Comments on: The poor complain …

By: taj

taj — Mon, 26 Jan 2004 14:59:41 +0000

As an Indian and a current resident of New Delhi, I’d like to offer some observations on this debate. India is a shining example of what happens when the government fails the poor. The reasons why it happens are many and varied (communalism, casteism, classism, corruption, population, sexism, apathy), but the fact is that when the poor don’t have access to basic services such as healthcare and rule of law, climbing out of poverty through personal effort is effectively impossible. Worse still, when children are taught by example that there is no escape besides sucking up to those in power and projecting an image of success, most effort is going to be expended in buying nice clothes and cellphones or finding out who to bribe to get that secure government job. And the cycle continues. (There is one thing most of the slums you mentioned will have in common, though. They will have televisions) I wish I could offer solutions but I can’t. Mother Theresa was not a solution, but a bandaid. I have very high hopes for the effect of the Internet, however. Privately-owned television networks are already having a huge effect (for better or worse), but the only way to access the world’s brains and collective information in any useful way is the Internet. Hopefully this will energize the middle class, the only people who pay taxes and the only people our corrupt leaders fear.

By: Felix Grant

Felix Grant — Sun, 25 Jan 2004 15:35:24 +0000

Adding to my above comment, after reading a response to Jim Putnam’s continuation of this: I wonder why so much of this conversation is so firmly bipolar? Where is it written responsibility for ourselves and responsibility for others are mutually exclusive? We should be both. If I try to skate on a frozen puddle, and break my leg, nobody is responsible by me. If I am left lying there in the cold, and freze to death, then each passer by who didn’t stop to help is responsible for that.

By: Felix Gant

Felix Gant — Sun, 25 Jan 2004 15:35:08 +0000

By: SGL

SGL — Sat, 24 Jan 2004 17:24:13 +0000

“(Call dsquared an sentimental economic illiterate to his face, and my guess is he might beat the crap out of you with a rolled up copy of his CV.)” Gee, that’s a persuasive argument. I’m so convinced.

By: Felix Gant

Felix Gant — Sat, 24 Jan 2004 17:02:29 +0000

I’ve read read both screeds now. Having spent much of my younger life wrestling with relative poverty descriptors, trying to compare Ethiopia with DC, I’ve come to the conclusion that whatreally matters (in any place, at any level of material condition) is whether people are broken or whole. There are altogether too many broken people. And that is what should concerns us. Fuck economics – look to humanity.

By: ahem

ahem — Sat, 24 Jan 2004 07:02:42 +0000

I may have that emotional reaction, but I am also self-aware enough to use my reason to question whether it’s a sound guide to action in the real world. With respect, I think you’re cheapening the inklings of a decent argument by talking about ‘sentiment’ and ‘economic illiteracy’. (Call dsquared an sentimental economic illiterate to his face, and my guess is he might beat the crap out of you with a rolled up copy of his CV.) As I suggested, if you have any hope of surviving as a Westerner working in Delhi (or Bombay), you have to harden your heart against showering people with rupees. But that doesn’t preclude you from advocating top-down structural reforms, particularly if one is sufficiently historically-minded to recognise that those states which have benefitted from market liberalisation only did so on the back of some form of welfare state. (See Joe Stiglitz on the IMF; see also Hernando da Soto, no liberal he, on the steps necessary to make capitalism succeed.) Leftist thinking to the contrary, the existance of a problem does not prove that a government failure has occurred. Rightist thinking to the contrary, the existence of an individual who may have squandered her opportunities does not prove that no government failures ever occur. (See: right-wing references to ‘Queen, welfare’ ad nauseam.)

By: Sebastian Holsclaw

Sebastian Holsclaw — Sat, 24 Jan 2004 03:51:52 +0000

“Unfortunately, the crux of what she needs to improve her life is assistance in developing life skills, which, while it has delivered plenty of help in material terms, is precisely where the government has failed her.” Well at least we come back to the issue. There is no evidence whatsoever that the government failed her on this point. We know that she has not developed certain life skills, true. But that doesn’t prove it was a government failing. Leftist thinking to the contrary, the existance of a problem does not prove that a government failure has occurred.

By: SGL

SGL — Sat, 24 Jan 2004 00:22:53 +0000

“Work in Nepal, which is relatively poorer as a country, and it feels less hopeless, because you don’t have the concentration of wealth seen, for instance, on the avenues of New Delhi.” I have a similar emotional reaction, and indeed rich Indians (my experience is mainly of Bombay, which has the most ostentatious wealth in India) tend to really get under my skin. BUT notice the all-too-easy slide here from talking about absolute poverty to talking about relative poverty. I may have that emotional reaction, but I am also self-aware enough to use my reason to question whether it’s a sound guide to action in the real world.

By: sgl

sgl — Sat, 24 Jan 2004 00:16:50 +0000

Unfortunately, the crux of what she needs to improve her life is assistance in developing life skills, which, while it has delivered plenty of help in material terms, is precisely where the government has failed her. There seems little reason to doubt that the same dollar amount of aid could have been turned to far better account. But that first of all requires recognizing what the real problem is, and ignoring those sentimental and ideologically driven economic illiterates who would have us believe that she’s just fine the way she is except that she needs the government and those mean multinational corporations to give her more money.

By: ahem

ahem — Sat, 24 Jan 2004 00:14:19 +0000

DVD players and other luxuries are cheap in our capitalist system because our system is really good at making things available to everyone. ‘Things’. Not healthcare, not job protection, not the opportunity to advance. ‘Things’. Your system is really good at making crack available to everyone, too. Go back to the Orwell quotation I posted. Read it. At the neighborhood level someone can ask. “Where is Joe? I haven’t seen him in a while.” Sebastian: you’ve said you were homeless for a period of time. When you’re homeless, or sick, or get into trouble, you often stop existing on the neighbourhood level. You lose ties to community structures, apart perhaps from those that exist among the homeless. You get overlooked. And frankly, the suburbanisation of American society limits the ability of communities to identify its ‘Joe’ and go to his aid. That’s my point. Even ad hoc efforts can’t help but be restricted by the motivations and necessarily limited perspectives of those who embark upon them. That’s not to say they do great things. But to appreciate that neither individuals, nor the state, can do everything. At the national level the question is: “Joe who? Is that Joe Smith, Klein, or Beasley? Joe Jingleheimer-Schmidt? Not on my list.” At the national level, names don’t matter; bodies do. In a country with decent universal healthcare, you can walk into a drop-in clinic and get examined, no name required. And like I said, certain small-scale universal benefits work better than means-tested ones because they don’t attempt to identify those in greatest need, but rightly assume that many will not collect those benefits because it’s actually not worth the bother. (See: Prince Edward.) Ah, more transparent subject-changing behavior when it comes to putting your money where your mouth is. Not so. I’m glad you appreciate my point about measuring poverty in terms of its ability to choke off good long-term choices for one’s life. (Or, as dsquared has linked elsewhere, that poverty ought to be judged on the terms of modern tragedy: call it the Willy Loman index.) Read on and be shocked by where I’ve ‘put my money’. Seriously, if you are worried about the poor, work with one of those small, church-supported but still independent charities nearby. They do great work, and aren’t so religiously oriented as to offend you. Please. I’ve worked with the St Vincent de Paul Society, and other non-denominational homeless shelters, which rely as much on funding from national and local government as they do on donations. (Note that, sgl.) Then spend a couple of days at a welfare agency. The difference is dramatic, I’ve been in both arenas. Well, the difference is dramatic both ways: that’s because far too many organisations like their poor people nice and polite, and the state doesn’t have that luxury. Like I said, aspects of self-selection and self-identification necessarily limit the great work of focused local assistance, whether it’s ad hoc or ongoing. Have you been to India? I have. I don’t think a lot of you have any real understanding of what absolute poverty looks like. Yeah. Worked for a while on the outskirts of Delhi. Miles and miles of homes with frames made out of sticks and corrugated iron, walls built from cowshit and straw, ditches running with open sewage. You want to empty your wallet for every man, woman and child. And sometimes it breaks your heart so much that you do stuff rupees into their hands. But you also know that you could do that every day for the next 200 years and it wouldn’t necessarily change things. And that’s partly because of the gap between rich and poor. Work in Nepal, which is relatively poorer as a country, and it feels less hopeless, because you don’t have the concentration of wealth seen, for instance, on the avenues of New Delhi.

By: Robert Lyman

Robert Lyman — Fri, 23 Jan 2004 23:58:18 +0000

JSDM: The government says 35 million people live “below the poverty line” which is defined in terms of annual income. But “absolute poverty” ought to be defined in terms of a basket of goods and services—food, shelter, health care, etc.—not a fixed number of dollars. Perhaps the government has done this; I’d love to see a link but don’t have time to google right now. That’s actually a question I’d like to ask: what, in the opinion of those who decry Ms. Payne’s predicament, does she lack that she ought to have? She has food, clothing and shelter. She seems to need health care; I’d like to know if it might be available to her through Medicaid. What, then, is she missing that makes her “absolutely poor” at a level of weath that would have delighted a number of my ancestors (especially the Irish ones!)? Ahem has provided an answer, and indeed one which I find compelling: she lacks the means to improve her life. That’s actually a good standard which both avoids saying that obese sharecroppers are well-off and avoids calling me “poor” because some people have bigger cars. It is an empirical question (focused largely on her behavior, as much as that offends people) whether or not Ms. Payne actually lacks opportunity. Does anyone want to sugest an alternative standard?

By: jdsm

jdsm — Fri, 23 Jan 2004 23:49:49 +0000

No I haven’t been to India but the argument is specious. There is a level of income below which people are unable to meet their basic needs (according to the US Department of Statistics) that has nothing at all to do with how much money other people have. Simply because people in India are even less able to meet their basic needs or are able to meet less of their basic needs, does not mean people in the US do not live in absolute poverty.

By: SGL

SGL — Fri, 23 Jan 2004 23:45:42 +0000

Have you been to India? I have. I don’t think a lot of you have any real understanding of what absolute poverty looks like. That said, there are obviously plenty of people in the US who genuinely need help, and I agree that intelligently designed public-sector programs can and should be part of that help. What this discussion has lost sight of is Caroline, who was hardly deprived of taxpayer-funded largesse but indeed has been showered with it. Unfortunately, too much of it was delivered in a way that made the government an enabler of her self-destructive behaovior, and almost none of it was focused on helping her overcome that behavior. That’s what we don’t need more of, thank you very much.

By: jdsm

jdsm — Fri, 23 Jan 2004 23:36:57 +0000

“The whole reason you have to focus on relative poverty is because the capitalist system makes absolute poverty amazingly rare (note I didn’t say non-existant I said amazingly rare).” There seems to be some confusion here. Firstly, 35 million Americans according the the US bureau of statistics live in absolute not relative poverty – they cannot meet basic needs. Secondly, the capitalist system doesn’t make this inevitable. The Nordic countries have capitalist systems yet no absolute poverty – indeed Finland pipped the US this year to be the most competitive country in the world. What you are against is welfare and only by degree since the US has some welfare, just less than the Nordics. Finally, relative poverty is real. People living in relative poverty and not absolute poverty live shorter lives and are less happy. You may not think it is the job of the state to prevent this but to be honest it’s just as arbitrary as absolute poverty.

By: LA

LA — Fri, 23 Jan 2004 23:36:30 +0000

Just because a DVD player is cheap, that doesn’t mean that everything is. You say that capitalism has made everything so affordable that most poverty is relative, but the reality is that many people can afford a DVD player but can’t afford food that is nutritious or any kind of healthcare at all. Has your vaunted capitalism made healthcare cheaper or more accessible, or education? The things that pacify the poor are cheap. It’s the only way to maintain an army of cheap labor.