The role of the working poor in our society

Great Debates
241

This thread has been a debate about who’s bloodsucking who and how and why it must be changed for a better and just society. Libertarians would have it that the idle poor have sucked long and hard at the public tit and it is finally time for a change toward fairness. Progressives claim that, historically, the wealthy have waged a one-sided and criminal class war on the poor, one that is still in full swing.:slight_smile:

For the past several decades, the idea that Deregulation and Privatization (along with low taxes on unearned income which the poor noticeably lack) are the proven keys to the benefit of all, has held sway in Washington (across party lines) and in the media. Deregulation has been responsible for every burst bubble since the S&L bailout. Privatization has produced private armies that do much of the dirty work for us in war zones (at exhorbitant prices) and run private prisons (at great profit) which require a steady flow of guilty irresponsibles run thru our overworked enforcement and judicial systems. The middle-class has been largely destroyed. “Socialism” has been made a word that even progressives dare not use in polite society.

I’m sure there’s a bright side to all this. How do you see it?

242

With recent events I could give a whole list from AIG, to Bush and crew (chaney, rove, ashcroft et al.), religious conservatives, including prop 8ers where their ambition was highly destructive, and evil. Now the counter would be a list of good things ambition has done, but it would just prove the point: ambition is amoral.

Would you please explain why I should assume, with the asshats I’ve listed, that ambition only refers to positive things? Cause I’m just not seeing it. It looks to me like ambition unchecked by a concern for others can be quite evil.

243

Most people use ambition to mean furthering their own personal goals, especially financial ones. To the extent that coincides with improving the world, that is a good thing. But altruism frequently is not required for ambition to be pursued.

244

[emphasis mine]

That seldom happens among those whose sole ambition it is to become more rich at the expense of anyone and everyone. To the ones who really make it, philanthropy is a cost effective form of altruism.

245

Talk about excluded middle.

A few facts for you:

Small firms (under 500 employees):
• Represent 99.7 percent of all employer firms.
• Employ about half of all private sector employees.
• Pay nearly 45 percent of total U.S. private payroll.
• Have generated 60 to 80 percent of net new jobs annually over the last decade.
• Create more than half of nonfarm private gross domestic product (GDP).
• Hire 40 percent of high tech workers (such as scientists, engineers, and computer workers).
• Are 52 percent home-based and 2 percent franchises.
• Made up 97.3 percent of all identified exporters and produced 28.9 percent of the known export value in FY 2006.
• Produce 13 times more patents per employee than large patenting firms; these patents are twice as likely as large firm patents to be among the one percent most cited.
• Have created 60 to 80 percent of the net new jobs since the 90s.

Source: U.S. Dept. of Commerce, Bureau of the Census and International Trade Administration; Advocacy-funded research by Kathryn Kobe, 2007
(www.sba.gov/advo/research/rs299tot.pdf) and CHI Research, 2003 (www.sba.gov/advo/research/rs225tot.pdf); Federal Procurement Data System;
U.S. Dept. of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Why is this important? Because it is in direct contradiction to the utterly ignorant world view that you and the rest of the Friends of the Working Downtrodden Poor have that the world consists of megacorporations run by idiots and criminals and downtrodden poor treated like 1890 factory workers.

George Bush, AIG, Enron, Bernie Maddoff and others provide you convenient scapegoats for saying “Look! The rich only get ahead by cheating the poor! We should tax them!” In reality, people get rich because they have the drive and ambition to start all these thousands apon thousands of small companies in hopes of actually creating something.

Yes, we all know that unrestrained ambition and greed can be a bad thing. Your attitude and world view, however, is like that of a high school kid (which for all I know you are, I have no idea) saying “dude! I’m not down with this whole ambition thing. Why should I subject myself to working for the man like a slave.” Well, how the fuck do you expect to support yourself? More importantly, what, if anything, do you plan to contribute to the world other than taking up space?

We all get that many people are poor because of circumstances beyong there control. OTOH, people like Try2B Comprehensive have demonstrated that there are opportunities for people who have vision that they can be more than what they currently are and have the ambition and audacity to take steps to get there.

246

Just a comment. I am a generally moderate to left leaning person. I haven’t voted for a republican president ever, although I certainly have voted for some republicans for local offices.

I am interested in this thread because I find this topic hard to decide about. But I must say I think the conservatives in this thread have made a better case. I thought it was especially telling that when one person said that the vast majority of poor people stay poor, and it was proven to be incorrect, that no acknowledgement was made of this point.

I think both sides are misquoting the other, exagerating the other side, etc. That always happens in a debate it seems.

But to a truely undecided person, the conservatives seems to be making better points. FYI.

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I guess it depends on the literature one has been exposed to.

To me, this is a neutral sentence: “Obama has ambitious goals.”

Just because it has the word “ambitious” doesn’t automatically lead me to to think that the President is evil and wants to grind up poor people for lunch.

For me, the word “ambitious” has connotations of neutral-to-positive. I can only assume that for others (maybe because of movies they’ve seen or books they’ve read) that the word “ambitious” causes negative connotations. I can’t argue with that – people have built up feelings on certain words that can’t be whisked away with one SDMB posting.

Single women often express that they’d prefer a man with “ambition” – does that also make the women in question evil because they desire that trait? I guess that’s possible. What are women supposed to want? An obedient momma’s boy? Can women control what they want?

And altruism is also not required for laziness to pursued. What that means, I don’t know…

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License and registration, please.:slight_smile:

249

Outsourcing, a purely profit driven initiative, has done more to raise the standard of living for Chinese and Indian poor than any philanthropy.

250

Quite true. And it also true that (given that we 5% use 35% of the worlds resources) some adjustment in wealth must occur to raise the standard of living around the world. Too bad the way things are set up, it is at the expense of the working man here. The corporation just makes a better profit. China and India are of course grateful for the working stiff’s philanthropy.

251

It started out crappy and went downhill. The idea that anyone wants the poor to live a lush life is bullshit. Just a living wage will do. And medical care.
The idea that the poor will work himself up to rich is a joke. It can happen ,but 99,9 percent of the poor are there for most of their lives. What a dumb idea. Masses of people working themselves up and become rich. The poor are gone and everybody is rich now. There will always be poor. a society defines itself by how it treats its’ lesser members. We exploit them and brag about it.
The role of the working poor is simple. Work hard, don’t take time off or ask for more money. Do not get sick , Do not cost our system money. You are not worth it. Your function is to increase the wealth of those at the top. Anything that detracts from that makes you expendable.

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[quote=“gonzomax, post:251, topic:504904”]

… but 99,9 percent of the poor are there for most of their lives. QUOTE]

Cite?

In fact, I think we’ve seen some actual statistics that show that this is not true. I believe the statistics show that 85% of people in the poorest 20% move up into a higher quintile.

253

Ambition and ambitious are two different words. “Barack Obama’s ambitions were apparent at a young age.” has no evil connotations, but it is decidely more personal than community oriented.

You associated ambition with selfless goals such as to “make the world a better place”. I was pointing out that it is more frequently used to describe personal, financial goals, although the two sometimes coincide.

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The two always coincide unless the financial goals involve theft because making money requires creating value, which makes the world a better place.

255

And we come back to the meaning of the word value. You have demonstrated you know the price of everything, and the value of nothing.

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And you’ve demonstrated that you can recite famous quotes but don’t know the meaning of them or whether they apply to a particular situation.

257

There will always be “the poor”, unless you want a communist state, in which case you can refer to them as “the people”. The question is not if an entire class can be eliminated, it’s whether each member of that group can improve his or her lot in life. Cites have been provided showing you that is clearly possible. It is done every day. Every time someone gets a raise or a promotion, that’s what happens. Of course, some of “the poor” can choose to start a small business, too, which is another way for them to raise themselves up. Do you deny that people with low-paying jobs get raises and promotions. Do you deny that many people of the middle-class have been poor in the not so distant past? Do you deny that many people who do well today had extremely humble beginnings? I know you chose to just shit on what I say no matter what it is, and that is what you did with my response to Der Trihs, but you haven’t addressed the the actual logic presented. You haven’t explained away the fact that what I described happens every day. Nor have you attempted to justify your empty claims in light of the cites provided that show your notions to be made up rants.

Unsurprising as it is.

Ah, so you do understand that there will always be poor. Good. So, shouldn’t the idea be that they can work themselves out of a bad situation? Which has been done millions of times. You say it’s a joke. Then, that it can happen. Well, it more than can happen. It does happen—every single day. The only question is to whom will it happen? Or to whom should it happen? You, like your intellectual compadre seem to think that it should happen en masse, that the poor should be lifted. But that contradicts your own admission that there will always be “the poor”.

This is one thing you should ruminate on. What are they worth. Is a guy who sweeps the floor worth 100k a year? 200k? 25K? Each job has an inherent range that it is worth to the employer. THAT is what that employee is worth to an employer. If I have the greatest floorsweeper in the universe I may find it worth it to me to pay him quite a bit more than the average, but if he demands that he wants 200% more, I’ll have to suggest that he find someone else who perceives his worth as he does. If he’s right, he’ll find that job. If not, he’ll have to recalibrate and come back knocking on my door. The point is that there is a finite worth to an employee.If that upsets your humanistic sensibilities, do go into business. But if you do, can I have a job?

Your function is to increase your worth to an employer. The more valuable you are to him the better it is for you. And realizing that you ARE expendable to him is the healthiest thing you can do. You should work to make yourself, in theory, irreplaceable, but realize that you can always be replaced. Everyone can. But that shouldn’t stop you from doing whatever you can to be as valuable to him as possible. You should try to make him as much money as possible. Because you then increase his ability to pay you more.

Do you really not know all this?

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I should be able to hear your lamentations at not taking a comprehensive education from outside my window.

259

All right, you’re on. I’ll start at the top of this thread and clip some, if any, quotes. If I don’t come up with any, I lose. Otherwise, I win. Gimme another day.

It’ll be fun for someone for sure :cool:

260

I dunno. I am well paid because my work is worth cash money. In fact, I got a 10% raise this week!

I’m not really more than what I currently was though, I’m just a few more turns of the crank along. But sure, I can see the upside of ambition, and how a lack of it might not lead to capitalistic gains. I just don’t think that’s all there is.