You seem to really want me to be American, but I’m really not, and never have been. It’s kind of funny that you think good English skills are an American attribute. That’s not the impression I get.
The topic isn’t me, as I keep saying. That’s not stopping people from trying to make it about me, but I’m not going to feed it. I’m interested in seeing people’s opinions on whether poor people today can be considered richer than rich people of the past.
There’s a lot of quibbling about definitions, but I feel it should be obvious that I’m talking about people on the bottom rungs of developed countries.
Talking about how people in third world countries are worse off seems to me to be a way of minimising and ignoring the fact that there is real poverty in the developed countries of “the west”. Nobody ever said that poor folks in poor countries aren’t worse off, but what has that got to do with the fact that some people in rich countries live in squalor and in fear?
At the turn of the century diseases such as polio, small pox, and tetanus were death sentences for the rich. They have been erased as health threats. We have national health care for the poor and the elderly and the vast majority of middle class people have access to health insurance.
The rest of your post is just nonsense. We fund all manner of social programs that feed children, house families, and educate the young. We have an infrastructure that supports mobility and a business environment that rewards individual achievement.
Not personally. My family was poor, I grew up in a poor part of town, went to one of the worst schools available and got the hell out as soon as I was legally able.
I don’t think that money and/or success buys happiness. But I’d still far rather be an unhappy rich person than an unhappy poor person. Wouldn’t you?
No, I don’t ‘want’ you to be an American…I just think you are. If not, you are certainly from one of the Western countries. And no, I don’t attribute good English skills solely to American’s…I’m an American (not by birth), and I have horrible English skills.
You used your own situation as a basis…of course people are going to make it about you. Had you not wanted it to be about you, you wouldn’t have mentioned your own situation. Simple as that.
So, you want to posit that ‘poor’ equals the bottom rung(s) of developed countries. Fair enough, though had you been precise before then we wouldn’t have had to ask or make our own assumptions. It may have seemed obvious to YOU, but I assure you it wasn’t obvious to ME. Ok…now, what is your definition of ‘rich person of the past’? The very top aristocracy or nobility elite? Minor nobility? Merchant class? Land owner class?
Not at all…it’s a contrasting comparison. Sort of like what you are trying to do with your OP…a contrast comparison between ‘poor’ (which you have now defined as the poorest of the poor) and ‘rich person of the past’ (which you haven’t as yet defined).
Why does the comparison matter? Because it provides a contrast from REAL poor (i.e. starving, no shelter, no medical care, no access to electricity, sanitation, transport, education or information) and the poverty in ‘the west’ (generally sucks, but not starving, in general has some access to at least rudimentary shelter, sanitation, transport, rudimentary education at least, electricity, etc). The comparison matters because it can then be compared to actual, historical data about how ‘a rich person of the past’ (once you define it) lived and died. We can look at things like infant mortality and life expectancy, for instance…since, in general, quality of life is tied up with having one’s children survive and living a long life.
Since you haven’t defined what ‘richer’ is either, we don’t know what metrics we are supposed to be looking at. What exactly IS ‘richer’ (to you)? Depending on how you define that will impact the answer. Since you have narrowly defined ‘poor’ as the lower rungs (not exactly precise, but I assume you mean the poorest 1 or 2 percent of the lowest brackets of society), I assume you will equally narrowly define ‘a rich person of the past’ and ‘richer’ to answer the question in the pre-determined way you seem to want it answered.
Because you are asking for a contrasting comparison between poor people in rich countries and some type of ‘rich’ person living at some undetermined (and undefined, as yet) past age, so, a comparison between poor people in rich countries and poor people in poor countries has meaning as well. In addition, you have only recently bothered to define what poor was, so a lot of posters were probably groping to define what you didn’t bother to in the OP…so, again, a comparison to really poor people living today gives some context to the debate.
When was the last time you personally tried to use one of those programs you think so highly of?
If you think they’re effective, you haven’t seen them up close. They are certainly better than the alternative (“let 'em starve”) but they are nowhere near effective, and the demand is far, far greater than the supply.
I qualify for housing assistance, and the assistance exists, but trying to actually get it is a whole other story. Which is why I’ve spent the last 6 months expecting to end up on the streets, before something turned up at the last minute and I miraculously found a place I can stay for the immediate future. It certainly wasn’t the government that provided it, it’s entirely due to the fact that I’m a decent human being and I still have friends.
Well, I’m not American, and I don’t know why it matters to you. I never said I wasn’t from a developed “western” country - I am, for what it’s worth. And there is real poverty here. I’m poor, but there are people worse off than me.
The topic is stated in the first post. Perhaps you’re right and I shouldn’t have said anything at all about me - and I’ve been sucked into talking about me more than I intended, so I’ll stop.
As I said, it doesn’t really matter to me one way or the other. If I guess wrong…well, c’est la vie. Won’t be the first time. I think it’s wise to redirect the thread away from your own (or my own, or anyone else’s) personal history and focus on the debate.
If you will define what ‘richer’ means to you, as well as define ‘a rich person of the past’ (i.e. what time period and what strata of society we are precisely talking about here), then I think the debate can proceed.
I thought this thread wasn’t about you? It appears it’s exactly about you. OK, your life sucks. Start a thread to see whose life sucks more without the pretense of debate.
“The past” covers such a vast variety of societies that there really isn’t a simple answer. Which is my point, really: People who say things like “The poor of today are richer than the rich of the past” are really saying “The poor of today are complaining about nothing, they should just shut up and be grateful that they aren’t worse off.”
They’re not talking about actual rich people of specific past times and places, they’re making a sweeping generalisation about the poor of their own society. Blaming them for their own misfortunes, assuming a moral fault in a situation that has absolutely nothing to do with morality.
Well, OK, not everyone is being judgemental in that way, obviously some simply don’t get what it is to be poor in modern western cities, because they’re seeing rich as “owning cool stuff” and poor as “not owning cool stuff”.
Perhaps you’re right and I should have defined it better: wealth = power and possibility, poverty = powerlessness and hopelessness. That seems to me a much more accurate way of telling who’s rich and who isn’t.
Your personal worries aside, Americans* aren’t going shelterless. That you worried needlessly isn’t exactly our problem. Look up actual data to see what happens in the real world and if the statistics are bad then worry. Your failure to do that is not proof of anything.
There are meanings of “poor”, “rich”, and “past” for which I’d greatly prefer to be rich in the past, no question. And there are other meanings of them for which I’d greatly prefer to be poor in the present.
Consider the enormous difference between the following two scenarios: Scenario #1
Poor = destitute
Rich = wealthiest person on the planet
Past = 1500 BCE
Conclusion: Poor in the present without a doubt
Scenario #2
Poor = Lower-middle class
Rich = Upper-middle class
Past = AD 1990
Conclusion: Rich in the past without a doubt
There are just too many points along the spectra of rich-poor and now-then. And that’s not even worrying about geography, culture, treatment of women in the past, the likely but unreliable relationship between wealth and power, etc. I think the saying has a grain of truth in it, but the devil is in the details.
Well, I didn’t ask for anyone to worry about me, and I never claimed it was anyone’s problem but mine.
And “Americans aren’t going shelterless” is so obviously far from reality that it doesn’t even bear comment. I think you’re the one that needs to be quoting data if you’re going to be making claims like that.
Well let’s get some numbers. As of 2007, those below the poverty line was 37.3 million people (12.5%). (PDF, p. 12) Note that the 12.5% rate has been more or less stable since 1970.
Of those, 2/3rds to 3/4ths are substance abusers or mentally disabled (PDF, p. 939). 60% are single men.
Presuming you to be a non-substance abuser and and non-mentally ill, you have a 0.25%-0.33% chance of becoming homeless as an American. Assuming you to be a single male without substance abuse and without mental illness, but below the poverty line, you only have a 2.5%-3.33% chance of becoming homeless out of all poor people.
If you do become homeless, 80% of the time it will be for less than three weeks, 90% of the time it will be for less than two months (Wikipedia).
When you are homeless, there is temporary shelter available to you. For those who are mentally ill, there is supportive housing (PDF) which is considered non-permanent shelter, but provides medical and psychiatric aid. In general, the problem these places have isn’t with sheltering the people who come there, but with keeping them there since they are drugged out and mentally ill and have a tendency to wander free.
So, of the 0.25%-0.33%, 100% of all those can have shelter. The only reason for them not having it is not being able to get themselves to it, not due to availability.
Are we talking about inner happiness or physical comfort?
Once basic physical needs are taken care of, inner happiness comes from spiritual fulfillment and/or your own personal view of yourself.
Would these rich people from the past have full knowledge of what things are like today? Just because we have indoor plumbing and a/c you can’t say that we are “happier” because of it if they never knew what it was like without it.
I lived the first 23 years of my life without air conditioning and never thought anything of it. I sweated my ass off, but that was just part of warm weather. Now I wouldn’t dream of going without it. Was I “happier” then or now?
I think several people here are simply talking past one another because it is only in the relatively recent past that wealth and power are not necessarily the same thing.
For instance, both Bill Gates and Barack Obama are wealthy and powerful men. However, Gates’ wealth is orders of magnitude greater than Obama’s and vice versa for the power they wield. In the past (pre-Industrial Revolution), this sort of thing simply would not exist. Political power and wealth were synonymous. It is only with the development of a middle class that these became separate issues. Without a middle class, you are either amongst the very, very few that control society and can access everything it has to offer in terms of comfort, or you are essentially the property of those who are in that upper realm.
Since “wealth” today does not mean the same thing that “wealth” meant even 500 years ago, comparisons are meaningless.
I’d venture that every one of us is poor and miserable. Why? Because in 100 or 200 years we’ll have tri-d entertainment, which we won’t understand how we lived without, autocars so no more wrecks or driving, far better and healthier food, and the elimination of most diseases. No more fear of cancer.
Absurd? Of course it is, because we don’t miss the things that don’t exist. When I was growing up I got along with no microwave, no flat screen TV, no MP3, no computer, no net, no DVDs, no cell phone, and lots fewer food choices than I have today. I was neither poor nor unhappy.
The security for most of us is better than it was, since we don’t have to worry about famine or bands of pillaging barbarians. However the mother in Oakland who is worried that her child may get caught in the middle of a battle between rival gangs might think differently. But choice is an excellent metric. Having money I have the choice of where my kids could go to college, where I can go for vacation, and what to buy and when. Money doesn’t buy happiness, but it enables it.
The real fallacy in the “poor are richer than the old rich” argument is that poverty and wealth are not absolutes. they are relative to what others have. Rich means having more than anyone else. Poverty means having less. When we moved to Africa for a year we went from being lower middle class to being fabulously wealthy - had a servant and everything. And on less expenditure.
The old rich were rich because they had everything they could imagine they wanted. Not imagining the things we have today didn’t make them poor.
