On poverty: Wrapping it up
Alsson seems to have come around—at least partially—on systemic poverty. For those interested, his full post his here. Alsson quibbles with my characterization of poverty as a social disease—and insists that poverty is “an economic condition, period.” Nevertheless, he seems to acknowledge that poverty is a condition that extends beyond an individual’s financial situation. He writes, e.g.:
You help a person improve his employment status and opportunities, then let that person pursue happiness in whatever way he chooses.
And,
Safety nets are for temporary stays, not permanent residence, and for those who are too disabled to respond.
We’re on the same page here. A safety net alone is not enough. You need some sort of credible ladder to allow people to climb up to wherever the action is at. And that’s where the conservatives have dropped the ball lately. Whether we call it community empowerment or “improving employment status and opportunities,” we’re looking to do something harder than simply providing a safety net and much more involved than scolding people from the sidelines (or, in Romney’s case, from the stratosphere). I think Alsson’s focus on individuals rather than communities reveals a wilfull disinterest in both causality and effective solutions. But it gets us to the same place.
I’m also sympathetic to the view that a social safety net is not a hammock. I’m all for ladders to prosperity—but there aren’t as many of those as there used to be. And those that are left are looking awfully ricketty.
You want to expand opportunities and empower people to grasp those opportunities? Awesome. But how are we going to do it? Will it work? And if our plan doesn’t work, are we willing to listen to and work with the people our plan affected rather than trying to blame them for our failure?
(Source: squashed)
