Man of Knowledge

If it isn't why is this allowed. Every country the rich make their money off the backs of the poor. Time for someone to step up and say enough is enough. No more rich and no more poor.

I. C. Unicorns

You mean that those poor people are forced to work by the rich? If it is a free market, what's the problem? I sense there is a subtext to your question, like rich people are oppressing the poor or somesuch.

Loren Pechtel

Is it moral to make a strawman argument?


The rich normally get that way by finding some way to help others produce and extracting a percent of that improvement. The average person gains, they gain more.

aegis

Do the rich deliberately keep poor people down to have a source of cheap labor or are the poor poor because they don't have it in them to do well in life? Personally I don't have much sympathy for people who are poor because they blew their opportunity to get an education and do well, which I imagine applies to many poor Americans who don't spend all their time studying when they were in high school.

That's not to say they shouldn't earn a living wage, they should get at least the minimum required to buy food and have a place to live.

arkirk

One thing I feel is lost in this discussion is relation of the issue to human life...all human life. Money was originally a solution to the problem of how you trade a cow for oranges. If the man wanted a cow, what if the man with the cow didn't want oranges? Aha! So we invented money and cows and oranges and bicycles all benefit. The problem rears its ugly head when the invention made possible immense wealth for some. In other words, there are people who never see a cow or an orange or a circuit board or a manual water valve. All they see are numbers and charts. Money, divorced as it is from those who give it value, has negative as well as positive effects. Capitalists unfortunately have found a wonderous world of being waited on, and needed for almost any venture to go forward. The money man or men have been deemed necessary for man to progress with any meaningful activity. It is a serious problem and I do not think that we can expect the ultra rich (also ultra-divorced from society) to solve it. I have always hoped for a kind of fabian revolution with a true meeting of the minds on just what our society chooses to value.

The rich seem ever more isolated from society in general, with walled compounds, security systems and other exclusive forms of organization. They take one hell of a lot of drugs (all prescription). Much of it is for nervous reactions to the cut throat world in which they live (and rule).

The poor drug themselves on truly terrible drugs, and in their own way, isolate themselves. In the midst of this argument, somebody needs to reiterate over and over again humanistic values that give everybody not just a chance, but a rather good one. When this happens, people breathe a little easier. It is no fun having to step over the homeless on our way into Nordstroms..

I. C. Unicorns

How many times do people need to relearn Communism was a failure.

Chelsea

Trickle-down theory. I haven’t noticed that that works very well.
I don’t think that is how the rich normally get rich.

Chelsea

This is blaming people for their own misfortune and ignoring the effects of society. I am not saying that society is entirely to blame and individuals have no responsibilities for their actions. I just think that not all poor people are to blame for their poorness. You “imagine” that applies to many poor Americans but you don’t know, it is better not to make generalizations without facts. Also not all high schools are created equal.

I would also point out that the rich aren’t necessarily getting rich off of poor Americans, but off of third world citizens.

aegis

Third world citizens are in my opinion in an entirely different category. You can't blame people who don't have opportunities in life for being poor.

But Americans have incredible opportunities. People who do well in high school and on the standardized tests but cannot pay for college will, as far as I know, have access to financial aid.

I would feel sorry for someone who put in 100% of their time and effort into doing well in high school but wasn't able to go to college because the high school was bad. On the other hand, every poor person who simply slacked off when they were in high school and for that reason didn't make it to college doesn't inspire any compassion in me.

I myself remember high school and the people who did virtually nothing and got terrible grades. I don't imagine they made it anywhere in life and if so I see no reason to feel sorry for them. They chose to fail.

CelticChic

I would just note that American companies doing business in 3rd world countries provide jobs. They provide jobs at the wages that make sense in that country, but because of this they begin to expect more and ask for more. The standard of living increases and the workers start looking for more education.

So while from our perspective they are paid far too little, they are living in very different environments and they are starting the process of making their countries better and more stable in the long run. Eventually their standard of living will increase to the point of what we might consider a 1st world country (and in reality I expect ours will have to come down some but that's another discussion).