By David Pennington -
The foundation: There will always be poor people, because life is worth living, even if being poor is the best you can achieve.
This fact contradicts one of the main tenets of the Marxists, which is that poverty is evidence of systemic unfairness.
1. They attempt to lay "blame" for poverty at the feet of the successful. (Their Stick) - We are not guilty.
2. They lobby to remake the fabric of society with the promise of eliminating poverty. (Their Carrot) - Their promise is hollow.
Today's 'bleeding heart liberal' is personally attached to living comfortably and projects his or her own fear, of life without those comforts, onto people who don't have them and never have. I believe it is this projected fear that makes them vulnerable to the suggestion that they are to blame for poverty.
People in general are charitable. Many support anti-poverty charities, other initiatives, and government programs because it makes them feel good, and—in my view—because they have not subjected the matter to critical thought. (I’m opposed to hand-out programs, but support “hand-up” programs: “Teach a man to fish….”)
There is a lot that can be said to bolster my foundation assertion.
a.We humans share with all other creatures the attitude that our own life is worth defending, no matter the odds.
b.There are poor people the world over who live life and find happiness.
c.The homeless in the US just get on with life, too. (Yes, there are some who are depressed, mentally ill, etc., but many would not live any other way.)
d.People who are handicapped–whether by birth, or disease, or accident–have a drive to make the best of the life they have.
e.When the stock market crashed in '29, it was not the poor who killed themselves. It was a few of the well-to-do, who could not bear to be poor, who did themselves in.
My maternal grandparents were among the working poor, for whom the Great Depression made things more difficult. My grandfather walked the neighborhood, shoveling coal into basements for 50 cents a house. My grandmother put in a garden, on their 25-foot lot in that part of Kansas City, Missouri, known as Northeast. There was city water, but not yet sewer, so there was a privy at the back of the lot. Grandma raised rabbits for food—tanned the hides and made a coat for my aunt. She took in laundry. Times were tougher for them, true, but I know from my mother that there were few complaints, and dinner together each day was a happy time of stories and laughter.
Additional supporting material
Living–as a student–in a cockroach-infested building, where I was able to keep my apartment nearly 100% free of the critters by making sure there was never anything available to them to eat, brought me the realization, first of all, "You can have as many cockroaches as you are willing to feed." (I lived on one side of the equation, but I was witness to life on the other side.)
What followed was the realization that the same is true of poor people: "You can have as many poor people as you are willing to feed."
Hollow promise, Part A: It follows from this insight that publicly funded programs that guarantee the availability of food and housing will, without fail, be ever-expanding programs. They will result in ever greater numbers of poor people.
Hollow promise, Part B: This is the second truth that contradicts the same tenet of the Marxists: endeavoring to eliminate poverty, which they will do by “redistribution of wealth,” will ultimately overwhelm the state with the numbers of poor and reduce the entire populace to poverty.
But the populace—the people—will find a way to go on, because life is worth living. I believe there is evidence of that in North Korea.
I had long been curious about Jesus telling Judas, “You will always have the poor with you.” I was certain what he said was true, but the question was, “Why?” Now it all makes sense.
Miscellaneous anecdotes
My paternal grandfather was a pastor. He told me that as a young associate pastor in the years before World War I, with charge of grade school-aged programs, he taught a 5th grade boys Sunday School class. The boys included some from poor families. He made a point of visiting each boy’s home, and in every home where he was able to present the Gospel to the parents, they had worked their way out of poverty within three months. When people desire to not be poor, there is no substitute for having hope for the future.
In Kansas City, in the 1980s, the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation made a proposition to the 8th grade class of an inner-city school: stay off drugs, don’t get pregnant, and graduate high school, and the foundation will pay for your education after high school, whether trade school or college, as far as you want to go, including PhD. I was living there at the time and am citing the story from memory. Without access to the actual numbers, but which I recall were dramatic: the graduation rate in that class approached the rates of suburban schools. That was a pilot program for the foundation. (Ewing Kauffman was a pharmacist who founded Marion Labs and later owned the Kansas City Royals. I had a couple of personal encounters with him, which were consistent with his reputation as a thoughtful and generous man.)
Another source: A friend of mine made clandestine trips to the USSR for No Such Agency (NSA). He recorded some of his observations in his book, The Girl in the Green Dress, under the pen name, J. T. Dameron. He embellished the account in the book in private correspondence.
“My prior trips had shown me the cruelty, poverty, and corruption of fairness to all. They had looted the rich first, then the professionals, then the middle class and were now down to the poor. Ah, what would happen when there was no one left to loot? Would they loot the leaders? Of course not, the leaders had the guns, and the peasants didn’t.” From the book, '…and looting other poor, broke countries they could get away with starting a war in.' 'What is left to loot when all is looted?' I asked. (p. 180)"
More from the same friend: “One thing I learned best relates to your 'the poor will always be with us.' Poor is relative, poor today is a 1,000 times richer in lifestyle that 45 years ago, by 1970 standards there are few poor in the world. In Africa I was told by the Peace Corps Director that we cannot teach too much, or we will ruin their culture."
My friend continued. "A Swazi later told me, 'If poverty is our culture, then we reject it. We want to grow with the world, not stagnate in poverty forever.' He was 11 years old and is now a doctor in Michigan.”
About Dave Pennington:
David Pennington is a licensed professional engineer who currently consults to pharmaceutical manufacturers. Besides occasional forays into political commentary, he spends his free time designing and making things, as an amateur machinist and woodworker. On a clear night, he likes to be out somewhere with his telescope, peering through the eyepiece or photographing one of the Messier objects.
