I recently got into a debate with one of my friends about poverty. She brought up the idea that poverty could be a choice, and she wasn’t talking about the wandering esthetic searching for enlightenment and swearing off all material possessions. She was talking about the idea that someone chooses to quit school or take up smoking crack and therefore chooses a life of failure. One of her main talking points was the story of two brothers who had a rough upbringing; one joined a job corps, received training, and got a job. The other has two babies he can’t take care of has been in and out of jail and is a mess in general. Her premise was the twin who didn’t make it chose not to because he would rather do drugs and make excuses about why he’s a failure, while the successful brother choose to get out and make something of himself.
I wouldn’t be writing this if I didn’t think it necessitous, if so many people actually didn’t think this way. It is lazy, irresponsible, and dangerous. To me it’s like comparing a group of guys imprisoned in a booby trapped alligator pit in the middle of the Siberian tundra. One had the speed, strength, and luck to escape, the rest didn’t maybe they couldn’t run as fast, were weaker, ran into a tripwire connected to a claymore mine, or froze to death after they made it out. The guy who made it is the exception not the rule and making him the rule is what perpetuates the problem. I’ve heard some variance of the following more times than I care to recount and often from people who consider themselves open minded and well informed “Hey don’t tell me about poverty, about growing up in a drug addled war zone in the ghetto, look at old Bill Williamson here he is the CEO of a fortune 500 company and he is from the one of the poorest neighborhoods in the country.” Bill Williamson is the exception not the rule. I think a lot of it comes from just being naïve or at least would like to give people the benefit of the doubt.
I grew up in the suburbs of Philadelphia and until I went off to university in the city I had some similar modes of thinking. Then I saw the poverty and hopelessness first hand; the pawnshops, rent-a-centers, check cashing shops, and liquor stores under thick layers of bullet proof glass on almost every corner. I’d never seen a rent-a-center, pawnshop, or bullet proof corner liquor shop in my parent’s neighborhood. Why was that? Was it because the people of my community chose not to have those things? I think the answer lies in how America deals with their poor. The people with the worst credit pay the highest interests rates in America and the people with the worst credit are, of course, the poorest people. The poor aren’t helped they are preyed upon, fed into the system while the super rich pay no interest they collect it.
The following figures, which I borrowed from Wikipedia, speak for themselves. “. In the United States at the end of 2001, 10% of the population owned 71% of the wealth and the top 1% owned 38%. On the other hand, the bottom 40% owned less than 1% of the nation’s wealth……according to this 2006 study by the Federal Reserve System, from 1989 to 2004, the distribution in the United States had been changing with indications there was a greater concentration of wealth held by the top 10% and top 1% of the population.”
Korea isn’t perfect, there are a lot of problems here, but one thing you don’t see is the human tragedy and desperation you witness in any major American city, thousands of homeless people, or people one beat away from being homeless, lacking the basic necessities of life. People living without running water or electricity. Koreans would see it as a negative reflection on their culture if fellow countrymen were living in their own excrement on every other corner in cardboard boxes. The problem in America is that a large majority of people think “Oh that lazy drug addicted pejorative for a racial minority, if just they weren’t so lazy, would get off crack and get a job they could be fine, look at that Bill Williamson.” It doesn’t have to necessarily be a race issue either if we look at terms like “trailer trash” we see it is really people wanting to think of themselves as being from a separate society than the poor other, a want to place the blame on the person living in poverty rather than accept the blame themselves. The well to do doesn’t have to feel ashamed this way; they don’t need to acknowledge that the homeless person on the corner is nothing more than a reflection of themselves and how truly gone society is.
Another problem is when one person makes money off the basic necessities another needs to survive, such as electricity, water, and medicine. I think anytime people are going without water, power, heat and medicine while others make large profits off those same services we have to cry foul.
According to the OECD fact book the US has the highest incarceration rate, per capita , of all countries listed therein with 760 per 100,000. The Russian Federation is second with 624, and South Africa a distant third at 329. On the chart we can see the huge increase in the incarceration rate from 1980 onward and I think there is a direct correlation between that and the disparity between rich and poor. I haven’t done any research yet but 1980 is the year when Reagan took office and began deregulation everything. Another interesting fact is that although the population of African Americans represents a 13% share of the US population they make up roughly 46% of the prison population.
There is a much more rigid class structure in place in America than most people are willing to admit and the poorer you are the more rigid it becomes. Years ago we had indentured servitude; the wealthy would pay for passage of a man to come to the United States in exchange for year three to seven years of that man’s labor. I’m a firm believe that the system of indentured servitude is still alive and well only instead of passage to America people are selling of their lives in five to thirty years chunks for a new car, a college education, or the “privilege” of owning a home. The guy with fifty million dollars in his bank account is the one to which servitude is paid. Let’s say he makes 3 percent interest on his fifty million, that’s 1.5 million a year that comes from the interest paid by borrowers. No wonder it’s illegal to borrow or lend at interest in Islam.
The really ironic thing is even the well to do play into the game, the more they make the more they spend, a bigger mortgage, bigger car loan, and bigger bills. It’s really what separates the rich from everyone else, if you’re rich you’re collecting interest if you’re not your paying it. That’s it. There are some that like to turn it into a grand conspiracy, a select few lurking in the shadows, pulling the strings, they throw around words like the illuminati, freemasons, conspiracy, shadow government, and Rockefellers but its not a conspiracy it’s the way things work. To call conspiracy just delegitimizes a heartbreakingly serious problem and if there is any conspiracy I would be more prone to believe the people crying conspiracy are part of a conspiracy to turn something plain and simple into something shadowy and disreputable.
Ultimately a society is responsible for the worst of what it produces. I think the first step in fixing the problems of hopelessness and poverty in the United States is saying ‘hey this is a serious problem and we all share in fault; it’s a reflection of us a nation and a people not a reflection of a segment of the population.”
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I don’t have a lot of time to elaborate further than I will here tonight, as I need to get some sleep. But, I wanted to speak to the ‘state of the union’.
I also wanted to say, that I am a Canadian, and that I am not here expressing any ill-will towards the wonderful Americans I have met here in Korea, and elsewhere. I am just making quasi-educated mutterings brought forth by a Northern Canadian Social Welfare education – for what it’s worth.
Capitalism is a beautiful dichotomy. It allows people with a lot of money to keep making more of it, and it gives people hope that they can have their slice of the pie if they perform well.
‘The American Dream’ is the single largest reason capitalism has been able to squeeze the people of America so tightly compared to other western nations who had adopted, and adapted their version of capitalism.
Most Americans truly believe that the way to prosperity (and heck, America is still the richest nation on Earth last time I checked) is to ensure that governments keep their hands out of the people’s pockets. Individuals surely know how to spent their money better, smarter, and more efficiently than a government does, right?
There’s something to be said about Costco. It’s a HUGE place. I love going in there, trying to fathom all kinds of ways that I might use the 6 kilograms of ketchup I have to buy for myself because they won’t sell me a human-sized portion.
But Costco has it right. They buy in bulk, sell in bulk, and STILL make a profit. Governments can do that too, and there are plenty of areas in society where choice doesn’t really matter all that much, but where great savings can be had.
Take care insurance for instance. When’s the last time you sat down with your car insurance company, and had anything to say to them? Have they ever had anything to say to you, besides “Sir, your bill is way past-due, please, pay today.” Yeah, me neither.
Imagine a country, where there’s one set of managers in charge of car insurance. Everybody pays into the system to have their cars, and their lives while operating their cars, insured. There aren’t 87 CEO’s making millions of dollars, there’s one guy. There’s a centralized system of payment, and a local guy who drives over with his camera to take pictures of the car crash, and cut you a cheque. Tons of red tape averted, and everybody gets the same service, at a lower cost.
And that’s just one industry. Don’t get me started on others.
Back to Capitalism. It’s a system that REQUIRES that a small, easily identifiable portion of the population fails. And America’s great at letting these people stand out. Food stamps? Unbelievable. Bringing a coupon to a grocery store to buy food?
“Oh look, Charlie is trying to buy cigarettes with his food stamps! “What an asshole!”
Hey suzy, I will take a pack of Marlboro lights please.”
“Yes, cash.”
“Thanks!”
Observable, measurable failure is what keeps the majority of working stiffs in line, and keeps those with a few extra bucks striving for that ‘American Dream’.
Since 1970, the take home wage for a family in most Western nations has went down, and that’s with more women working as well. Capitalism was designed by, and made for, the winners. There’s nothing historically ordinary about Capitalism. When I think about capitalism, I think of Maslow, and his hierarchy of needs. If you can’t take care of yourself, how can you begin to achieve, or even think of achieving, anything else? Just the way they want it.
This is very interesting and articulates a significant and insidious problem with our system at its core. Step 2 is finding a realistic solution, and I’m very doubtful that those who stand to benefit from the current paradigm would tolerate dethronement. When you have billions of dollars and control the media that the poorest segments of the population tune into every night, you have no trouble finding creative ways to pit the lower and middle classes against one another over religious, political, and other petty issues designed to divide in order to further an empire that indeed does prey on the ignorance it perpetuates.
While I agree with much of your article, and the analogy of folks getting “trapped” is very accurate…
I do need to point out that the reason that ” The people with the worst credit pay the highest interests rates in America and the people with the worst credit are, of course, the poorest people.” isn’t because folks are trying to prey on them — it’s because the risk associated with lending money to people who have the highest chance of not paying you back requires a higher interest rate.
This is basic economics. If you have $100 to lend out, and you can make a loan for $100 to your rich ceo aunt Sally who has a $250k / year job, or your cousin Bill who works part time at the gas-n-go — who do you choose? The obvious answer is the rich aunt Sally– she will most likely pay you back. The only way that the cousin Bill becomes more attractive as an investment option, is if he is willing to pay back significantly more money than Sally. If Sally has a 1/100 chance of not paying me back, and Bill has a 1/5 chance of not paying me back — you’d expect the interest on the loan to roughly reflect that.
You have no moral obligation to lend me money, and if you choose to do so, you are justified in charging interest at whatever the market will bear.
As you point out, there is no evil conspiracy, but there is a lot of ignorance and poor decision making. Borrowing money for something that isn’t going to earn you a return on that money, is a bad idea. Period.
I tend to agree that the system of capitalism (which everyone actively supports and participates in when they spend money) has the potential for a vast majority of the wealth to be controlled by the few..
With the sort of education, directed action and buy-in you would need to remove capitalism — you’d probably have an easier time just having a population of super educated, informed consumers.. who wouldn’t take out loans they can’t afford, who would shop locally, barter, and share in such away that collective action would offset the downside of capitalism.
Yuan, currency of China, stronger each day, stable, unmanipulated, about to become world currency of trade, replacing the fiat U.S. Dollar, and an equalizer, point of reference, for American citizens as a creeping Socialism in America forces an unwilling sharing of the little wealth remaining. The Fed’s water down the American dollar, reducing its purchasing power, reducing the fortunes of the wealthy as we speak, reducing their influence, and starving out the lower classes. America’s Middle Class under fire, proletariat converted to precariat by economic, capitalist force, dropped off the medical insurance schemes, forced to the unemployables lines, prisons, shanty towns, tent cities, lower classes die in the streets without decent medical care. Facts of life – for American citizens.
Third World conditions in once proud Motor City, see Detroit ruins, photos on this very net. Yes, it is so happening, to America.
Gasoline prices at the pumps across America, higher than ever, in spite of the sacrifices, higher taxes, the proletariat pay for the misadventure of the Uber-Rich, the oil barons, Bush and his Saudi family friends and the fiasco in Iraq. Bush keeps Saddam’s stuffed scrotum on his mantle. Very expensive trophy indeed.
Imbalances, causing wobble in the wheels of justice in America, allow corporatists opportunity to use their wealth to influence government, even the judicial favors them now, over the proletariat, the precariat. Votes of the peons, the patriots, almost impotent in America.
Lobbyists wreak havoc in Washington, now corporations vie with each other, with huge donations to influence, sway, the folks elected by the people to represent the people’s well being, a long lost but noble notion.
Two party system does not really allow for alternative choices, both parties corporatist controlled, lobbyist regulated.
China devotes Billions for better, safer, Thorium fueled reactor designs. China has better reactors now. Google Tsinghua University, China, pebble bed gas reactors. China has, up and running, nuclear/electric bullet train networks and their associated nuclear/electric powered infrastructures, manufacturing, oil free, goods for world markets, at lower prices than America can. China focuses now on replacing older reactor designs with fail-safe thorium fueled, cheaper to run, reactors and expanding their nuclear powered bullet train network infrastructures concept, across all Asia, even to Siberia, Myanmar, Vietnam, even into India, Pakistan.
China manufacturing 100 million gasoline burning cars for domestic markets, will bid against Americans with stronger Yuan, for a larger share of gasoline, Americans will see price increases, even if more oil is found.
Very narrowly focused, ROI (Return on Investment) and share-holder protecting Corporations, under the current American situation, go head to head with Chinese communist economic plans and lose dramatically. China now replacing America as manufacturers to the world.
We witness the last days of the last, the greatest, Caucasian empire the world will ever know, and the rising, in the East, of its replacement, the Asian, Chinese empire.
America’s ‘Glory Days’ are coming to an end, an end marked by economic defeat on the world’s economic battlefields of America by China. China did not turn up for the WWII style battle America intended, prepared for, Surprise!
Watch closely now as Chinese Thorium fueled reactors dominate the world with cheap, clean electric power, China increasingly move the Yuan into position of strength, and America, stuck on stupid, clings to oil deals made in the 1930′s, continues on its foreign oil energy based economy, paying ransom to the OPEC parasite countries, watering down its dollar so it will go further, amassing ever larger debt, catering to the Banksters that rob America blind, fueling the finance and legal aspirations for its students, suppressing science, engineering in the nation, turning ever-inward, xenophobic, hegemonic, drounding in pollution, and eventually dying in Third Word slums like Detroit City.
Are we witnessing the slow death of the last, the greatest, Caucasian empire the world will ever know? you tell me.
Yes, the world is a challenging place. And the obstacles it throws at you require some self-discipline, insight, and perseverance to get through and even prevail. Without these traits (and, sure, a little luck helps) you will fail regardless of your economic station.
Life’s difficulties vary for everyone, and you can decide that it’s too much trouble to overcome them, or that the work isn’t worth the betterment it would bring, or that impulsive pursuits are more alluring than future benefits. Those are your choices.
There is no government philosophy that can cure the ills and give everyone a equal slice of the pie. The best we can do is to establish a government that keeps everyone safe, and provides them an open market so they have the opportunity to pursue their own individual route through the world. That route may involve saving, improving one’s self, and building a positive network; or it may involve satisfying your instant gratification. Whichever route you choose, you have to be accountable for your choices. When we deny people the ability to choose, and the accountability for their choices, we deny them their human dignity. And dignity is not determined by the grandeur of your house or the size of your pocketbook…it is so much more.
I had the good fortune to have grown until 10 in a middle-class home and neighbourhood, and then our family fell on hard times for a few years and we lived in hungry poverty, up a hollow in Bull’s Creek and Sugar Flats, a rented dirt floor shack with an outhouse wobbling by a ‘crick’. From which I agree with your sentiments, poverty is the result of disease and ill health.. poor physical health and more often, poor mental health. Those of good health soon escaped poverty’s grip, but the struggling rest stayed on. My family, continuing our good fortune, had good health, one and all, and we re-emerged, the better for it.