Poverty,
like every other social force, doesn’t have one single cause. I don’t have the ability or desire to try to
make a unified strategy about how to combat it.
But I want to raise some points for us to think about.
First
of all, what has helped to reduce poverty in the US? Which means it ended it
for some. Well, Social Security greatly
reduced poverty among our elders. The
gains of the labor movement brought higher wages and better working
conditions. Until the ‘80’s, when it
became fashionable to demonize “welfare moms”, food stamps and school lunch and
breakfast programs greatly reduced hunger in the US (it’s on the rise
again). Advances in health care,
particularly when universal, made a big difference (think of the eradication of
polio).
In
my opinion, welfare and many government and charity programs, including food
and shelter provision don’t really reduce poverty primarily because they may
increase the amount of money or resources a poor person or poor family or poor
community has, they don’t usually increase the amount of economic power that a
poor person, family or community has.
They can give space for growth and development, they can keep people and
communities alive, but they by themselves don’t build economic power. And without economic power, or the ability to
create it, it’s very hard to move out of poverty.
This
is where conservatives and progressives both have something to offer. Economic
power has a lot to do with one’s character and utilization of gifts
(initiative, desire for education, determination, willingness to sacrifice, a
commitment to save and invest). Economic
power also has a lot to do with social forces (access to capital, public
investment in sectors of the economy that are developing, breaking barriers to
hiring and advancement, access to information).
I’ve
worked in building character and personal strength—particularly in young people—in
poor communities for almost 30 years, and I see how family and cultural systems
can sometimes frustrate that growth. I’ve
also seen how poor neighborhoods and poor families have been systematically
red-lined by the private sector and by government. Why hasn’t the banking industry in the US,
for example, not developed a micro-credit and savings program that could design
products that would make a difference in poor communities? They have the
knowledge and the financial capital to do so.
But the profit margins would be low (you could still make a profit) and
so can’t compete on a pure dollar basis with investments in wealthier sectors (let
alone investments in derivatives of investments of other investments).
One
more thing. As much as we might think
that everyone having the potential to gain economic power, there are forces at
play that simply do not want economic power to grow among those who have
less. The powerful almost always feel
threatened by others seeking power, and will do anything to resist that
(including restricting voting rights).
Look at what has happened in many cities and states since the recovery
from the Great Recession began. Cuts in
public workers salaries and pensions, cuts in education. This at a time of great expansion of wealth
in the country. And a continued expansion of our military budget, which is
already bigger than the next 10 nations combined (which includes Russia, China,
the UK, some pretty big spenders on bombs and warships).
I
don’t think this is going to answer my friend’s question. In fact, I hope not. I do hope that we as a
country can get serious about ending poverty.
There is also a whole lot more that could be said about global poverty
and what’s needed there—compatible technologies, debt forgiveness, health care,
climate change, moving away from economic demands based on export and so on
What
do you think?
I
started this blog to talk about my passion for justice and beauty. At the root of most injustice in the world is
economic injustice. And poverty and
hunger are the opposite of beauty.
Be
justice. Be beauty.
Patrick
