16 January 2018

Why are people poor?

This article is work-in-progress and motivated by the assumption made by some that if you're poor it's pretty much your own fault and you're probably lazy.  

Your comments are welcome...


 
Some say, that if you're poor it must somehow be down to the bad decisions you've made, or that you're just plain lazy. While it's possible that this is partly true, I want to explore other causes of poverty that more completely explain why living rough, or just getting by is more than an life choice. 
 
Why is it then that the better off argue that the reason why people have less than they do is somehow their own fault?

It could be that the world's financial elite are worried that the poor are sucking up to much of their income in taxes. In theory, this may be true, as middle and top earners do pick up a larger chunk of the governments tax bill, but, as the Panama Papers Investigation has uncovered, by using complicated financial instruments, very rich companies and individuals using clever lawyers, limited liability and tax havens, to minimise what they pay in tax. In practice those in the know are able to choose how much they pay.  

I'm not arguing that hard work is wrong; who would begrudge those working long hours and sweetly paying their taxes, my point is that hard work is not necessarily a virtue in itself, or the primary reason why people with money have it in the first place.  

If it is others doing nothing that upsets the wealthy then why do they go out of their way to avoid doing their own chores, looking after their own children, cooking their own dinner or washing gthenir own car?  Instead they employ the very same class of people to work so they don't have to: having their children babysat full time at school, fed by chefs sweating in their kitchen and being fawned over at their dinner table as they pretend to be king for the evening.   

Rather than set an example, the rich demonstrate, how it is possible to do be idol  to exist and then have the colossal cheek to criticise those with nothing of laziness.   While it is true that the very rich and the very poor may well do nothing, but for some and those that's a luxurious choice and for those at the very bottom condition that is hellishly difficult to escape from. 

In this secular age empty churches routinely converted into flats parishioners are no longer fooled by the unthinkingly protestant work ethic that flogging your guts out is the only certain path to heaven.  Today governments dependent on big business for their survival (if not political purpose) encourage people to work hard for their bosses by giving them hope. Unfortunately, however, hope is a commodity in short supply both here in the UK and in the mighty USA.  It was no accident that near messiah Barack Obama's electoral slogan was "Hope and Change" but the problem was that there was so little hope and change around in 2015/6 that hundreds of millions of working class Middle Americans turned to Donald Trump

What gets people out of bed in the morning isn't a fear of appearing lazy in the eyes of neo-conservatives it is optimistic feelings, however nebulous, that as long as they are sufficiently tenacious, there will be  a reasonable chance that their effort will be rewarded with a decent standard of living. 

While there may well be a link between hard work and financial gain, but, as far can see, the will to work has little to do with indolence and is more to do with what a person believes they are worth and the reward our market-led economic system decides is the minimum it can get away with paying them.

People aren't poor because they're bone-idol, they're poor because they neither have the luxury of  inherited wealth, or are equipped with the skills that happen to be in demand at a particular period in time.  In short being poor the world over is, pretty much, down to access to education and luck. 

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