On the "gulf" between rich and poor:
Actually Neill, never in human history has there been a smaller percentage of humanity living one failed harvest away from communal starvation. Is the divide between rich and poor actually increasing and more extreme than, say, in the eighteenth century? Or any time before then actually. In reality never has a larger percentage of humanity been, by any reasonable definition, middle class, than right now.
The fact large areas of poverty exists at all in our technologically advanced age is a dark miracle wrought largely by state imposed impediments to trade, insecurity of private property title and many other government policies of the sort Matt Damon (that tireless supporter of state education whose children are in private schools) strongly approves of.
Absolutely.
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2 comments:
We're not living in the Dark Ages, therefore we have higher standards than people did back then. You may think socialism won't solve poverty, but relative poverty IS a thing and you don't need to be starving to be poor. It's a total failure of imagination and empathy to think otherwise.
Singapore sling: relative poverty will ALWAYS exist! There is a clue in the phrase, "relative poverty"; I am relatively short, but can be relatively tall, depending upon who I stand next to. Relative poverty can exist in the penthouses of Manhattan; relative wealth can exist in the slums of Cotonou. Poverty is, as often as not, an attitude of mind than an actuality, in this country. When - and only when - you are one crop away from starvation, then you are in absolute poverty.
Radical Rodent
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