The war on poverty was and never will be successful. The concept all people can have the same material things in life as everyone else is silly and suggests each person is equally productive and deserving. Take away the incentive from those who are most productive and you take away hope and reason for the most productive to be interested in producing and contributing to society. Meanwhile, allow those who exploit the productive efforts of others so they do not have to contribute significantly to society and you feed a cancerous system of greed, waste and inefficiency. How then should America best invest its resources to optimize the return on its investments?
Invest in opportunities that allow each person to be productive, particularly education. Invest in the improving the emotional health of people, by encouraging the development of their artistic and spiritual abilities. People forget there are two environments that exist in life. One is the physical environment defined by wealth that politicians so often wish to declare war on, and the other is the emotional environment that is affected by the emotional and spiritual self that politicians ignore. Even in poverty, children do well when provided a sound emotional environment. Even wealth cannot overcome an emotional environment lacking a sound foundation. Our failure to understand the relevance of these two environments (physical and emotional) and their importance to life has prevented us from making the proper investments needed to optimize our chances for enhancing opportunities that encourage the greatest returns to our society. Investing in individual opportunity allows each person the chance to reach their full potential -- it does not guarantee they will. Individual wealth should always be defined by drive and ambition, productivity and social contributions, not social or economic exploitation or prior achievements alone. Investing in these opportunities merely provides each with the tools needed to succeed. While no society should ignore its obligation to help those truly in need, neither should society encourage neediness, but rather independence.
Meanwhile, government should also invest or encourage business and academic research and productivity. The goal of any productive, vibrant society is greater productivity and efficiency as society grows. Currently, we punish success with higher taxes and we reward inefficiency and waste with tax incentives and tax cuts or rebates. Those who receive tax incentives are often those industries that never produced anything, and tax breaks are often given to those industries that are less productive and efficient. This encourages industries to believe political connections can and should be used to bolster poor managerial ability. We also fail to punish those who exploit and game the financial business sector, even providing them help when their exploitation eventually results in financial ruin. It makes far more sense to reward investments in research that at least have the potential to yield improved products, improved technology and/or improved systems that enhance our quality of life. We should not reward, but severely punish non-productive and exploitive practices in business with excessive taxes that serve as a strong disincentive to those efforts. Is it not more reasonable to support business expansion of productive and successful industries rather than to encourage this for failing industries and businesses that are unproductive and/or exploitive? The later prevents the efficient shift of resources in our economy from less productive, less efficient and exploitive businesses to more productive and more efficient industries that might replace them.
Everyone (individuals and industry) deserves a chance, but the greatest help should be provided to those who are most competent, not those who are the least competent and able. American values dictate the best should rise to the top and the worst should settle to the bottom where their abilities and effort define their relative rewards. Any system of government that discourages this from happening efficiently encourages incompetence, waste, greed and inefficiency to flourish like a cancerous growth that feeds upon our society and slowly robs it of its vitality.
Faculty member at University of Kentucky. Teacher, Researcher, social activist. Political independent who believes in better government, not necessarily smaller or larger government.
Moderation is always the best policy. Socialism does have some merits such as providing for the have-nots. It would be bad to over do that to the point of equalizing everybody. It is also extremely sad that as the richest country on this planet we have a substantial percent of our populace without food, shelter, health coverage, or many other things that most civilized countries would view as basic necessities. On the other hand allowing capitalism to go unchecked will get us right about where we are now! Look at Russia and China. They were originally socialist and now that they have allowed some capitalism to grow they are growing at a remarkable rate. As you mention extremes are to be avoided which is why having conservatives and liberals in Congress is not such a bad idea. Now if we could just get the Democrats and Republicans out of Congress we would be much better off.
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Hayesml47 (4 articles, 0 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 461 comments)
on Wednesday, July 23, 2008 at 8:08:17 PM
I would not disagree moderation is good in all aspects of life in general. However, that wasn't my goal, to define a more moderate view of how things should work with Capitalism at one extreme and Socialism at the other. Social Opportunism is really a social system with accountability and efficiency. Capitalism and Socialism are both extremes and both lack adequate controls and thus are inefficient. Capitalism because it leads to monopolistic and exploitive practices that hinders potential and affects innovation. Socialism because it leads to inefficiencies driven by lack of accountability and fails to demand adequate responsibility. We currently have a social system that continues to embrace some of the worst aspects of both these systems and we fail to see how to make them better. For example, less government and regulation proposed by Conservatives harks back to a more pure Capitalism that allows exploitation of society. Liberal views of social programs tend to favor a more socialistic attitude of let's help everyone. So we have Farm Subsidy bills, we have support of this business or that in enterprise zones to make jobs or create new industries that are ineffective, inefficient and unlikely to survive without government support. We get pork barrel politics, earmarks and waste. We keep oscillating between these attitudes to help, no help, help, no help. Liberal, Conservative, Republican, Democrat.
As a society we feel the need to be compasionate. We want to help the needy and provide for those who cannot care for themselves. At the same time, those who are capable use that social empathy and exploit it to get something for nothing. Much of the time we end up so confused as a society, we can't tell the difference between what we should or should not be doing. This didn't work, let's go back and try a variation of that older policy. How do we create a society that recognizes these problems and addresses them in a far more just way? I feel you provide everyone with a comparable opportunity for success (both the physical and emotional tools). I think we can agree that a major failing is that lack of opportunity for success that results in some individuals being poor, being discouraged and contributing less to society than they might otherwise. I can tell you in Kentucky there are lots of intelligent poor people who never had the opportunity to really develop their abilities.
Providing people opportunity isn't a give away. It is an investment in individuals with the hope this investment will provide dividends in the future in terms of enhanced productivity. However, people may or may not wish to work hard, apply themselves or use their abilities. They might feel they can get by with less than others. Okay, let them do that, but don't feel sorry for them. Just make sure their kids are not disadvantaged by them too much. I don't want to take away the freedom tof people to choose. What I want is for people who make poor choices to live with them. They should not demand help because of their bad choices. I feel that way about individuals and businesses. I want them to be responsible for their actions and accountable for them.
It is the message to tell my own kids. I want to provide you with the best opportunities in life I can. What you do with the opportunities i provide is your business. How successful you become is your choice, not mine. I am here only to ensure you become a successful, responsible, contributing member of society. As a society, that should be our goal, nothing beyond that.
We are a rich country and we are rich precisely because a subset of individuals have been extremely productive and creative. We have poverty in this country for two reasons: Some people lack the opportunity to be more successful; and some people lack the drive and effort. I want to eliminate the former. I want everyone to have the educational, training, health care needs essential for them to be healthy, productive members of society. What I don't want to do is allow people or businesses who decide not to make an effort or wise choices to be rewarded in any way or for the rest of us who do work to feel sorry for them because they are poor or failing. I think that has been our mistake in the past regardless of which extreme we look at. We had a welfare system to serve as a social net to help the needy and we created more neediness. What we want to do is discourage neediness by eliminating any reward for it and encourage incentive and effort by rewarding that with greater success.
There is even a more subtle point to this and that is the recognition that opportunity is influenced by our physical and emotional well-being. If we addressed both, more people would be motivated to succeed or at least reach their full potential. We have too many people filled with anger, hate and pain. This is a reflection of their emotional well-being. We could enter a new age, a new revolution of the arts with a huge contribution to all humanity if we could manage to address the emotional condtion of people more effectively. That social change would be as great a revolution as the Greek/Roman culture or the Art/Music of the Middle Ages were. Humans are no where near their creative or imaginative potential. The result is our society is not flourishing the way it should or could.
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Peter Wedlund (3 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 160 comments)
on Thursday, July 24, 2008 at 2:32:13 AM
I see education as being the key to a great many, if not most, of our problems. Our government has contributed immensely to the dumbing down of our entire populace. Beginning with the voucher system that has allowed millions to flee the public schools at the tax payers expense and continuing with the decreased support and ever lowering of standards. I, for one, feel that we(our governments) should be promoting education as a lifetime goal providing/assisting with new or re-education for cradle to grave continuity. Technology and history are ever changing and if we are not able to stay informed/trained in the latest advancements then our workforce falls behind and becomes the problem instead of the answer. Teachers must be paid or compensated better and required to meet higher standards as well. And then there are our voters. The extreme mess we find our selves in comes from both voter ignorance and uninvolvement. People have become bored or pre occupied with other things and have either given up voting all together or vote by party or other inaccurate reasons. Few people seem to care about being lied to constantly or that our country has been drifting into chaos and anarchy. That is very obvious by what has been going on in DC. We do not educate our children, let alone our adults, in the responsibilities we have in order to maintain our rights. Even worse since our "free press" has been bought out by the "military industrial complex" we are no longer even getting the news we need to hear. The media doles out pure pablum for the masses which consists of Britneys child beating escapades or Paris's jail cell etiquette. What used to be a complex and robust educational system has crumbled into little more than a hypnotic hodgepodge of drival designed to keep us in our places while others walk off with our country.
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Hayesml47 (4 articles, 0 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 461 comments)
on Thursday, July 24, 2008 at 7:46:57 AM
The war on poverty was and never will be successful. The concept all people can have the same material things in life as everyone else is silly and suggests each person is equally productive and deserving.
This has never been the goal of the war on poverty. However, it does serve as a nice strawman to easily shoot down.
The goal of the (now abandoned) war on poverty was to eliminate the kind of poverty that locks people into failure. The fact is that there are too many people who lack health care in this country and there are too many people without proper nutrition or even a proper place to sleep. Anyone born into a family with these problems is likely to be doomed to a life on the margins, barely able to survive, or possibly even not survive. Allowing millions of children to grow up in these conditions is a way of cripling society when they grow up. It is not just unethical, it is stupid.
Following WWII there was a burst of prosperity in this country. It came not from giving government largess to the most wealthy and well-off, to the richest corporations and individuals. No, it came as a result of providing a safety net of social security that covered most people. It came from a GI bill that allowed returning war veterans to buy a home and to get a college education. These were things that would not have been possible without government programs that helped the less affluent.
Thirty years of turning our backs on the needs of ordinary people and instead opening the spiggot of government assistance to large corporations and wealthy people has had its effects that are now becoming clear. We have a declining dollar and an ailing economy. It remains to see whether these Repbulican economic policies will lead us again to another great depression.
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PrMaine (9 articles, 7 quicklinks, 2 diaries, 325 comments)
on Thursday, July 24, 2008 at 8:11:11 AM
I agree, the war on poverty has never really been to equalize everything (extreme socialism), but that war ignored the key problems and those have been and always will be the downfall of social efforts that want to "give people" something for nothing. Supporting needy and disadvantaged people only works if the people are interested in using that support to do more for themselves -- become independent. For this to work, you need to determine who needs support because they want a chance for independence, and who wants support so they don't have to do anything. We have never been good at making that distinction. I would avoid that issue entirely.
I support a Government that provides people opportunity (education, health care and if necessary providing the environment which will avoid children being disadvantaged by lack of food, water or shelter). No one should be struggling to just survive while they grow up. If adults do not wish to make an effort after being provided with the same opportunities everyone else has I wouldn't worry about them. That is their choice, and we don't need to support neediness. Giving each person a fair opportunity for success should be our concern as a society. I disagree the physical environment is the actual key to solving the problem. Many kids from disadvantaged and poor neighborhoods do great when their emotional needs are well attended to by parent(s) and/or school. See Harlem Choir, see Venazuela Music program, See Great Teacher in LA who takes disadvantaged kids and helps them excel. Success is about more than education, there is also a very important emotional health we ignore but could address.
The US made some excellent choices following WWII in terms of housing and education for returning solidiers. It was costly, but by all accounts it has more than returned the money invested. This is a great example of providing "opportunity" to people who might not otherwise have had it. The rewards were reaped for the next 50-60 years as the ripple effect was passed on to the next generation baby boomers. We all had increased opportunities because our parents willingly took advantage of theirs.
I don't want to "give" handouts to wealthy. Nor do I wish to give them to undeserving businesses. I want us to invest in the most productive, most promising of efforts so the rewards associated with new discoveries and products are reaped and the paradigm shifts occur as rapidly as possible. Right now, Government is slowing change down, not encouraging and facilitating it in a constructive manner. I would caution that providing government largess based on people's needs or wants is equally dangerous. I would suggest we help "provide opportunity" to all and let the outcome of those efforts guide the value of the program(s). No Government program should ever be implemented without a careful analysis and tracking of its cost effectiveness. If decisions about funding and support were based on rational data instead of emotional or political attitudes this country would be far ahead of everyone. Unfortunately, things being what they are funding decisions are not determined that way.
The US constantly oscillates between Democratic and Republican viewpoints, and we the public suffer the consequences of both their bad choices. Democrats brought us the Great Society and welfare which ultimately was a disaster. Republicans turned around and gave us unregulated business, business friendly government, HMOs and business excesses and abuses that have been equally or even more devastating to the average American. I suggest we look carefully at the problem and quit trying to tweek these efforts hoping somehow they will work next time. The underlying problems remain for obvious reasons and so the outcomes never change.
by
Peter Wedlund (3 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 160 comments)
on Thursday, July 24, 2008 at 1:30:47 PM
No one should be struggling to just survive while they grow up. If adults do not wish to make an effort after being provided with the same opportunities everyone else has I wouldn't worry about them. That is their choice, and we don't need to support neediness.
Your assumption that people fall into poverty only because they don't choose to make an adequate effort is, at best, doubtful. There are many reasons people fall into poverty despite their diligent efforts. Poor health, emotional problems (it is worth noting how many war veterans become homeless street-people), poor educational opportunities, racial and ethnic discrimination can contribute to a lack of success. Predatory practices, either on the part of professional criminals or on the part of slick-suited bankers can also lead to impoverishment.
If we are to deny help to those who have not made sufficient efforts, who will be the judge of that? What prejudices will that judge bring to the decision? What kind of massive bureaucracy will be needed to manage these decisions?
How could we support the children of people that your system determines are unworthy of help? At what age will the help to these children stop?
The problems of poverty have long been with us and it is clear that they do not have simple answers. Welfare was not perfect, but it was one of the better solutions that have been found. It is most unfortunate that the system was abandoned rather than improved.
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PrMaine (9 articles, 7 quicklinks, 2 diaries, 325 comments)
on Thursday, July 24, 2008 at 6:12:21 PM
If it seems there is a contradiction, check your assumptions. You are arguing about poverty in the present state, not in the state proposed by me which is Social Opportunism. In that state, education and health care are provided to everyone so poor health is not going to affect your ability to be successful. Second, I stated that emotional well being is the other issue I would address which is currently ignored by all current government efforts. I strongly believe both education and emotional health effect opportunity of people. For example, suppose I could get every child transfered for 5 hours to a second education after school where each child was provided additional training in the arts (music, dance, art, theater, writing), spirituality (not religious absolutism) and physical education. This second school would teach each student about values, principles, morals, standards, ethics and choice). I would provide them an opportunity to learn about the various arts and select whichever art form interests them with the goal of teaching them the relationship between the art and emotions, feelings, expression and desire for perfection. Physical education would focus on improving one or more physical abilities they had in any number of sport activities. This emotional training would teach them how to connect with their aspirations and hopes, dreams and ambitions and control their fear, pain and suffering. So taught, each student would show greater interest in life, in art, in healing their inner conflicts and seeking to optimize their achievements in life.
Emotional health and well being in my view is a far greater impediment to individual achievement and productivity than poverty. If we addressed it we could deal with veterans with PTSD, women who are raped, people who feel lost and ethnic and racial problems would disappear. The stupid attitudes about religion would disappear if people were educated in spirituality and recognized the problems created by religious absolutism. There are always going to be those who seek to exploit others and hurt them. However, education and training on how to deal with lifes problems and pains would do a great deal at improving peoples coping strategies and efforts to be productive and contributing members of society.
Perhaps you do not agree, but I would ask you to check out the Venezuelan Music program that teaches just music to some 300,000 children per year (just one art form). Check out the Harlem Choir which teaches just singing to disadvantaged kids in Harlem. Check out Rafe Esquith's efforts to instill excellence in 5th graders and the impact he has had in one of the poorest areas of LA. Now, imagine a more integrated effort that encompases the development of the whole emotional self applied throughout primary and secondary education and imagine its long term impact.
You need to look at the world not as it is, but as how it can be. You need to be willing to face the real problems and shortcomings of the current and past efforts and move past them. I would not disagree with anything you wrote. My disagreement is in the difference between where we are and where we could be. I cannot say social opportunism is the best solution, where you invest in individual potential and let the outcome speak for itself. However, I like it because it gets around some of the problems we seem to continually face, but continue to repeat because we can't seem to see any other solutions. Sometimes a change in perspective is all we need.
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Peter Wedlund (3 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 160 comments)
on Thursday, July 24, 2008 at 9:03:19 PM
Unfortunately, my mind is stuck in this real world so I am not in a particularly good position to argue about the conditions in the world your are imagining.
However, in the world that I am familiar with people will always have difficulties and there will always be people who need assistance if they are to survive. Simply providing health-care and emotional support to people will not help if a hurricane Katrina destroys all of their possessions and predatory politicians and bankers then confiscate the land where their homes used to sit.
Training in the arts, no matter how desirable, does not eliminate the problems of a returning veteran (or perhaps a hit-and-run victim) who has lost both legs an arm and an eye. In the world that I know, these people will always require direct humanitarian support if they are to have any chance of survival.
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PrMaine (9 articles, 7 quicklinks, 2 diaries, 325 comments)
on Friday, July 25, 2008 at 8:06:42 AM
Please don't get me wrong, I am not uncompassionate. Quite the opposite. I want a better world to live in and for my kids to live in as they get older. There are just too many problems with our current systems, that need to change if that is to happen.
Thirty years ago the House of Representatives containing prominent Republicans started impeachment hearings of Richard Nixon. They did this because of their principles, values and moral beliefs told them "The President of the United States is not above the law." Thirty years later, a President who has carried out even worse violations, even worse horrors is not even seriously investigated? What happened? Why is there no outrage? Why is there no demand for change? What has happened to our nation it would ignore the values, principles and moral beliefs to this extent?
Look at people today, and tell me how many are happy with what they do? How many believe the purpose of work is to do the best job they can? How many even care about anything other than just getting through the day? Where is the pride anymore in work? Where is the honor in doing a good job? Where is the desire to even work?
Look at our schools, we pour in money, we teach and yet we fall behind other Western Nations in achievement and performance scores year after year. Teachers blame parents, parents blame the educational system and the circle goes round and round. Politicians propose school vouchers which is a solution without a problem for it assumes competition is what is lacking in schools, nothing else. Examples do exist that show how improving the entire mind changes the outlook of students to study, achieve and grow. We look at those studies and say, well that is nice but it will never work here. Or, okay but what can I do?
Look at our arts. What happened that with so many people in this world we can't find another Mozart, another Leonardo DiVinci, Michalangelo, or even thinkers like Plato, Sacrates and others who existed when far fewer people lived on this planet? What did they have we don't? Why have both times created art and culture that seems to far outstrip anything we are capable of today?
Hate rules. Fear controls. Anger dominates. Pain persists. Suffering remains. But does it have to be this way? Can't people be inspired to achieve? Can we not create the foundation necessary to usher in a new revolution of man? I think we can. The answer is just that we have to be willing to try.
Many of the problems, the exploitation, the disaster response you talk about are an outgrowth of our current system, not the social system I proposed. I originally stated, "no society should ever turn its back on the truly in need..." I remain firm to believing that. However, I think there will be fewer people in real need if we did what I suggest. Change the world, change the lives. Keep everything the same and nothing changes. Tweek the system and you end up with exactly that, a tweek and a twist but no real progress.
It is okay. It doesn't appear anyone is listening. Maybe it is already too late for change. Thanks for writing anyway, I enjoyed the dialog.
by
Peter Wedlund (3 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 160 comments)
on Friday, July 25, 2008 at 8:52:31 AM
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