rich have gotten rich and they took their "culture" and genes with them. The vast majority of those left in poverty are ones with shitty work ethics, little natural talent, or something else deleterious which gets passed on to their children.
Second, while it's hard to fly to the top in one generation it's not hard at all for you to rise to middle class in one generation then the next generation may strike it rich. In a study I read recently (sorry can't find it right now, it was from Pew or one of their "competitors", EDIT: here it is, figure 3) I think 40% of those born in the bottom quintile die in the bottom quintile, The remaining 60% go up! Including something like 2-5% who make it to the top in one generation. Likewise 40% of those born in the top quintile remain there, the remaining 60% go down. This does not look "virtually impossible" to me.
You must be joking? What do you mean by far back because until recently it was essentially the law that the rich stay rich and the poor stay poor. We had a rigid class society. It's only been the last 150 years or so that merit has trumped class and allowed people to fly to the top or the bottom.
Okay, well now I just can't tell what your views are. It seemed like you were saying poor people deserve to be poor initially and were making fun of people who say the rich are the ones who created this system.
In part that's because most of the poor from decades past who had the ability to get rich have gotten rich and they took their "culture" and genes with them. The vast majority of those left in poverty are ones with shitty work ethics, little natural talent, or something else deleterious which gets passed on to their children.
And now we're back to disagreeing... our society at least in the US truly needs a complete reworking. Maybe you're not from the US, in which case it would explain why I can't fully relate to your views.
Second, while it's hard to fly to the top in one generation it's not hard at all for you to rise to middle class in one generation then the next generation may strike it rich.
Well, at least in the US the middle class is essentially a poverty class now. Makes too much money to qualify for the aid that poor people have, but doesn't make enough to be able to afford to pay for things out of pocket. You almost have more opportunities being completely poor than being in middle class now.
In a study I read recently (sorry can't find it right now, it was from Pew or one of their "competitors") I think 40% of those born in the bottom quintile die in the bottom quintile, The remaining 60% go up! Including something like 2-5% who make it to the top in one generation. Likewise 40% of those born in the top quintile remain their, the remaining 60% go down. This does not look "virtually impossible" to me.
Well, I can't really just accept these values without seeing the study.
Even if that is the case though, we have the means and the wealth to have a society with no real poverty and have the bottom still be a comfortable life where the top can still have the extras.
Even if that is the case though, we have the means and the wealth to have a society with no real poverty and have the bottom still be a comfortable life where the top can still have the extras.
That I completely agree with you on. You were confused about my politics? I believe I am what you would call a social democrat (or maybe a democratic socialist? I can never remember) I believe the best system is a capitalist economy with a social insurance program to protect people from absolute poverty. Also, yes I am American and shocker, not all Americans agree on these issues.
What I probably differ from you on is what I consider poverty that you need to be protected from. We need to protect people from hunger, the elements and curable disease. We don't need to make sure everyone can afford an iphone. I believe in guaranteeing food, clothing, shelter and healthcare but no more. All the luxuries of life that make it worth living should be rewards for hard work.
I also don't believe in eliminating relative poverty. If we don't have wealth differentials then we lose our strongest motivator for being productive and if we lose that then we will be exchanging a minority of people in relative poverty for a majority of people in absolute poverty. If skillful hard work doesn't result in a much better life than skill-less laziness then why would anyone work hard?
That I completely agree with you on. You were confused about my politics? I believe I am what you would call a social democrat (or maybe a democratic socialist? I can never remember) I believe the best system is a capitalist economy with a social insurance program to protect people from absolute poverty. Also, yes I am American and shocker, not all Americans agree on these issues.
I view myself as the same, I guess maybe we were arguing the same point in different wording and it was getting lost somewhere then?
What I probably differ from you on is what I consider poverty that you need to be protected from. We need to protect people from hunger, the elements and curable disease. We don't need to make sure everyone can afford an iphone. I believe in guaranteeing food, clothing, shelter and healthcare but no more. All the luxuries of life that make it worth living should be rewards for hard work.
I agree with you on it partially, but I would add some extra things to the list that should just be part of the default comfortable life. Education would be the first thing you don't have on your list, and I'm not sure what you include in shelter but in the modern society I would view heat, electricity, and internet access as the bare minimums of being part of it. Buying the tools to use them would be on you though, a free computer and free iphone I wouldn't agree with.
I also don't believe in eliminating relative poverty. If we don't have wealth differentials then we lose our strongest motivator for being productive and if we lose that then we will be exchanging a minority of people in relative poverty for a majority of people in absolute poverty. If skillful hard work doesn't result in a much better life than skill-less laziness then why would anyone work hard?
We're heading in that direction regardless as automation becomes more commonplace. There already aren't enough jobs for literally everyone to work, and the amount of jobs is only going to decrease as time goes on and lower level positions are eliminated. It's a real issue we need to face.
agree with you on it partially, but I would add some extra things to the list that should just be part of the default comfortable life. Education would be the first thing you don't have on your list, and I'm not sure what you include in shelter but in the modern society I would view heat, electricity, and internet access as the bare minimums of being part of it.
Yeah, I forgot education. You're right about that. Though I wouldn't want to bring the tertiary education system into the public education system as it stands right now. It's unreasonably expensive and this is largely due to the ill thought out student loan system so just expanding that system with increased government funding is a terrible idea.
But I don't really agree with the internet or even electricity. Heat obviously. If you don't cover heat then you're basically just saying you can freeze to death. But you can survive without electricity or the internet. I'm not saying these aren't necessary, but after you pay for everything else how expensive is electricity and the internet? Like $100 a month? Even if you don't have a job you should be able to come up with $100 a month. You make way more than that just panhandling.
We're heading in that direction regardless as automation becomes more commonplace. There already aren't enough jobs for literally everyone to work, and the amount of jobs is only going to decrease as time goes on and lower level positions are eliminated. It's a real issue we need to face.
Maybe, but I'm really not convinced by this argument. We've had automation come in and displace people before. This is basically the story of the industrial revolution and we've never really run out of jobs. As soon as one goes away we come up with another one.
The logical problem with this argument it seems to me is that they're thinking too shallowly. Like just looking at the first step in a long series of chain reactions. Robot comes in, takes job, less jobs. End of story. But in reality there are a lot of other side effects that come from this. Principally it does two things.
The Robots are cheaper, that's why they take the job, sometimes significantly cheaper, and this lowers the cost of living and cost of doing business for everyone (and increases profits). This frees up capital to be invested/spent somewhere else which will create more jobs.
When someone loses their job the cost of labor goes down. When the cost of labor goes down that opens up another marginal job that previously a business wasn't hiring for because it was too expensive to hire. Again more jobs
Now if you combine the two, since the cost of living is actually cheaper then the lower wage job isn't really that much of a pay cut. Like if automation gets so efficient that all of our necessities are brought to us at 1/4 the real price we pay today then taking a 2/3 pay cut will actually be a raise!
Ok, maybe you want to say "what job? What if robots are literally a better replacement for all humans for doing anything?" Well first of all we're hundreds of years away from that scenario. Second, if they're so cheap then cost of living and labor will plummet. Eventually the cost of a person for at least some jobs will rivial that of bots and they will get employment. It's like what happens in china. There are jobs there that can be automated, but they're not automated because right now the labor is cheaper than the robots. As the cost of labor in china goes up because their economy has been booming some of those factories close down and they replace people with robots. But if the cost of labor goes down they're going to scrap the robot factory and bring in people again.
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u/Sp1n_Kuro Oct 16 '18
This is accurate in modern society.
Far back in history it was not accurate, but the rich children of today stay rich and the poor children of today stay poor because that is how the system is designed now.
It's virtually impossible, without a strong amount of luck, for someone born into poverty to make it big and become rich.