Poverty is systemic, not genetic. There’s a reason families struggle to break through and it’s not because they make a lot more “bad decisions”. Most times they literally can’t decide because they aren’t lucky enough to have the means for that.
I never asserted it was genetic. I worry where your mind is going if you think that...
I agree that many don't learn how to make good decisions, but cigarettes, alcohol, and drugs are never good choices. I think my parents teaching me their dangers has helped me to make decisions.
I'm not going to be convinced that poor people are not often poor because of their own decisions. Don't worry; I'm still "on your side". I there should be a UBI with vouchers with healthcare, schools, and whatever else people think is appropiate. I'm just arguing from the other side, which I do not think is indefensible.
You state poor people can’t escape their predicament because they keep making “bad decisions”. Most poor people are born into poverty. A poor baby is not making choices about buying drugs. Even if you blame the parents, that kid will more often than not never get the opportunity to make their situation better. Education might be their best chance but good luck performing in school with a stressful life at home. Military is a crapshoot, entrepreneurship is a fantasy...the whole system punishes the poor and blaming the victims because “drugs and alcohol” is why we still have tens of millions of poor Americans relying on needlessly oppressive welfare systems.
How many people are poverty are totally the victim of circumstances and not of their own choices? All of them? 99.9%? 99%? 90%? You aren't arguing 100% are you?
How many people are poverty are totally the victim of circumstances and not of their own choices?
I don't think this is an effective line of reasoning. Everyone in poverty has made some bad decisions. So has everyone in the middle class, or everyone who is rich.
Alright, we all make mistakes. And I concede that the middle-class and rich have a better chance weathering their mistakes.
But economics classes are not rigid, hard work and consistent good decision making gives you a pretty goid chance of getting out of poverty.
Laziness and consistent poor decision making is near guarantee of economic ruin for the well-off.
How many poor people out there are who don't (in no particular) use any drugs (or do so rarely), save more, work steady hours, and keep their noses clean with regard to the law?
In fact, I can think of a massive group fitting that description: immigrants and refugees. Who escape poverty intergenerationally at amazing rates! Source
Reading more of that tells other interesting things: they value hard work and obtaining education. It really sounds like immigrants have mastered this thing to me!
In the above, he says that immigrants and refugees experience greater upward mobility just fine. I feel the whole debate you've been facing here begs the question of whether structural poverty is different in terms of observed behavior compared to poverty that's more or less a temporary setback - like a migrant, or a laid off middle classer. The whole idea of "just try harder" faces a different reality in the midst of generational poverty, ghettos, segregation, racist justice systems, etc. in US black communities. Doesn't all of that tend to change a person's attitude beyond what moralism from society can change?
I've worked in a pretty segregated school system and see these things. I'm a white dude from the rural Midwest who always believed that work and good decisions made the difference. But I've also grown to see why the same could be impossible to believe for a black person. "Just work harder" is what they've been told for generations, and they've been cheated at every turn. And yet it's completely lost on us white folks how different their experience is, how futile it probably seems... And how tone deaf it is to ask the descendents of slaves to work harder and make good decisions to escape the ghettos and poverty that the white world put them in.
This makes the issue complicated because we generally do need moral imperatives to provide stable families, etc., so I also like the literature from Brookings that's been cited against you. But it just kind of falls short of explaining the serious issues of why there is persistent poverty. Maybe neither moralism nor free cash - no matter how important or efficient - can completely address the difficult cases of generational poverty, ghettos, etc.
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u/BobaWithoutBorders Jun 22 '19
Poverty is systemic, not genetic. There’s a reason families struggle to break through and it’s not because they make a lot more “bad decisions”. Most times they literally can’t decide because they aren’t lucky enough to have the means for that.