
Why do you think people are poor? - pron
http://harpers.org/archive/1997/09/0074349
======
tokenadult
New York Times obituary of Earl Shorris, the author of this 1997 article, who
died this year:

[http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/03/us/earl-shorris-who-
fought...](http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/03/us/earl-shorris-who-fought-
poverty-with-knowledge-dies-at-75.html)

New York Daily News obituary:

[http://www.nydailynews.com/blogs/pageviews/2012/06/rememberi...](http://www.nydailynews.com/blogs/pageviews/2012/06/remembering-
earl-shorris-who-thought-the-poor-could-also-read-plato)

Obituary in The Nation:

[http://www.thenation.com/article/168212/remembering-earl-
sho...](http://www.thenation.com/article/168212/remembering-earl-shorris)

A list of his articles published in Harper's:

<http://harpers.org/subjects/EarlShorris>

------
gms7777
I remember reading an article at one point about a study done on high school
students. I can't remember exact details, but there was a program where
students in areas with bad high schools could apply to be sent to better high
schools. If I remember correctly, admission to the program wasn't merit based,
but first-come, first-serve. The study compared the students who got into the
program, and the students who applied but didn't get it. The kicker? Their
performance in school (I don't remember the metrics, though I agree its a
relevant difference whether its GPA or standardized test scores or something
else) was about the same.

The takeaway point? The ones applying were the ones who were motivated to
learn (or had family who encouraged them to take education more seriously).
Those that want to learn, will learn.

Not to be discouraging, (as I read this article and found it incredibly
inspiring), but the students in these classes are the exceptionally motivated,
who stuck through this education despite the difficulties. The hurdle that
must be overcome for this to have widespread implication is how we get more
people to find that motivation.

~~~
scarmig
Why is it, then, that despite the school someone goes to not mattering in
outcomes once you control for external factors, rich people still
disproportionately prefer to send their kids to private schools, and are
willing to pay 20-30k per year over a decade to do so?

I could totally believe that it's totally irrational on the rich parents'
part: kids and health are places where people lose much sense of rationality
and perspective. But it's still worth considering that the people who are
typically most invested and knowledgeable about their kids and the benefits of
a good education do usually go for private school if they have the means to.

~~~
thematt
It's because it _does_ matter to the outcome, if you consider the outcome to
be more than just GPA. GPA is not the best indicator of whether it's a
worthwhile investment. The selection of a private school takes in to account
additional factors like the environment you learn in, the connections you
make, the college prospects you get and also the mere existence of religion.

~~~
celer
Could you expand on the "mere existence of religion?"

~~~
thematt
Private schools are often affiliated with religious groups (Catholic, Jewish,
etc.) For many people who choose private education, the existence of religion
classes in school is a large factor.

------
grandalf
Life is a series of scenarios, each leaving the person slightly better
equipped to deal with future scenarios or slightly worse equipped.

Small disadvantages multiply, as to small advantages.

~~~
Dn_Ab
And so we get a lognormal distribution where small positive differences
(arguably ultimately due to luck; genes, environment, continent, family
network etc) combine to give enourmous advantages.

That said, regardless of your starting point it pays to try to position
yourself to gain as many positive points as you can - with luck you can ride
that same multiplicative unfairness to achieve better than linear progress.

~~~
crasshopper
Power law (Pareto distribution), not lognormal.

But you're partly right. Simulate random exchanges at random prices and the
wealth distribution will come out Pareto.

However, we cannot conclude that because [a] random exchanges lead to a power-
law dist and [b] we observe a power-law in reality, that [c] the real wealth
distribution is tantamount to random.

~~~
Dn_Ab
As far as I'm aware the debate of lognormal vs power law distribution on
wealth is unsettled.

EDIT: google search suggests power law tail - log normal bulk.

~~~
crasshopper
You are maybe thinking that it is difficult to identify powerlaws? (EDIT:
s/identify/statistically verify/; s/powerlaws/TRUE powerlaws/)

But look: <http://globalrichlist.com/how.html> The bulk is indeed powerlaw.

Maybe you are thinking that a sufficiently winsorised US income distribution
is lognormal.

~~~
Dn_Ab
To the contrary I think people are too eager to find scale free and power law
phenomena.

There are several papers discussing log-normal bulk and then power law tail.

[http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/2002/feb/26/the-
phy...](http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/2002/feb/26/the-physics-of-
personal-income)

<http://fmwww.bc.edu/ec-p/wp671.pdf> and more

For what it's worth my initial statement was meant to hold beyond income and
wealth and generalize to say achievement and productivity and so a lognormal
assumption was fitting as the distribution to pick. It also chimed well with
grandalf's statement on how advantages multiply.

------
Produce
She's completely correct that it's the culture of the rich which make them
rich.

What she's completely wrong about is that it's their morality that makes it
so.

We, the rich, the middle and upper classes, are the ones who fund prisons, we
are the ones who do not share our food with our neighbors, we are the ones who
refuse to mix with them and share our culture.

It's like Terrence McKenna said - "Culture is not your friend". Culture is a
tribal way of life - it's a gang sign, whether that sign be dressing in red or
blue or wearing a suit. It's our culture which judges that those who perform
certain jobs are more deserving of comfort than others. Yet without that
farmer growing his crops how would you eat? Without that garbage collector
removing waste, how would you stay healthy? Without that secretary, how would
your business function properly? It's these value judgements which really hurt
us. Someone will always need to do those jobs (until our machinery is smart
enough, anyway) and, as it stands, they will always be deemed by the rest of
us to be undeserving of the comfort that we have just because we do something
essentially far less fundamental.

Just as power corrupts, so inequality breeds resentment and poisons society.
There's a word for the solution I'm hinting at but it's too dangerous to even
mention.

~~~
Jun8
I don't know what the exact unutterable "dangerous" solution you have in mind,
but I can assure you, that's not it. The concept of inequality is bred into
the human psyche (our hardware or software), you cannot get rid of simplistic
social constructs such as communism, etc. Even if technology advances to the
level of creating robots to do all menial tasks, our concepts and need for
inequality will not go away (for a more pop but stronger version of this idea
see Mr. Smith's monolog to Morpheus in _The Matrix_ ).

Now, there _is_ a solution that _will_ work and is dangerous: Huxley's
eugenics/genetic engineering solution described in _Brave New World_. And
we're fast approaching that solution, I think.

~~~
Produce
>The concept of inequality is bred into the human psyche

If it's inherent then why are there examples of societies which lack it?

~~~
Jun8
The concept of a society with a strong form of equality is, I think, an
utopia, and AFAIK, no such society exists. Even if you look at primitive
societies, there are better hunters, the tribe leader has more wives than the
regular guy, the shaman is revered, etc.

One can say that's not what this discussion is about, i.e. it's the
_potential_ for equality, the right to be equal rather than the radical
definition above, but then the discussion becomes muddled, how to measure
inequality, economically (e.g. the Gini index), by asking people, etc.
"Inequality" then becomes a very complicated word like "democracy" or
"justice".

I think it's interesting to draw a comparison with democracy: "true"
democracy, i.e. radical democracy, is likewise impossible to maintain. The
closest form in Athens degenerated to tyranny many times. And probably Athens
was the largest collection of people where such pure democracy is feasible,
i.e. it cannot be scaled up to a whole country. Judging from the lack of other
examples in human history, one can see that the order of things in Athens was
not the natural state of society.

So, I maintain that pure forms "liberté, égalité, fraternité" are not
practical and cannot be achieved.

Now, one can argue back, saying "Yeah, yeah, we know that, but surely you can
rank countries on how much they have achieved these, e.g. surely no one would
debate that the US is more democratic than Saudi Arabia." This, of course, is
true, but (i) means that we should leave behind "a brotherhood of men, and no
possession, too" crap behind and (ii) leads us back to the question of
measuring inequality.

~~~
Produce
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_anarchist_communities>

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarchism_in_Africa>

>One can say that's not what this discussion is about, i.e. it's the potential
for equality, the right to be equal rather than the radical definition above,
but then the discussion becomes muddled, how to measure inequality,
economically (e.g. the Gini index), by asking people, etc. "Inequality" then
becomes a very complicated word like "democracy" or "justice".

Personally, I think that it's very simple to define. We know from research
that having more money, past the point of no longer being in poverty, does
nothing significant to increase happiness. So, in my opinion, equality, in
terms of money, is about nobody having to live in poverty and discomfort.

The democracy we are used to is Representative Democracy. When a few people
hold all of the power, and we just get to vote for our dictators, what kind of
democracy is that!? Personally, I think that Direct Democracy deserves more
attention and experimentation. Some countries have been running it for years
and their quality of life is among the best in the world.

------
sparkie
Because the system makes sure people stay poor.

How many of you were taught in school that if you pay yourself a minimum wage
and make up the rest as a dividend/bonus you can avoid paying a significant
amount of tax (legally)?

Or how many of you were taught how to become "employable" so that you can earn
the same amount of money and pay considerably more tax, unavoidably - because
you aren't in control of your own finance.

How many of you were taught to open a bank account as a good way of
"organizing your finances" (read: filling the pockets of fat men).

How many of you were taught anything about running your own business and being
in control of yourself and your securities?

There's a reason this isn't taught in public schools folks - it's because the
people at the top want more for themselves and less for you. They don't care
about you - except when you're gullible enough to believe you're making a
choice when voting season arrives.

The poor are poor because they think "that's just the way it is," and continue
about their lives. It's only when you realize that's not the way it should be,
because you're being fucked, that you start to do something about it and make
yourself.

Then there's the moral effect. You either see the need to do something to
change the system, and remain poor - or you accept it, and realize that the
best way for you to make more money is to keep poor people poor (and gullible)
- thus prolonging the system.

~~~
mindcrime
There's a lot to be said for that. If somebody had _really_ sat down and
hammered me on the power of compound interest and taught me a little bit about
the capital markets, when I was, say, 14 or so... I think I would have made a
lot of decisions differently and would probably be better off today. Although,
to be fair on this point, I'm not _sure_ it would have helped, because I can't
- in retrospect - say that my 14 year old self would have taken those lessons
to heart. You think about time differently when you're young... the idea of
saving for "the future" and building wealth slowly... would I have appreciated
the idea of Dollar Value Averaging back then? Hmmm... hard to say.

But anyway, I agree with you in principle, sparkie. What we're taught about
how the world works, when we are young, is tremendously influential.

~~~
sparkie
I only really discovered the advantages of creating my own business when I was
around 23, I'm 25 now. I also got into a significant amount of debt in order
to get a degree to make me more "employable" - and I'm still paying it back.

I'm perhaps most irritated by this because I'm mostly self-taught (in computer
science) and university did very little for me. I should've studied business
instead, but probably like you suggest, I would've considered that idea
incredibly boring at school leaving age.

Boredom aside though, I do wish I'd learned more about business and life in
general during school. I'm still trying to learn my way around the system now,
but there aren't enough hours in the day. I'm sincerely grateful for the
people who've taken the time to explain things to me anyway.

~~~
tmzt
Maybe what we need is less of a udacity for coding and one for business,
expressed in a way anybody can understand but not as rigid as a bschool or mba
program? Reading the Thiel lectures for instance is very educational but
without the basics how do you apply something like that?

~~~
joshkaufman
That's what I do: <http://personalmba.com>. Business is not that difficult
once you know the basics.

The best place to start is my book: <http://personalmba.com/book/>

Hope you find it useful!

~~~
mindcrime
You're the guy behind PersonalMBA? Awesome, I have the book and I love the
site. I haven't put as much time into it as I should, as I've been too busy
with the nitty-gritty, day-to-day "stuff" of doing a startup.

I do fully intend to get through the Personal MBA stuff eventually; but right
now, I'm spending more time with the stuff from Steve Blank, Eric Ries, Ash
Maurya, etc. :-)

------
dredmorbius
It's about brakes, accelerators, and random (mis/good)fortune.

Brakes are the things that slow you down. Accelerators are the things that
give you a boost.

Any one of us has these both imposed on us and has some degree of influence
over them, though to what specific extent varies a lot.

The point of the essay (confession: I skimmed it) is that an _effective_
education is among the more powerful accelerators which can be applied. It's
actionable (lifting a concept from a thread here) in the sense that both
individuals and communities / society as a whole can engage productively in
efforts to increase the availability / efficacy of education.

It's a fact recognized by the father of capitalism, Adam Smith, and the
founding fathers, including Thomas Jefferson.

------
ismarc
It's hard to write this, and my opinion is probably biased because of it, but
this article is nothing but a giant load of horse shit and is a carefully
constructed as "feel good" to reinforce the preconceived notions the author
had going into it. A little bit of background; I grew up poor, people randomly
leaving food on our doorstep poor, my parents giving the bike I had bought
with my own earned money to my brother for christmas poor, moving every couple
of years because my dad would make a bad enough name for himself in an entire
town/city that he couldn't get a job poor. I was rejected from his classes (I
was actually living in Queens at the time) when they were first available. I
may have been one of the two 16 year olds turned away, but I'm pretty sure I
was older than that at the time, I may have been one of the people who was
"too poor" to take the class. I distinctly remember being told that I "wasn't
what they were looking for" and that they "wanted the classes to be as
beneficial to all attendees as possible." So, given that, my opinions may be a
bit biased.

What I learned, clawing myself to where I am (I currently make more than twice
what both my parents combined ever made), is that independent of the person,
you HAVE to get the out of the situation they are in. Being "poor" or below
the poverty line, life is not what you would expect. There is nothing extra,
there is not even enough to sustain yourself. Each month, you make decisions
of what bills to pay (food, electricity, gas, rent) based on which is most
likely to be shut off. You spend money you can't afford on things you don't
"need" because you need just something, anything, to make it feel like you are
actually alive and not just some "thing", only there to feed on the remains
you can come across. Learning about the humanities doesn't change the fact
that you're working a minimum wage job 3rd shift and rarely making it to your
classes at high school (just often enough to keep from being expelled) just so
you don't end up homeless. It doesn't change the fact that you try to cheat
and go through the lunch line twice to get two free meals just so you can have
something to eat that evening (breakfast? The programs that give kids
breakfast ends at middle school).

I escaped from poverty because I am significantly above the average
intelligence level and I managed to make the right decision at the right time.
For a point of reference, not the last time I talked to my dad, but the time
before that, he was letting me know he may not have a phone for a while
because the lady's cell phone plan he was on had passed away almost a year
ago, and now that it was up for renewal and she was dead, he likely would not
be able to put it in his name. I was paying someone I knew $30 a month to
sleep in a sleeping bag in their closet when I joined the Army (shipped out
January of 2000). I blew the ASVAB out of the water and had my choice of MOSes
with all sorts of bonuses as well. But none of that mattered. What mattered
was that I was removed from the environment I was in. I was able to see how
other people lived while being provided for and then having some extra money
on top. When my enlistment was over, I moved on and have done great things and
I am now in a wonderful place in life now. But I'm unique in that aspect. A
large number of people I served with would not be able to once they were
discharged and I hope most of them stay in, because it's a better life for
them.

Just as having middle class or better contacts, friends, network and
confidants can help you maintain or better your station, being poor and having
poor contacts, friends, network and confidants will help you maintain or lose
ground. If everyone you know is working for minimum wage, you don't ask where
a good place to work is expecting good work, you're expecting somewhere that
will actually give you full-time hours, or enough to barely sustain yourself.

Downvote me, rail against me, disagree, defend the article all you want to,
but the article is full of as much hope and potential as the government
programs that are available to help the poor go to college, all the way up to
covering the entirety of their tuition. It sounds like such a great idea, but
the reality is that fully covered tuition means jack shit when they are
working 70-80 hours a week just to make rent and keep the lights on. It's
feel-good drivel by people who never truly understood (and never will
understand) what it's like to be at the poverty level or below.

~~~
vacri
I don't think you're as much at odds with the author as you claim. What I read
in the article was him trying to teach a different way of looking at things, a
new angle, which is what I read you got out of your enlistment.

~~~
coob
Yes, this quote from the reply jumped out at me: "What mattered was that I was
removed from the environment I was in."

The author is saying the same thing, though perhaps more to do with mental
models than physicality.

------
erikpukinskis
Sad that he tells the students "This will be proof, I hope, of my idea about
the humanities".

It's Viniece Walker's idea, the woman he met in prison, who earned the idea
with her struggles.

I wish more people of privilege were aware of how often they "forget" to give
credit where credit is due, especially when credit is due to someone of less
privilege.

~~~
cgs1019
Well, he did preface the entire article with that fact; it's not as if he
doesn't give credit. There are any number of reasons not to go into the
details of the inspiration during the course itself, and anyway, there's
nothing whatsoever to indicate that he didn't mention it at some point.

To imply that this most selfless, compassionate, and generous person not only
forgot to give credit but did so as a result of some inbuilt insensitivity to
wealth disparity is an egregious misrepresentation. I mean, did you read what
the guy's work was about? Is this really a nit to be picked?

------
tgrass
[September 1997]

[Edit] and still relevant...just pointing out the date.

~~~
notatoad
Thanks for pointing that out. As i was reading the article i was having
flashbacks to Bunny Colvin attempting to 'socialize' his students in Season 4
of The Wire. It's reassuring to know that the study and science probably
inspired the television show, and not the other way around.

------
chipsy
We became poor after deciding to adopt agriculture and systems of debt -
previous to that, your wealth was momentary and related to your immediate
friends, the seasons, and location, so the concept didn't really exist as we
know it.

As civilization gained wealth, some people became rich, but they were only
rich relative to everyone else's poverty. The wealthiest people of Rome had,
in most respects, less than what someone on Western unemployment benefits may
have now. They could do better on basics(which are important), but the
technology of today was unfathomable.

But one of the technologies we haven't found is a way to escape the status
differentials, complexities, and failures of our debt system; solving that
problem is the key to solving poverty.

------
Uchikoma
I have no clue. I think I know why I'm not poor

1\. Luck to be born in Germany 2\. My parents did everything despite their low
incomes to get me to university and support me with everything I've ever tried
- and got me out of stupid situations I got myself into 3\. Luck to get a job
in the early 90s for programming web sites when very few people could do that,
although the job offer was out there already for 3 months. Because someone at
university told me during holiday about something called "WWW" 4\. Luck that
my girl friend left me - somehow - and I wanted to get over that by working a
lot 5\. Luck that I got VC financed and become CTO of a startup during the dot
com boom

------
stretchwithme
In order to accumulate resources, one must use the resources available wisely,
consuming just a portion and investing the rest to produce more resources.

Individuals and societies that don't do this grow poorer.

~~~
eli_gottlieb
But your investment returns are someone else's uninvested consumption.
Aggregate demand is like a field of crops, and our society seems to have
chosen to eat its seed corn.

~~~
stretchwithme
Not all returns are someone else's consumption. If that were the case, there
would be no industry.

You can invest in a business that makes things for businesses or things that
are actually investments for consumers.

An education is not (usually) consumption for a consumer. Neither is a car
that more than pays for itself with the time it saves. Using the same car to
go traveling around the country instead of getting an education is more
consumption than investment.

Our society has chosen to water down the natural incentives to make prudent
investments. Saving money no longer pays meaningful interest. The government
gives you large incentives to buy a much bigger house than you might otherwise
buy or rent. That "extra" house is consumption.

~~~
eli_gottlieb
_Not all returns are someone else's consumption. If that were the case, there
would be no industry._

It is a good approximation of reality, created by the fact that people have
varying preferences for consumption versus investment.

 _An education is not (usually) consumption for a consumer. Neither is a car
that more than pays for itself with the time it saves._

In neither of these cases does the provider of the car or education receive
monetary returns for the car or education beyond the actual price. When I said
"investment", I should perhaps have specified _capital gains_ : interest,
dividends, or asset appreciation that return monetized value to the investor.

So an education is _metaphorically_ investment for the student, but not for
the university. Even for the student, there is no asset owned that can be sold
and no legal contract of debt or equity that "their education" has to pay for.
There's just a hope of a better-paying job. Hence, "metaphorically" an
investment.

 _Our society has chosen to water down the natural incentives to make prudent
investments._

Well no. Our society is struggling to keep its head far-enough above water to
avoid a deflationary spiral.

~~~
stretchwithme
The maker of the car does receive a return. Its the price paid for minus all
the costs of being in the car business.

A return is not guaranteed, of course. But if there were no return possible,
no one would go into the car business.

You say for student there is no asset that can be sold. Not true, at least
when the student chooses his education wisely. He can now sell his time for
more money. Education is a "factor of production" of his work, which he then
can sell.

When I first spoke about investment, I did not mean the narrow meaning you've
understood. I was talking about why people are poor and I discussed consuming
resources versus using them to produce more resources.

Investing in one's own capabilities or making your own garden are investments
that don't involve giving money to someone else and waiting for a return.
Successful businesses and successful people make such investments.

~~~
eli_gottlieb
_When I first spoke about investment, I did not mean the narrow meaning you've
understood. I was talking about why people are poor and I discussed consuming
resources versus using them to produce more resources._

Ok, but in that case, most poor people simply don't have much to invest in
themselves. Most of their efforts are consumed each day in just getting a
living (by implication: most people are poor).

~~~
stretchwithme
That's not true. We were all poor once. Yet here we are. I grew up poor
myself.

Where people are not free, where the government or thieves take their
resources, they cannot accumulate anything. And in countries that are still
largely poor, that is exactly what happens.

But, when people are able to escape these countries to where they can be free,
they are then free to improve their situation. And many do.

------
dedward
I see lots of people blaming "the system" and whatnot for not teaching you to
be rich..... and getting you into debt. And to be sure, the financial industry
has been given too much rope to hand out credit without enough risk.

But I seem to recall seeing many other forums about university, mortgages,
etc, where people who's parents paid for their education, helped with a house,
etc, are ridiculed - and I don't mean super rich dynastic trust fund
babies....

It only takes a generation and some common thinking for a family to stick
together and get _ahead_ , and ensure their children never need to borrow
money from a bank to get an education, or buy a house. You don't have to be
rich... but why can't we live, you know, a generation ahead? I know a guy who
told me his parents paid for all his stuff, his house, etc, and therefore all
his work and all that (good tech guy) was just being saved up for HIS kids,
ad-infinitum. They aren't trying to be rich - they just stay a generation
ahead.

How many people, 10 years into their working life, have a year's minimum
expenses in liquid cash, a cushion, just in case? How about 6 months? Most
don't even have 2 weeks.... most live _hours_ away from disaster if they don't
get paid on time, and they blame everyone else. Get a couple months ahead and
you no longer think about when payday is.... it's not relevant. Want to be an
entrepreneur? great. Do it. People don't understand what money is for, or how
to really use it to their advantage. They learn abou their "credit rating" -
that's it.

My rules: \- There's nothing wrong with cash in the bank (really secure,
liquid assetts). People tell you you are losing out because of inflation.....
most of those people got smashed when the stock market crashed. I'm not
knocking investment, I'm just saying, cash is okay. I've weathered the ups and
downs of the financial world without worry or concern while everyone else was
freaking out. A good credit rating is good - but it should be a side effect of
good financial practices, not a goal in and of itself. My credit rating
probably isn't great - it's not _bad_ because I've done nothing wrong, but I
haven't borrowed large sums and paid them back, that kind of thing.

Credit cards should work for you, they are not a privilege. They should
protect you from risk of theft, and help you balance out and manage cache
flow. They should never be used for money you don't have. There are other ways
to go about that (and in a circle of friends with similar practices, you
borrow from friends - imagine a society based on the same)

Avoid debt. Debt is okay - but don't get over your head... stay far, far away
from that kind of debt. Debt carries a psychological burden as well.... for me
it feels great knowing that when I get paid, my money is mine. If I borrow
some money, pay some interest so I can keep some liquidity rather than spend
cash on something big the interest payments are worth keeping my security
cushion adequate - but if push comes to shove, I can just pay it off - that's
what I mean.

You want a simple credit card without fees or nasty interest rates. You want
protection and no nonsense. You want cash in the bank, always growing - I
don't mean retirement savings, I mean a cushion - it should grow all the time.
After 20 years of working you should be in a position where you could have no
job for a year or more without screwing up your life. (not saying you SHOULD
do that, you probably shouldn't - but you should be able to - that makes
negotating salaries and dealing with employers much, much easier).

It's really simple. Avoid debt. Build and _keep adding to_ a cash cushion. Dip
in once in a while, no problem, but keep it growing. It'll hurt at first, but
before long you'll LOVE it. Be as aggressive as you can. Liquidity =
opportunity. (Imagine having a rented home and lots of cash in the bank rather
than an underwater mortgage when the housing market crashed. Most people
tragically sufferred - you would be in a position to take advantage of the
situation immediately.

~~~
atirip
"After 20 years of working you should be in a position where you could have no
job for a year or more without screwing up your life."

We call it - "Go fuck yourself, boss" money.

~~~
dedward
Call it whatever makes you happy I guess - but personally, as much as I might
want to, I htink it's abad idea to burn bridges. "go fuck yourself boss" is
the wrong mentality - if the place isn't for you, you just go, move on, and
leave it in the past.

------
Mz
I read his book years ago, the one this article references. It was wonderful.
I highly recommend it.

------
drharris
Thanks for posting this article. It was extremely well written, so much so
that I just bought some of his books. It feels like this should be a movie.
Sounds more inspiring than Stand and Deliver, Freedom Writers, etc.

------
usablebytes
May be because the feeling of 'being important' has died inside them.

A lot of social factors can be blamed for that situation and truly though; but
the important fact is 'it starts with the very individual'. Unless that
individual feels the need, the situation won't change, no matter what. So if
non-poor part of the society wants to do anything about it, the first thing
that should be tried is to 'awaken' the poor.

------
eliben
Great article - thanks for sharing.

It's a shame that most comments here respond to the title of the article and
not its contents. Hint: it's not what you think

------
fjorder
It's interesting that this article mentions Heisenberg. Although the
Heisenberg uncertainty principle was formulated for quantum particles, it can
be paraphrased as saying that measurements disturb the system being measured.
It is perilous to apply quantum physics to the behavior and interactions of
humans, but here I believe it is illustrative. Specifically, I think Shorris'
study perturbed the system he was trying to measure while he was still in the
process of trying to measure its different aspects.

Shorris' argues that the key to escaping poverty is the study of the
humanities. His evidence is that a group of carefully selected students who,
after being given a year of quality education, seem to be able to escape the
poverty that entrapped them. Learning the humanities therefore provides a way
out of poverty. While this is an uplifting, perhaps even inspirational
message, the conclusions he draws are highly questionable for a plethora of
reasons.

1\. Response bias: Students expressing interest in the course are likely the
most motivated individuals in their respective circles.

2\. Selection bias: Students deemed "too impoverished" or "too uneducated"
were rejected.

3\. Intervention by study conductor: Education and career advice was not only
given freely, but volunteered to promising pupils.

3\. Variables not controlled: The education included high quality instructors
who might have been capable of "inspiring" their students, regardless of the
subject being taught, as well as providing an "in" to their respective
institutions. Disruption of routine: Students were required to leave their
immediate neighborhood and social circles regularly and engage in rigorous
study.

4\. No control group.

I could go on for a while, but this is sufficient. Shorris' study group
consisted of the most highly motivated members of the poor minus those who
were the least educated. He then intervened in their lives, not just to give
them a quality education, but also by changing their habits, exposing them to
the unfamiliar, enhancing their motivation and giving them career/education
counseling plus networking connections to the educational institutes of the
participating teachers.

I will not dispute that this course was a fantastic idea that enriched the
lives of those lucky enough to take it, but it simply cannot be used as
evidence for the notion that study of the humanities specifically can be used
to combat poverty. Instead, it should be used a model for other similar
courses.

------
Tichy
Could somebody do a TL;DR, please? I am interested, but I am not sure where
the article gets to the point?

~~~
Mz
Real education is the path out of poverty. It always has been. Real education
teaches people to think more effectively. Not everything called "education"
fits that requirement. The poor are often subjected to training rather than
education, which very often doesn't resolve anything. Training tends to
reinforce the social trap they live in.

I suggest you not only read the article but also the book it is about. It is
one of the more important books I have read.

~~~
danielweber
Did this project have good results? Have other people successfully replicated
those good results running the project themselves?

I suspect, like most projects, it didn't meet both of those criteria. However,
if it did, I would be extremely interested.

~~~
Ralith
> A year after graduation, ten of the first sixteen Clemente Course graduates
> were attending four-year colleges or going to nursing school; four of them
> had received full scholarships to Bard College. The other graduates were
> attending community college or working full-time. Except for one: she had
> been fired from her job in a fast-food restaurant for trying to start a
> union.

It sounds like it was successful to me.

~~~
Produce
So the solution is to make _everyone_ a nurse or an engineer or a manager?
Who's going to sweep the streets and grow food?

~~~
natep
There is so much wrong with this statement and way of thinking that I don't
even know where to start. I'm upvoting, because I don't want this comment to
disappear, but it's still wrong-headed.

1\. Answering the first quesiton directly:

No, that's not the solution proposed by the article. The goal was to get the
poor involved in politics, in the largest sense of the word. At the end, he
reported that almost everyone in the first class was either in school or
employed full-time. No mention of managerial roles, or what they were training
to be. One tried to start a union, so she is not heading towards a managerial
role.

There are plenty of programs out there that do try to train people in
technical skills, like nursing, engineering, or management, but this was _not_
one of those programs. This is a way to help the poor break out of the vicious
cycle of poverty themselves by giving them the tools to think about their
situation. Who knows what they'll do with those tools.

2\. Answering the second question, allowing for your premise:

Robots, programmed by all of these engineers we wouldn't've had otherwise, and
the people that are too poor to be helped, or unable for other reasons. This
is what we call a _good_ problem.

3\. Making fun of you/sarcasm:

OK, sure, lets not help the poor at all, because what if we're _too
successful?!?_ That would be horrible! We'd starve to death in dirty streets,
because people would be too busy nursing, engineering, and managing each
other, and not realize there was no food!

4\. Rejecting your premise and addressing the second question:

Who's going to do the blue collar jobs? Mostly the same kinds of people that
do them now, except they will have more political empowerment, and a greater
capacity for reflection and critical thinking. I know a few educated people
that choose to work as farmhands, so it's not impossible, and I myself enjoy
an "honest day's work" (speaking as someone with the privilege of an education
in the humanities).

Can you imagine how awesome it would be if we had a society of critical
thinkers and moral philosophers, instead of the reactionary, anti-
intellectual, gullible, fundamentalist society we have now[1]? Can you imagine
if the lowest common denominator weren't so low? I'm not saying it would be a
utopia, but for at least the last few hundred years, people have been dreaming
of a time when machines had taken over every menial task, and humans could
spend their time as they wished, free to follow pursuits of their own
choosing.

[1] I'm not trying to say 100% of society is like that I'm just saying that
significant fractions of the American population at least show one or more of
these characteristics, and I don't think it's making for a better society.

~~~
Produce
Whoa there. I merely questioned the notion that simply educating everyone will
solve all of our problems. I was implying that there's a lot more to it than
that. Look at the media industry, for example - we have developed technology
which makes information freely accessible to everyone yet we have a
considerable amount of resources being thrown at locking that down, which
makes no sense in the grand scheme of things.

I agree that education is a must, but it's also about addressing the social
structures we currently have in place and recognising that they will fight
tooth and nail to keep things the way they currently are.

~~~
natep
Please forgive me for misinterpreting, since at the only clarification you had
at the time of my comment was

> And the implication of everybody being well educated is that everyone will
> have white collar jobs or prestigious blue collar jobs. If everyone is well
> educated then who will want to take a job as a street cleaner when they've
> just spent $80k on their education? The solution is clearly not limited to
> just educating everyone, is it?

While the latter part of your statement is the same as the beginning of what
you just said, I took the former to mean that educating everybody would cause
additional problems, not that it wouldn't solve all the problems we have. If
you didn't mean to imply this line of thinking, or if you have abandoned it,
then great.

To address this new point, did you see anything in my comment that suggests I
want to keep our current social structure? The very act of empowering the poor
into participating in politics (again, not just in the election sense) on a
large scale will change the structure of society. And then, instead of the
privileged deciding what the poor need and pushing potential solutions, we
would probably start to see the poor creating their own solutions, and further
changing our societal structure. I imagine that their solutions would work
better than those that came from outside, and they might even be highly
resistant to recommendations from a model society (some didn't even trust that
this education would help, since "the white man wouldn’t let you up no matter
what.").

It's like the various Housing First problems out there. Most of the homeless
have a host of other problems (addiction, mental illness/disorder, lack of
education, etc) but these programs get them an apartment first, and merely
make the other services available. And from what I've read, they work. People
stay off the streets and clean themselves up, for the most part.

That said, there is _no_ reason we can't educate everyone in the humanities
and do other things, too.

~~~
Produce
I've thought a fair bit about this now and finally understand what point I was
trying to make. Educating the poor is not enough because the rich are an
integral part of the problem. Just as the poor are so because they lack
education, so the rich hold deep prejudices against the poor because of
_their_ lack of education. It's just like psychotherapy on an individual scale
- the problem is never limited to just the person in question. The problem is
the whole family, the whole society, not just one aspect of it.

In other words, our entire society needs to be re-educated in order to solve
this problem, not just the poor.

>we would probably start to see the poor creating their own solutions, and
further changing our societal structure.

Indeed we would, but we would also see a great deal of resistance to it from
the powers that be. This needs to be addressed with equal importance. What's
the point of bringing people up when others will just try to push them down
more? We need to bring them up _and_ make space to accommodate them.

~~~
natep
Thank you for engaging me in this thread. I still think you're missing the
point, if you think people need it pointed out to them that there's more than
one reason the poor are poor. Well, they do, but not if they've read this
article, since the author is more than aware of this, and illustrates what he
calls the "surround of force" throughout.

In terms of educating the rich, what exactly do you propose to teach them and
how do you suggest convincing them to give you the time of day?

------
shin_lao
_If you want to get out of poverty, stop thinking like a poor person._

~~~
vacri
As ismarc above states, half the battle is also being surrounded by poor
people who disregard accomplishment.

------
pippy
People are poor when a market doesn't employ capitalist methods.

In a purely capitalist job market the hardest working, most productive people
would get paid the best and have job security.

~~~
flyinRyan
This sounds like religious dogma. How do you define "hardest working"? Would
someone holding down two and three jobs count because these people tend to be
some of the poorest.

I can imagine that if we could somehow make compensation transparent to the
point that, say, buying bananas is so that every single worker has a rough
idea of the value their work provides that would help raise wages but I would
still struggle for a definition of "hard working" that would mean those that
engage in it will become the richest.

------
luminaobscura
bad luck. (bad genes, bad parents, bad country...)

------
maked00
Just one more apologist for the 1% telling them it's ok that you have so much
and most other people have none. It's their choice. They choose to be poor. It
is very simple. So go back to cheating on your taxes so you can afford shinyer
rings. It's not your fault our infrastructure is crumbling, its all those poor
people who refuse to choose to not be poor. Shelve next to other right wing
wacko screeds like Ayn Rand.

------
maked00
Gotta love all these ditto heads doing the 'start your own business' chorus.
99% of all new businesses fail.

The 1% have been working very hard to pull up and destroy the ladders they
used to get where they are.

In the current fascist economy there is simply no way 100 out of 100 people
can all strike it rich. The handful at the top are busy cementing their
position.

The game is rigged.

------
sparknlaunch
In a recent fictional book about poverty in the UK, two types if poverty were
identified.

One was unintentional poverty- someone falls into trouble due to no fault of
their own. Maybe illness, trauma etc

The other is intentional- individuals taking full advantage of government
benefits. In the UK generations of families have been stuck in this category.

One group feel more deserving...

~~~
DanBC
> _The other is intentional- individuals taking full advantage of government
> benefits. In the UK generations of families have been stuck in this
> category._

The UK tax and benefits system creates perverse incentives. The systems are
baffling (advisors for tax or for benefits need a lot of training (accountants
need degree level studying and qualifications)) and interlocking. They are
handled by different government departments. Mistakes are common. If the
people paying the benefit make a mistake to your detriment nothing happens.
(Or if you make a mistake to your detriment.) (And if you don't notice in time
you're unlikely to get that money ever.) But if they make a mistake in your
favour that money will be clawed back, no matter how long ago the mistake was
made. And if you make a mistake in your favour, or if you don't report their
mistakes in your favour, you risk interview under caution, arrest, and
prosecution.

Compare this treatment of people who are poor with, for example, very wealthy
companies taking extreme borderline legal tax avoidance measures.

People who have learned dependence might not feel deserving, but getting them
off benefit and into work isn't as easy as clubbing them with punishments.
Especially since it was society that put them there.

Here's an example of Vodafone:

([http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/oct/22/vodafone...](http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/oct/22/vodafone-
tax-case-leaves-sour-taste))

They owed maybe £6bn, probably £4bn. They paid £1.2bn in a deal.

------
planetguy
Surely genetics plays a huge role, one that's ignored in this article.

~~~
WiseWeasel
What would be the point? It's not an issue we're equipped to address, so what
good would come from dwelling on the topic, even discounting the risk of
muddying the author's point with divisive claims?

~~~
planetguy
It makes all the difference in the world. If people are poor _because that's
the best they're genetically equipped to do_ , then there's not much we can do
about it.

Look at pigeons. They eat out of garbage cans. They die within a few years.
They get run over by cars rather a lot. But we don't really worry about this,
because they're _just fucking pigeons_.

~~~
pradocchia
_if that's the best they're genetically equipped to do_

Gosh I'd be ashamed to make such an argument. It's a) incredibly loaded, and
b) carries incredible risk in the event that someone takes it to heart and
actually starts acting along those lines. Though perhaps you are just not used
to your words having any force, and have yet to learn circumspection.

And I sense a certain hubris: "I am not a pigeon." Well, so you think.

------
m0skit0
There are poors so rich can stay rich.

~~~
antninja
The richer are some, the poorer are others.

There is a limited amount of money/wealth in the world. If some people
take/earn/inherit more than average, then less wealth will remain available to
others. The only way to fight poverty is to prevent exaggerated accumulation
of wealth (the rich must be incited to spend his money, if not through
creating jobs, then through taxes).

------
zygotic
Swing low. Give it all away.

------
readymade
Because they're stupid and lazy;No because they're oppressed and victimized
LOL ROFLMAO TLDR

------
cgoddard
Poverty is structural. Why are people poor? Largely because they are working
jobs that pay shit wages, or live in areas they are too poor to escape, where
there are not quality jobs matching the skillset taught to them by society.

This article is elitist bullshit coming from someone who has lived their life
completely alien to poverty, who struggles to understand it.

When every type of worker makes enough money to afford to live in a school
district with resources and quality educators, have health care, buy
groceries, and care for their kids, we'll be in a lot better condition as a
society.

------
codex
Evolution encourages diversity. At any given point in time and place, some
people are better adapted than others. The least adapted make up at least some
of the poor. By this relative definition, some poor will always be with us,
even though their standard of living is rising continually.

~~~
kaonashi
Social Darwinism, really? I thought that went out of style with eugenics.

~~~
philwelch
Stylishness is not equivalent to truth.

~~~
mbetter
In science, they are quite highly correlated.

~~~
anonymoushn
This hasn't been true historically. Almost all of the times we have been
confident that we understood something, we have been wrong.

~~~
roguecoder
That is because almost all the time we are wrong, whether we were confident or
not. However, we were generally less-wrong that were were before.

I recommend Asimov's article on the matter:
<http://chem.tufts.edu/AnswersInScience/RelativityofWrong.htm>

~~~
philwelch
There are also step functions when dogma comes into the question. Copernicus
and Galileo were both right about heliocentrism, but when heliocentrism was
politically incorrect, the scientific consensus was wrong.

------
ilaksh
This article is breathtakingly ludicrous. The 'humanities' and the culture
that espouses them are essentially pre-scientific. The exercise described by
the author is an embarrassing demonstration of that.

Inequality is built-in to the structure of our 'civilization'. There are
social science studies which have demonstrated how that works.
[http://scholar.google.com/scholar?start=10&q=inequality&...](http://scholar.google.com/scholar?start=10&q=inequality&hl=en&as_sdt=0,5)
Some of those might not be as ludicrous as the article (although many of the
authors of those studies may be social Darwinists which would probably
invalidate many of the results).

My current perspective is this: there is a very simple, stupid set of beliefs
which are supporting the structure which leads to the maintenance of vast
inequality. Basically, we still have castes and have gone through a few
different rationalizations and slight variations over the centuries.

So I think that good social science will look at income inequality over
generations in terms of social class and look at social class as an extension
of ancient caste systems. I also think that at one time caste systems may have
provided an overall benefits to societies, but modern technology has long
since made them obsolete.

