Inequality

When it is personal there is value to both the giver and receiver.

There's value to the receiver, but if it's all relative, then that value is at the expense of someone else. It's not to me, because the receiver does not become 'less poor than' me, but the poor shlub who goes into more poverty relative to the person aided.

And, since the giver isn't actually making anything better (net), any benefit he receives is basically feel-good placebo. The more deceived I am, the more placebo benefit I receive.
 
Has anyone tried to eliminate poverty?

I must have blinked and missed that.

They started before you were born. So far there have been multiple $Trillion invested in the US alone. Many of the original targets were accomplished within a generation. Here is an article that tries hard to show one of the major programs in a good light. It is not easy. The other side of the aisle uses terms like "abject failure" and "mitigated disaster."
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/05/business/50-years-later-war-on-poverty-is-a-mixed-bag.html?_r=0

There's value to the receiver, but if it's all relative, then that value is at the expense of someone else. It's not to me, because the receiver does not become 'less poor than' me, but the poor shlub who goes into more poverty relative to the person aided.

And, since the giver isn't actually making anything better (net), any benefit he receives is basically feel-good placebo. The more deceived I am, the more placebo benefit I receive.

Most people do not wish to end poverty as such. They want to give aid to those seeking to extricate themselves. To that end, tools and training are more important than food and shelter. The trick is to find the second long enough to use the first.

Is not "feel-good placebo" an apt description of the American social welfare system? Dozens of studies have shown massive graft and waste. Gaming the system is a profession of a sort.

J
 
OK. But just how young do you think I am?

50 years ago doesn't make it anywhere near before I was born.

And, more importantly, by "try" I really meant more than efforts designed to extract even more wealth from the third world (such has been the history of foreign aid projects) and making it even poorer.

Still, call me old-fashioned, if you like.

And what do I know? Things have probably moved on since I last looked into this issue. No doubt, someone, somewhere, can make a good case for the successful elimination of absolute poverty in the world. Despite people still starving to death by the hundreds of thousands and 1/3 of the world's population being malnourished.
 
OK. But just how young do you think I am?

50 years ago doesn't make it anywhere near before I was born.

And, more importantly, by "try" I really meant more than efforts designed to extract even more wealth from the third world (such has been the history of foreign aid projects) and making it even poorer.

Still, call me old-fashioned, if you like.

And what do I know? Things have probably moved on since I last looked into this issue. No doubt, someone, somewhere, can make a good case for the successful elimination of absolute poverty in the world. Despite people still starving to death by the hundreds of thousands and 1/3 of the world's population being malnourished.

Younger than 80. If I missed, my apologies.

50 years was just the Great Society version, which would cover most of this crowd.

I agree t is important to make an effort. While I understand that reaching for the stars is common, I believe in obtainable goals. Elimination of poverty is not an obtainable goal. Use a defined objective.

As noted in any of a number of hunger threads, political obstacles are non trivial. In most of the third world graft or military force is necessary to get aid to its intended recipient. For every person wanting to give aid, there is an official or criminal seeing wealth to acquire. Harsh as it is to say, hunger is a political tool through out the world.

J
 
Most people do not wish to end poverty as such. They want to give aid to those seeking to extricate themselves

Ah, I don't disagree with that. I don't disagree that goalposts shift over time, and that each one is effectively impossible. I just don't agree that all poverty is relative.

I think that childhood polio is a form of poverty, and that it can be eliminated. I think it was a form of poverty 2000 years ago and will be considered to be so 2000 years from now.

That said, 20 years ago, lack of access to wikipedia wouldn't be considered a form of poverty. I think it is today. Now, I'm okay with the goalposts shifting.
 
No doubt, someone, somewhere, can make a good case for the successful elimination of absolute poverty in the world.

Book: The End of Poverty
Wikipedia
Amazon

Was "absolute poverty" defined earlier in the thread? The book's on how "extreme poverty" can be ended, using the World Bank's definition for "extreme poverty."

The forward is by Bono!!!

tl;drthewholebook:

Actually results, based on the "Millennium Villages Project" - sort of a small-scale test run - are mixed. IIRC, the theory generally seems sound ... except that the difficulty in setting up the basic "human infrastructure" was greatly underestimated. Plus, things just really suck in some parts of the world. The villages are doing well, but not as well as they were supposed to.
 
Younger than 80. If I missed, my apologies.
Hang on. Please don't go making me older than I am now!! Your link referred to 50 not 80 years.

As for a forward by Bono, Mr Quelne, is that truly going to make me read the book?
 
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