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Originally Posted by Steve
Poverty exists because some people are unwilling to do what they have to do to make themselves not poor.
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Wrong. That's not why the condition of poverty exists. That's why person A, instead of person B, occupies it.
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You make the assumption that many of "the rich" have inherited their money.
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That's not an assumption, but it's also irrelevant. It doesn't matter whether they made their big bucks by inheriting it, by being more capable and industrious and ruthless than others, or by a combination of both (which is almost always the case -- Bill Gates, for example, DID inherit wealth; he also multiplied what he inherited). The question needs to be asked how much wealth should anyone be
allowed to amass.
Quite aside from questions of fairness, there's also the question of what's good for society. It hurts the economy have too great an extreme of wealth. It depresses consumer demand, and keep the economy underperforming. It is also a moral stain on any society when any of its people, particularly any of its children. go hungry, lack medical care, or have no place to live.
If the rules of our economic game allow the condition "poor and homeless" to exist, then there will be X percentage of the population -- also determined by the rules -- occupying that condition. The only thing the rules don't determine is exactly who will make up that X percentage. That's where personal ability, ambition, and willingness to work come in. But the whole system is competitive, and the rules of the game dictate there will be only so many big winners, so many moderate winners (like you), so many struggling people, and so many losers. Change the rules of the game, and those percentages will change, as will the consequences of winning and losing.
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I'm not saying they're not in a shitty situation, I'm just saying that you're going to have to come up with something that's pretty fucking convincing to compel me to believe that their situations are beyond their control.
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How about a little history, and how about we expand consideration from the truly poor to include the working class, those above the poverty line but unable to live the life you're living? As I pointed out earlier, my father, working an industrial job, could live a middle-class lifestyle. That's not possible for working-class people today. Why? Was my dad somehow better than working-class people today? No, the jobs for the working class were better in those days, and he had one.
It's not just what you do. It's what the rules of the game dictate, too.
That's leaving out of consideration the fact that a lot of the really poor are mentally ill, drug addicted, mentally or physically disabled, etc. and truly can't improve their lot.
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What do you think should be done to narrow that gap?
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I explained that earlier, but I'll outline.
1) Put the government firmly on the side of labor in the capital/labor conflict.
2) Reserve free trade agreements for other countries that respect labor rights, and stop encouraging the flow of capital to countries that don't.
3) Restore a more progressive tax structure.
If we do all that, and also deal with the resource shortages we are starting to face, we will restore a much more progressive and broadly-distributed economy such as we had in the 1960s. (But without the racism and sexism.) That will leave only the problem of real poverty, such as can be alleviated with responsible social-support programs for those who can't support themselves for reasons of mental or physical disability, etc. There won't be that many of those, so it will be fairly cheap.