Reading Assignment
Published by McBoing December 21st, 2006 in Human Rights, Rights? What rights?, Shame on you for not being rich white and privilegedHow The World Works, “Lifestyles of the Poor and Unknown“:
It is hard to escape the conclusion that the poor do see themselves as having a significant amount of choice, and choose not to exercise it in the direction of spending more on food. The typical poor household in Udaipur [in India] could spend up to 30 percent more on food than it actually does, just based on what it spends on alcohol, tobacco, and festivals.
Carrying enough savings to make sure that they never have to cut meals, should not be too hard for these households since, as noted above, they have substantial slack in their budgets and cutting meals is not that common. It would also make it easier for them to deal with healthcare emergencies. As such, saving a bit more would seem like a relatively inexpensive way to reduce stress.
Putting aside the rather unfortunate phrasing — describing people who live in what the World Bank considers conditions of “extreme poverty” as having “substantial slack in their budgets” seems a little odd — there is an undertone in the paper that suggests that if only these poor people could demonstrate a little more “self-control” then they could Horatio Alger themselves out of their dire conditions by sheer force of boot-strapping will.
Don’t we all wish that! Wouldn’t we all be more productive, healthy and wealthy if we eschewed all sin and luxury, squirreled away every spare cent, and dedicated ourselves to unremitting self-improvement? When I look at the survey results compiled by Banerjee and Duflo, I don’t see a lack of self-control or self-discipline, I see people being ordinary humans, with ordinary desires, no matter what their income level. When I read the following passage, I am tempted to rephrase Hemingway’s and Fitzgerald’s famous exchange: “The poor are different than you and me.” “Yes, they have less money.”
It is hard to escape the conclusion that the poor do see themselves as having a significant amount of choice, and choose not to exercise it in the direction of spending more on food.
Umm… does this guy actually explain why they should spend more on food - is there an actual need for them to do that - or is he just trying to drum up support for BBW based pornographic colonialisation? Because that’s the most non sequitur bit of the whole peice “these people could send more on food! Therefore it’s their own fault that they work in a sweat shop for fuck all money!”
Maybe if he suggested something sensible, such as investing in certain chinese stock funds I could introdue him to, instead of eating and
giving money to the churchenjoying themselves at festivals and occasionally drinking.Also, I love the twisty grade irony of some guy who probably ate twice his body weight in cheetos while writing that paragraph going on about how these poor people are so beholden to luxuries.
Stop luxuriating like I luxuriate peoples, because it’s the only way to be able to luxuriate like I luxuriate!
A thought keeps haunting me, over and over, despite my attempts to walk away from it…
What kind of a country would we be if we had spend the last umpteen billion that has so far been wasted antagonizing people in Iraq on health programs for the uninsured in the US? On programs to educate people with the skills they need to be able to find work? On support for those unable to work? On making higher education available to all, and not just Bush’s and Cheney’s and other children of “the elite”?
What if we had a military sufficient to control our seas and borders and then spent the rest of the money paying down the deficit and (honestly) reducing taxes for those most heavily impacted by current tax policy? (hint: that would NOT include Billionaires…)
What if, instead of ignoring those people living under freeway overpasses, and behind decrepit buildings, and other ignored areas, we had ways to help them be part of society? Make sure they get mental health care? Medical care? Food to eat? Shelter?
Are we such a feeble country that these things are not possible? Has all our vision been consumed with how to get rich quickly, drive the biggest SUV’s, live in the largest houses, have the most Aryan children, eat at the finest restaurants?
Is America finally dead?…
McBoing, while my last comment lies moulding in moderation (dammit!), I just wanted to thank you for this thread.
I have zero “Christmas Spirit” this year, but at least this helps to make life’s priorities clearer…
MikeEss: For as long as I can remember (About 12 years; I’m not that old) Americans have always prefered to spend money on breaking things rather then building them.
We’d never spend the amount we have on the Iraq war on any kind of anti-poverty program.
Why? I have no earthly idea.
Two points:
If Bill Gates and Paul Allen never bought a Submarine, or ate anywhere nicer then Denny’s, they could just give all the savings to poor people and the poor people could go to festivals.
Since there are fewer billionaires then poor people, it makes more sense to ask the billionaires to abstain.
Second: Alchohol and Tobacco are special. Both are addictive, and alcohol has fairly potent euphoric effect, especially for the money. Cigarettes are less defensible, but also harder to scale back on.
Additionally, many people have families. Once, I asked my mother why she gets so stressed at Christmas, and why, if she hates it so much, she felt it so necessary to keep doing it all these years. While what she said wasn’t particularly profound, it’s stayed with me; she said, “Well, when you’re a parent, you want to do things that make your child happy,”
Like I said, not profound, but it hadn’t really struck me before how hard it is for a parent to deny their children something they want.
How hard would it be to essentially deny your children any luxuries? To, whenever they asked “Hey, it’s Christmas [Or whatever], can I buy a candycane?” say, “No.”
And do it again and again for more then a decade.
It’d be pretty darn hard, I’d think, especially since, taken individually, the savings of an extra 50 cents or whatever probably doesn’t seem worse a crushing misery extending for all of the forseeable future.
Christopher, I know you’re probably right. Americans can’t seem to work up any enthusiasm for anything that involves helping anybody other than ourselves (I’m often guilty of this myself…).
The Iraq war idiocy has just gotten to the point where it represents to me the most moronic waste of our money/lives/goodwill that has ever occurred in our history. The mindset that allows us to spend trillions keeping the largest military on earth, maintaining the greediest contractors, the most pork-loving congress people, can’t go on forever.
America is like a heroin addict that can’t face the thought of withdrawal, so we will do/say anything to keep from maturing, shedding our (exaggerated) fears, and ending our (unexamined) imperial dreams.
That we can be “The Richest Nation On Earth” and spend our wealth killing people, building weapons, buying yachts, mansions, limousines, designer fashions, Italian sports cars, etc., while there are people in this country (let alone the world) that starve, freeze, and die from poor health, is a moral indictment of us that we will not avoid.
The world will say of us a 100-years from now, “America could have been a great nation, but…”
This will be long after we have returned to being a poor agricultural nation of no significance…
*sputter! choke!*
Wouldn’t we all be more productive, healthy and wealthy if we eschewed all sin and luxury, squirreled away every spare cent, and dedicated ourselves to unremitting self-improvement?
I realise I’m sputtering to the choir here, but no! no! No!!!! We wouldn’t.
Sin and luxury keep us healthy. If we merely drudge along, drudge drudge drudge, we become bored, sad, stressed out, neurotic creatures, with very poor immune systems, and a tendency towards self-desctructive behaviours and addictions.
People need to keep their brains engaged, to delight their senses, to engage with other people. They go crazy otherwise.
I know when I was poor, I’d sometimes choose to buy concert tickets and skip a few meals and eat pasta for a few more in order to afford the tix. Concert tickets were more important to me than food, because I knew I’d eat again (which means that I was poor, but reasonably secure). Likewise, I’d buy concert tickets rather than saving to buy insurance because I could afford the $40 for the tix, right then, but my budget wouldn’t sustain the premiums for an insurance plan over an entire year (I could skip lunches for a month; wouldn’t want to do so for an entire year.)