What are “poor people’s problems”? Do such problems go away simply by not having poor people? In that case, do you solve the first order problems, or try to solve not having the poor?
Would you try to differentiate the under-moneyed from the under-inspired? Are their problems the same?
If you want to use “markets”, how do you avoid Idiocracy?
What are “poor people’s problems”? Do such problems go away simply by not having poor people? In that case, do you solve the first order problems, or try to solve not having the poor?
There is a general correlation between a wide range of malignancies, including lower educational attainment (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1080/014119295021...) and lower life expectancy (https://jech.bmj.com/content/59/2/115.short). While it's plausible that these problems could be addressed by radically revising the structure of society (for example, if parents could not influence the educational institutions attended by their offspring, educational outcomes might be much more equal), the necessary revisions don't seem plausible in most Western societies as currently constituted. Thus, simply reducing gross inequality seems like a reasonable suggestion.
Would you try to differentiate the under-moneyed from the under-inspired? Are their problems the same?
No. Who cares, anyway?
If you want to use “markets”, how do you avoid Idiocracy?
The existence of the film Idiocracy is not an argument for believing that such a society is a plausible or likely outcome of massive redistribution.
> There is a general correlation between a wide
> range of malignancies, including lower
> educational attainment and lower life expectancy
Or you could draw the arrow of causality slightly differently and say that life kind of sucks for people who didn't listen to the teacher in high school and didn't do their homework. Which, at least in my case, is supported by reams of evidence. It wasn't because they were poor (I grew up in the USSR, so everyone was poor), it was because they didn't give a shit.
Of course, it's a probability distribution, as just about anything else in life. But finishing high school is a predictor of good health, long lifespan, and a host of other things: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2099272/
Another powerful predictor is having both parents, and forming a family.
>The money was all appropriated for the top in the hopes that it would trickle down to the needy. Mr. Hoover was an engineer. He knew that water trickles down. Put it uphill and let it go and it will reach the driest little spot. But he didn’t know that money trickled up. Give it to the people at the bottom and the people at the top will have it before night, anyhow. But it will at least have passed through the poor fellows hands. They saved the big banks, but the little ones went up the flue.
Would you try to differentiate the under-moneyed from the under-inspired? Are their problems the same?
If you want to use “markets”, how do you avoid Idiocracy?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idiocracy