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Why Have We Failed to Eradicate Poverty?

After a rare and fleeting appearance center stage, poverty has once again slipped away behind the curtains. Why does it take a category-four hurricane to draw attention to problems of poverty and inequality? Why are these not matters of more urgent public discussion and more effective government policy? Why have we not heeded Martin Luther King’s appeal to rid our society of poverty once and for all? One reason is this: for many Americans, and most policy makers, the real problem is not poverty at all; the real problem is the poor.’ They have bad genes, poor work habits, and inadequate skills. Poverty is just a symptom, a regrettable by-product of individual failings. The hardships experienced by the poor stem from their own shortcomings, not from any dysfunctions of the system, thus grand schemes to alleviate poverty are inherently misguided. It might be appropriate, according to this view, for government to lend a modest helping hand, aiding the poor in overcoming their defects, but in the end, self-improvement, not social reform, is the only credible remedy.

–Edward Royce,The Problem of Structural Inequality

May 12, 2010/by dpogreba

America’s Political Climate Today and Richard Nixon

Fact of the Day

What Richard Nixon left behind was the very terms of our national self-image: a notion that there are two kinds of Americans. On the one side, that “Silent Majority.” The “nonshouters.” The middle-class, middle American, suburban, exurban, and rural coalition who call themselves, now, “Values voters,” “people of faith,” “patriots,” or even, simply, “Republicans”—and who feel themselves condescended to by snobby opinion-making elites, and who rage about un-Americans, anti-Christians, amoralists, aliens. On the other side are the “liberals,” the “cosmopolitans,” the “intellectuals,” the “professionals”—“Democrats.” Who say they see shouting in opposition to injustice as a higher form of patriotism. Or say “live and let live.” Who believe that to have “values” has more to do with a willingness to extend aid to the downtrodden than where, or if, you happen to worship—but who look down on the first category as unwitting dupes of feckless elites who exploit sentimental pieties to aggrandize their wealth, start wars, ruin lives. Both populations—to speak in ideal types—are equally, essentially, tragically American. And both have learned to consider the other not quite American at all. The argument over Richard Nixon, pro and con, gave us the language for this war.

–Rick Perlstein, Nixonland: The Rise of a President and the Fracturing of America

by Rick Perlstein

May 11, 2010/by dpogreba

Relative Poverty

Fact of the Day

In wealthy societies, most poverty is relative. People feel poor because many of the good things they see advertised on television are beyond their budget—but they do have a television. In the United States, 97 percent of those classified by the Census Bureau as poor own a color TV. Three quarters of them own a car. Three quarters of them have air-conditioning. Three quarters of them have a VCR or DVD player. All have access to health care. I am not quoting these figures in order to deny that the poor in the United States face genuine difficulties.

Nevertheless, for most, these difficulties are of a different order than those of the world’s poorest people. The 1.4 billion people living in extreme poverty are poor by an absolute standard tied to the most basic human needs. They are likely to be hungry for at least part of each year. Even if they can get enough food to fill their stomachs, they will probably be malnourished because their diet lacks essential nutrients. In children, malnutrition stunts growth and can cause permanent brain damage. The poor may not be able to afford to send their children to school. Even minimal health care services are usually beyond their means. This kind of poverty kills. Life expectancy in rich nations averages seventy-eight years; in the poorest nations, those officially classified as “least developed,” it is below fifty.In rich countries, fewer than one in a hundred children die before the age of five; in the poorest countries, one in five does. And to the UNICEF figure of nearly 10 million young children dying every year from avoidable, poverty-related causes, we must add at least another 8 million older children and adults.

–Peter Singer, The Life You Can Save: Acting Now to End World Poverty

May 10, 2010/by dpogreba

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