"A poor person today is richer than a rich person of the past"

Great Debates
41

Shakester, you raise a very good point. I respect your request that this is not about YOUR poverty, but I must ask you this. Have you ever been rich, or relatively well-off? Say, upper-middle-class? In other words, have you experienced both states?

I ask this because I have been poor and I am now definitely upper-middle-class. But there have been times in the last few years when I have been so depressed as to verge on suicidal.

Then again, I agree with the aphorism: “If you think money doesn’t bring happiness, try poverty!”

As to the part about choices, I see what you mean. George Orwell, who experienced poverty and wrote about it, noted something that really made me think. He noted how “complicated” everything is when you’re poor. Now, most people who have only known affluence would assume that one of the “good things” about poverty is that it makes life simple. Orwell noted that it is just the opposite. And I understand what he means.

When well-off people like me think their life is complicated, it is usually because of things like the fact that I have to pay taxes on a vacation home in the country as well as a luxury condo in the city, or that they have to find somebody to take care of their cats while they are off on a cruise.

So let me sum it up like this. I think that we can safely assume that the most normal aim in human life is to be happy.

So what I have found is that poverty is indeed a bar to happiness, especially if it is severe. It would take quite an unusual person to be happy when their children are starving in front of them, for example. It does not make you happy not to be able to send a brilliant child to a good school because you are too poor.

The trouble is, though, that we are likely to extrapolate that there is a direct ratio between income and happiness, and that is the big mistake.

So here is my rule: Money brings happiness to the extent that it will eliminate the worst aspects of poverty. But as you progress up the material/income/social scale, the role played by material well-being in your happiness becomes smaller and smaller, and the role played by your emotional and mental health becomes greater and greater.

42

You seem to be talking about someplace other than a modern nation, which is what I was talking about.

Yes, there’s almost guaranteed to be a library in any town in the US, etc.

43

I dispute the notion that wealthy people in the past had “security”. A peasant might think the local Baron is secure, but he isn’t. He’s a professional warrior, and it’s pretty likely that he’ll end up dead during one battle or another. If he choses the wrong side, his family could end up exterminated, and his lands made into a prize for the winners. And of course, the wealthy were almost as likely to die from disease as the commoners.

Riches didn’t make you secure. The more wealth you have the bigger the target you are, since an obvious path to wealth is to appropriate the goods of the wealthy.

But it seems the point of the OP is that material goods can’t buy social status, and that’s what people really crave. The peasant with the biggest manure pile is rich and respected in the eyes of his peers. Today that manure pile won’t bring you social status and therefore it doesn’t matter that a poor person can have any size manure pile they want. And since social status is always a relative matter, it doesn’t matter how many material goods people have, those who are in the bottom half of the social structure will always feel inferior. It doesn’t matter how that social structure is determined, if you don’t have what it takes to be in the upper half, you’re going to be looked down on.

And modern meritocracies make it even worse. If you’re a peasant and you’ll always be a peasant and there’s nothing you can do to change your social status, well, you get used to it. But if you’re poor in today’s America, well, why? Why couldn’t you do well in school, why couldn’t you get a better job, why couldn’t you do something about your situation? A peasant could comfort himself with knowing that he was at the bottom because he was born a peasant, and that’s it. A poor person in America who has something on the ball doesn’t have to stay poor.

44

Probably. There’s a wider variety of styles of cuisine, prepared with produce that is going to be of higher quality and fresher.

How many pharaohs do you really think were able to eat Chinese food for lunch and Mexican food for dinner? Do you really think that produce was properly sterilized? Properly preserved? Able to be transported any distance beyond the edge of the city? Do you think they had Kitchen Aids?

There’s a finite number of buxom beauties. They just can’t be mass produced. As I said earlier, employing people and land, those are two things that are always going to be held by the wealthy. The difference is, in modern day, there’s nothing in the world stopping you from becoming wealthy. In oldentimes, if your parents didn’t have it, you were 100% out of luck.

Do you have a better solution? Cloning and slavery, perhaps? How do we expand the amount of land on the planet? If someone invents a way, anyone will be able to own a golf course worth of land eventually.

90% of people who go on welfare are re-remployed within the year. Of the people who don’t, they are either mentally ill, on drugs or selling drugs, or just plain lazy.

I have friend in the last category. He’s been playing Warcraft on taxpayer money for the last three years. He can do that, and all he had to do to accomplish it was to have no pride in himself.

The idea that you have that in modern America that an able bodied worker can’t stay clean, can’t stay housed, can’t educate himself, and can’t get a job is just plain false. The government will give you a place to live where you can keep yourself in proper attire and hygene, you can get an education on the internet and at the library, and businesses want to employ people. Businesses have to grow, but to grow you have to have workers to manage that growth. With hundreds of thousands of businesses actively trying to expand, they’ll eat up every single willing person and give him money.

Yes, right now we’re in a recession and most businesses aren’t expanding, but that’s a temporary phenomenon and, as noted, you aren’t anything like going to starve in the meantime.

45

It’s all about status, which is relative to the particular society we’re talking about. A poor person in the US is stigmitazed, called a lazy bum, and scorned by all. But put that same poor person in Mexico and suddenly he is middle-class, admired, and emulated.

During the Ante-bellum South, the rich pissed in chamberpots and had their skivvies empty them. Now, the skivvy has her own toliet but the rich still has her come in every day and clean theirs. (But she does have more options than her 19th century counterpart, so things I have improved for poor people in that regard). I’d rather pee in a toliet than crouch over a chamberpot, yes. But if no one expects you to lift a finger to clean up behind yourself, then regardless you are at the top of the totem pole. And no matter how high that totem pole is in the grand scheme of things, being at the top matters.

46

A little over 1 percent of Americans are homeless. To be destitute when there is wealth around is tough. To be a kid growing up homeless is that much worse.
There are a lot of people living in mountain areas that have a hardscrabble existence. Plenty of Americans struggle to keep life together. Living without health insurance keeps 50 million Americans living afraid.
For many the wealth of America is a faint dream to be seen on TV or billboards.

47

Nah, they just ate off their luxurious lead plates. Now that’s class!

Well, up until you died in agony at forty.

48

Really, I can. I can tell several things right off. One, you are literate…you got an education somewhere. Two, you have access to electricity and a computer. Three, you aren’t starving…if you were starving (literally) then you wouldn’t have the energy for this silly debate. So…you THINK you are poor, and by the standards of whatever country you are from (I guess America, even though you have denied this already), your poverty is relative to the society you live in…not an absolute when compared to either other poor people living today or when compared to history.

You are attempting to make a comparison between your own definition of poor (using yourself as an example) and the supposed standards that existed for the wealthy in ‘olden days’. The problem is it’s an apples to bandannas comparison. You (supposedly poor) have access to things that the elite in the past couldn’t even dream about. Take your education, for instance. Not all or even most nobles in the past were literate…or if they were, they have extremely limited access to books and knowledge. Medical care…you probably THINK you don’t have access to decent medical care, but you most likely won’t die of something like morbid sore throat, small pox, typhoid, or a cut…and your children won’t die at anything approaching the infant mortality rates even the elite had to endure in the past. Same goes for food. Same goes for violence. Again, you might THINK your neighborhood is rough, but it’s nothing like the possibility of violences during various periods in our history that those elite noble types suffered through.

Yeah…but what life do you suppose money bought our ancestors exactly? Where you are making the mistake here, IMHO, is by allowing the apples to oranges comparison. So what if the poor today live better than the rich did in the past? Yeah, it’s true, depending on what aspects you focus on…but, so what? A valid comparison would be comparing the really poor (in the 3rd world) to the poor (in the 1st world) to the working classes (3rd vs 1st world) to the rich (3rd vs 1st world) to the elite rich (same) today…THAT would be a valid and interesting comparison. Going along with your OP’s train of thought you are allowing an apples to oranges comparison…and you obviously don’t know enough about history to make an informed comparison, or know what to compare and what not to compare.

Yeah, depending on how you define ‘rich’, and what time period we are talking about. Many land owning ‘rich’ aristocrats lead pretty miserable lives with the possibility of sudden, violent death from disease, famine or war…or die or be crippled from all manner of injury. They saw their children die pretty high levels. They didn’t lead the idealistic life you obviously think they did.

And what do you base that assertion on?

Again, what do you base this on?

You have indoor plumbing, plenty of food, access to electricity, an education, access to knowledge that NO noble ever did, you have access to medical care they couldn’t dream of, will probably live 2 times longer than even the wealthiest royal. Yeah, I’d say some of them would be willing to do a swap with you for the possibility they wouldn’t have to die of disease or be killed when their town was sacked by some other nobles army of thugs, wouldn’t have to worry about dieing of food poisoning (or real poisoning), or dieing due to getting a cut or having their appendix go bad, wouldn’t have to live with the pain of their teeth going rotten.

Depending on what historical time period we are talking about I’d say it wouldn’t be very hard to find some rich noble or merchant willing to trade places with you. You on the other hand should be VERY careful accepting such an offer…you might find out that having a lot of money really isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, especially in the past.

-XT

49

RE: status.

“A man may do many things to be loved, but he will do anything to be envied.”

  • Mark Twain
50

A poor person today is more comfortable than a rich person of the past. Defining “more comfortable” as not being as physically inconvenienced (drafty castles with their foul smells couldn’t have been fun…I’d rather ride in a Yugo than ride on horseback for long periods of time…air conditioning beats servant-powered fans every time) and having more access to better sanitation and health care. All of these are very true.

But a poor person is not richer than the rich of the past. They are not above the law like kings and queens of the past were. Poor people do not have servants carrying them around on litters. Poor people do not have the power to call for anyone’s head with impunity, nor do they get to set decrees. People don’t bow and scrape before them. Most importantly, poor people have to work for a living, or at least go through a long song and dance to get charity. The rich of the past were born into their wealth or acquired it through unscrupulosity. If someone tried to bother them about it, they could hire their own armies and defend themselves.

Would you rather be Thomas Jefferson, one of the founders of the US, or Tyrone Jefferson, the janitor at the local hospital? Who’s in a more enviable position? Sure, Tyrone can eat Chinese or Mexican even on his meager paycheck, but can he own a plantation? Can he hire hundreds of “servants”, rape them with impunity, and go down in history as the father of liberty and freedom for all? No. Tyrone doesn’t have bad body odor like Thomas Jefferson likely had because they didn’t have Tide or deoderant back in the olden times, and he probably has a heap more clothes. But those are trivial points. Wealth isn’t about stuff. It’s about power.

51

What does power give you beyond “stuff”? Serving wenches are stuff every bit as much as an iPod. My ability to control the former is no different from being able to control the volume of the latter.

If one day they invent robot serving wenches who look and feel like the real thing, within 75 years, the poorest American will have one.

If we create a way to expand the size of the Earth infinitely (for instance, virtually), the poorest American will be able to own land the size of Earth itself.

The only two “stuffs” that currently aren’t available for any poor person to exert full power over is land and people. Those are both on the way towards becoming manufacturable. The other 99.9999% of stuff that a person can exert power over, poor people can have it in modern day America.

What other things are there that a person can exert power over beyond what he has a right to (i.e. owns)? I can’t think of any.

52

The president has access to the proverbial red button. It gives him the power to change world orders.

Thomas Jefferson had the power to do whatever he wanted with his hundreds of slaves. If he wanted to, he could have had them all dress like clowns and stand on their heads all day, then shoot each one as they collasped from exhaustion. Just for kicks. Or he could have trained them up as his own private army and used them to overthrow the federal government.

A rich person has the power to kill two people, hire the very best lawyers, and get off scot free.

Now tell me, what kind of power does a poor person have that even comes close? Are you suggesting owning a remote control for a 13" TV is comparable to owning a slave to tend to your 13 acres of land? Really? Or that being able to tell a bus driver where to let you off is the same thing as telling the bus driver what route he’ll be driving?

Power is just as much about control as it is about the kind of stuff you control. There’s not a person on this planet who would choose to have an Ipod over a personal servant. One is programmed to do one thing. The other can be exploited in countless ways and can be forced to do just about anything you want her to do.

For all the creature comforts that the American poor enjoy, they still have minimal power. Just like the poor who preceded them. I’d argue that once a poor person starts employing people, even in a temporary compacity, they lose their claim to poverty.

53

This really is laughable, fella. You make it sound as if land and people are trivial things that don’t define the main differential between rich and poor. And even if we could find a way to manufacture land and people (WTF?), a poor person will not be able to afford them. Just like a poor person cannot afford automobiles or houses, even though they are mass-produced and commonplace. If a poor person can barely afford a bus pass, how in the hell are they going to afford a robot?

I’m really confused. Do you not understand the concept of power? Not the stupid “Power Puff Girls” concept, but the real socio-political concept? The concept that predicts that a rich drunk driver will get off with a slap on the wrist while a poor drunk driver will spend the rest of his life in maximum security? Or the kind of power that puts a poor kid in a remedial track while a rich kid gets automatically placed on an advanced course? Or the kind of power that puts poor neighborhoods smack-dab in the middle of EPA Superfund sites, while rich neighborhoods look like miniature luxury resorts? Or the kind of power that denies someone a chance for a new cancer treatment because Medicaid doesn’t cover it, while more expensive plans do?

None of these things deal with “things” and “stuff”. Power is embedded in institutional policies. Who writes the policies? Not the poor! Who often benefits from these policies? Not the poor!

The rich, the rich do! Wealth isn’t stuff, it’s power. Ask the Kennedy’s and the Rockefeller’s, and I’m almost certain they’ll agree with me.

54

In the future, I’ll be able to have my own planet with all the people I want, and be president of them all.

Again, same.

Myeah okay, there’s one item that likely won’t ever change.

Easy, the 99 million powers that they have today which they didn’t 200 years ago. Listing off the one or two or three items that haven’t yet made the move from the realm of the wealthy to the realm of all, is getting lost in the “all or nothing” fallacy. Just because not everything today is better for the poor than it was for the wealthy of 200 years ago, doesn’t mean that you’re wiser to choose to be the wealthy 200 years ago.

The power to listen to any music that you desire at a moments notice, is a power beyond the dreams of anyone a hundred years ago.

The power to travel to Europe and come back in a week, on a lark, is something college kids do. Nobody had that power 50 years ago.

There’s so many powers we have today that agonizing over not having serving wenches is laughable. And, as said, at least you have the ability to earn one. And, as said, in a hundred years quite possibly you can buy one no matter who you are.

Yes. As someone 200 years ago, I’d much rather have a TV over all the entertainment that a slave’s labor could have bought me…which roughly equates to a single dude with a fiddle.

Yeah. And, it’s amazing that you have to even ask. You might as well ask whether I’d rather have the best popcorn machine maker of 50 years ago, OR THE INTERNET. :confused:

Not really. Servants are actually sort of lame. They mostly are just stupid people wandering around your house disturbing your privacy.

If you actually get one just for sex, who is willing, then woot. That provides with what, 10 minutes of joy a day? My iPod keeps me entertained for hours on end, every day. Maybe you’ve just got a rather disturbing need to lord over someone else, but that’s more about you than what is available. Because what all else is available is 99 million things, while as you’re only asking for 1 particular thing.

I’m sorry you don’t get to have that one thing (yet), but I personally think most people would rather forgo the one and take the option to have any number of the 99 million, if they actually considered rationally.

55

Rich people of the past didn’t have the choice to move around either. They didn’t have the choice as to what to do with their lives, they couldn’t go and be a different thing in the way rich people of today can. You are probably more socially mobile than a 16th century noble.

56

So, what the discussion seems to be coming down to is a narrow definition of who the ‘rich person’ is (the highest level royalty elite class) and what ‘richer’ is (‘rich’=‘power’). Also, ‘poor’ is being defined as ‘homeless’ or ‘destitute’.

And then, from that definition the comparison is made that clearly shows that being a ‘poor’ person you are less ‘rich’ than a ‘rich’ person in the ‘past’ (almost forgot the ‘past’ thing, which is defined as some idealized period in the past when rich people had it all with no worries, lots of servants and slaves, etc etc).

Well hell…why didn’t ya’ll just come right out and say so? By those narrow definitions of COURSE the answer to the question “A poor person today is richer than a rich person of the past” is no! QED and all that!

Of course, you have to jump through a ton of hoops, but we have arrived at a meaningless comparison that clearly shows…something.

-XT

57

The poor are as miserable as ever. They do without and live in constant fear and helplessness. Everything is beyond their control. You can argue whether steps above the poor are better off, but the poor live a miserable existence. Crap, we have doctors that organize to give medical care to the poor and uncovered in America. They set up temporary clinics for a weekend, get deluged by the needy and then Monday are back making big bucks in the city.

58

Are you Mormon? Or just being sarcastic for no good reason?

I wouldn’t want to live in the olden times because I’m accostomed to the comforts of today. I like having toothpaste and toliet paper, for instance.

But that doesn’t mean that I’m better off than a rich person from 100 years ago. A rich person from 100 years ago might not want to trade places with me because OMG! The darkies are in the White House! And people actually think jogging up and down the street every day is fun! And don’t get me started about the horrors of income tax!

True, but does that make you a powerful individual? Does having the ability to listen to any music at any time save your ass when you get in a bind? Does it put food on the table? Does it give your family prestige? Does it secure your children’s future? Or is it a trifle luxury, something to numb us against the pain of living?

Um, I thought we were talking about poor people. Poor people do not take airplane rides unless someone else is footing the bill. But you’re right, a poor person with a credit card can fly away from his troubles, while a rich man from a 100 years ago would have to take a slow stage coach or something. But the thing is, if both are fleeing trouble, the poor person is still more likely to get caught than the rich man. And if he does get caught, he’s more likely to get a lighter sentence. Does this not matter to you at all?

What kind of logic is this? Really. I’m trying to figure out what would make you think that in the future, everyone will own a wench (mechanical or otherwise). Have you been watching the Jetson’s or something?

I mean, based on your logic, everyone should be able to hire a maid now. Per hour, a maid is much cheaper than a slave-bot would be. And yet here I am, middle-class but without a maid and not planning on getting one. What’s up with that?

Ah, I see. I’ve been wasting my time talking to someone who either doesn’t understand how valuable slave labor can be or watches entirely way too much TV.

I can’t possibly see what value could come out of me debating with you further, so I’m throwing in the towel.

59

There’s an excellent book called Myths of Rich and Poor which makes an empirical case that poor people today in the US are doing very well compared to rich people in the past:

It’s an interesting read. Has some ideas that you don’t hear every day. I recommend it.

60

Yes. I wouldn’t want to be a woman. And in the past even less than today. Especially because of being unable to control pregnancies and the risk of dying in child labour. If I was a woman I would definitively chose a poor Western life rather than a rich one from the past.

And yet the impoverished American is forced through taxation to pay a part of their salary to the person in Cameroon (the little that is left after all the corruption has takes its dues) as foreign aid.

You do have a serving wench - or something comparable. If you have a dishwasher or a washing machine or even just a flushable toilet. You don’t need a wench to carry out the chamber pot anymore, when you can just flush the toilet. What would you rather have a flushable toilet or a girl to empty your chamber pot? Although of course you can’t take your toilet to bed, which I’m sure was common to do with your cleaning girl.