It's human nature. If you eliminated all wealth and started everyone equal, you'd soon have people interacting with each other. Some would be better at it than others and you'd slowly start seeing people at different levels all over the place on the scale. You'd really have to use a crazy amount of force and eliminate defectors to create your idea
Ah, so one can't accurately say, "People choose to live in poverty." I agree. People born or finding themselves- sometimes through no fault of their own- in an impoverished state sometimes can find a way out. There are barriers to it that anyone familiar with poverty understands. Even still, those born into it are more susceptible to falling back into it as they lack the support networks many take for granted, and indeed are seen as the path out of poverty and desperation for many of their family and friends that are still mired in it. Note that I never said, implied, or insinuated there is no escape from poverty, yet you plainly stated people choose poverty. So this attempted equivalence was flawed and a failure in at least 2 ways.
What's my idea? I think we're all human beings in a single society. Do you have some other take? I don't think it is acceptable for some in an economic system to starve or go without necessities while others in the system quite literally have more money than they can spend. If they system works so well, why not take care of those who are at the bottom rung of it? ESPECIALLY if one believes the existence of such a bottom class is inevitable and unstoppable, as you say you believe.
Some Adults not hampered by mental or physical disability chose to live in poverty; agree or disagree? Regarding children living in poverty; No a child does not chose to be born in poverty. Their parent chose it for them. Who bares the responsibility for that; me and you, or their parents?
As a society it's on individuals to take care of others. I think this should be done voluntarily and not by force.
What difference does this make to the fate of the child? Seems completely irrelevant. It also ignores the obvious and provable existence of generational poverty. Why did the parent make the poor choices they did? Probably because their parents made poor choices. People do not have much knowledge of the market and the economy in part because of their original circumstances. Some have very little. It is callous and cruel to blame people for that, and that is what one is doing when they say things like "people choose to be poor," when the very foundation of the free market is an assumption that everyone knows the best and most efficient course of action in the pursuit of wealth. The invisible hand is an abstraction that has been made into a [dadgum] idol to justify selfishness and greed above the greater good and long-term, top to bottom prosperity. The poor have never been popular, but it seems to be an oddity of the past 300 years to outright vilify them for simply wanting to not be poor.
I asked - "Some Adults not hampered by mental or physical disability chose to live in poverty; agree or disagree?" So was that a "I agree", or was it "I disagree"?
Ah, the go-to VolDad quote. Tell me, what is it about that quote that disturbs you? If you are just trying to paint me into a communist corner, you'll have to cherry-pick around quotes like "he who does not work, does not eat." I'll take the Marxist label if you'll take the Leninist/Stalinist label.
It was neither. If someone loses a race, did they simply choose to lose it? Maybe, maybe not. Maybe they didn't train as hard. Or maybe they just aren't as fast. Or maybe they didn't know when the race exactly started or didn't eat a good meal that morning because they hadn't raced before or don't have a coach. Virtually no one chooses discomfort for the sake of discomfort. Sometimes they make choices based on bad information that lead to it though. I can see how life would be much easier if I just pretended like the unfortunate chose their place, and that life is one big meritocracy. But that's a juvenile fantasy.
I am all for a safety net for some; i.e. those with mental or physical disability. I am not so sympathetic for those able bodied individuals who chose not to work. I have never read anything similar in the writings of Lenin or Stalin so I am not sure how the label applies. The path out of poverty is pretty straight forward: * stay in school * don't get pregnant or get a girl pregnant * don't get hocked on drugs or alcohol * get a job, any job, do your best at that job until you can get a better job. I suspect the majority of people living in poverty or on the public dole did not do this.
Work is discomfort otherwise it would be called play. People chose discomfort all the time. How much discomfort is there in going to the mailbox and picking up a check? Perhaps if we did not make living on the public dole so comfortable many of those people would work their way out of poverty.
We live in a county where the poor is fat with smart phones, flat screens, and cable. Who is doing without necessities exactly?
I could see how life is much easier playing the victim card all the time. People are not where they are because of the choices they made but because the cards they were dealt and/or "The Man" prevents them from rising. Blaming others is much easier than blaming oneself.
I definitely agree with the bold part. And clearly we've gotta eat. But everyone can either feed themselves or trade for food in the 21st century. You think think they are feeding themselves in Luxembourg? But that's one of the richest countries on earth. The whole point I was trying to make is that natural resources have little to do with economic prosperity. Look at Japan. They are resource poor but have fluorished since WW2. Like you said, the wealthy countries move way past agriculture so that it is a tiny part of their economy. But like you also said, it was advances in technology (knowledge/human capital) that got us those gains. We didn't all of a sudden discover a fertile river valley in the middle of South Dakota or anything like that. It's a bit dry, but check out Michael Porter's Comeptitive Advantage of Nations. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diamond_model The book describes how modern economies have moved past the basic factors: land, labor, capital, as the primary drivers of propserity and have moved on to knowledge. Reagan commissioned the study.
I guess I'm getting lost. I was just responding to your response to me. I never said the Scandinavians were rich because of natural resources (though Norway has some oil.) I think that that kind of thinking is wrong. My view is that you can't compare a homogenous 5 million person society in a small geographic location with the 325 million people in the continent spanning US. We have lots of pockets that are just as wealthy as Luxembourg. But it is hard to do this over the continent spanning melting pot/salad bowl (pick your poison) that the US has.
