Neo-Slavery Causes Poverty

In a recent post, I said that the unfair economic burden put on the working class causes poverty in the United States. In this post, I want to explain how I believe the ruling class puts the unfair burden on the working class. By ruling class, I mean the government and more importantly the rich, special interest groups that control the government.

Obviously, it involves some sort of trick or illusion to oppress the working class. Otherwise, the working class would not let the ruling class oppress them.

Because of their control over politicians and the media, the ruling class tricks the general public in many ways whenever it suits them. Nonetheless, I see the overarching trick as the illusion of economic freedom and fairness. Slaves do not revolt if they think that they have freedom and think that they live in a fair society.

A while back, I made a post entitled, The Myth of Meritocracy. In that post, I explained that the false idea that wealth has been distributed fairly hinders the fight against poverty.

But even worse, I think that the working class lives in a form of slavery–“neo-slavery” if you will. The general public thinks it has freedom but it truly does not.

The working class has an illusion of choice. They can choose to work for scraps or they can starve. They have a little choice between which jobs they take at which companies, but the working people still have to work long hours for low pay while the ruling class lazily leeches off the labor of the working.

Despite the illusion of freedom, the ruling class enslaves the working class by, most of all, appropriating natural resources. Throughout almost all of recorded civilization in every society, a minority of people have controlled the majority of natural resources and thereby controlled the general public. A minority of people control the majority of land and other resources such as lumber and oil. In parts of Latin America, they have even started privatizing water and literally making it illegal for citizens to collect rain water.

It may seem free and fair enough for one person to offer to pay a second person for a service. However, when combined with the appropriation of natural resources by the first person, that same process becomes clearly authoritarian. For example, it may seem free and fair for John to ask Greg to cut John’s hair for $5.00 and for Greg to accept. However, if John first claims to own the air and says that Greg has to pay him $5.00 just to breathe, then we can see the slavery in the situation.

In our modern society, the working class has to provide an extremely excessive amount of labor to the ruling class because the ruling class claims to “own” the natural resources which the working class need to use to live. The process uses supply and demand. The ruling class has taken control of the natural resources, and the working class desperately needs those resources. That desperation causes the working people to “sell” their labor for rock-bottom prices.

So I hope you can see how the ruling class has put an unfair economic burden on the working class. And I believe that that unfair economic burden causes poverty. If the working class weren’t slaves and they were able to keep the fruits of their labor, then they would not always be at risk of poverty, and the working people could fully support themselves, their families, and their communities.

I know many people may disagree to varying degrees with how I have portrayed the political status quo. Please post your comments and your own views in this thread at the World Hunger and Poverty Forums. You can join and participate in the forums completely for free, and we welcome all viewpoints.

Working Poor Must Choose Between Health and Work

I just read a great article by Barney Blakeney about the working poor and their health.

Basically, Barney Blakeney points out that the actual health problem for the working poor is that they cannot afford to get sick and that they have to go to work even when they are sick because they cannot afford to not earn a paycheck.

I think he makes a great point.

Regarding health and the working poor, society has a problem far more extensive and deep-rooted than the lack of healthcare insurance. The working poor need to work more than they can to earn an incomplete income, and they cannot take time off to recover from illness. They must work through illness because they have bills to pay.

35.8 Percent of Israeli Children Live in Poverty

A biannual poverty report from Israel’s National Insurance Institute says that 45 thousand Israelis slipped below the poverty line in 2007, including 30 thousand children. Also in 2007, the percentage of children living in poverty in Israel rose to 35.8 percent. The report also points out that poverty has risen among both Jews and Arabs.

Like so often happens in the United States, the average income in Israel has risen while poverty has increased. This happens because richest people make more money than the working class loses.

Regardless, I see war as the main problem. The people in Israel and the other nations of the world have to stop allowing their governments to waste so much money and resources on war. The United States needs to stop providing military funding for other nations.

We need to put the money and resources towards creating peace and alleviating poverty. This includes international initiatives for education and economic development. That means get children and uneducated people in school and ensure that educated adults can find jobs or start their own businesses.

We cannot afford the devastation, nationalism and corruption that war causes–let alone the financial costs of literally trillions of dollars per year.

We need to stop the vicious cycle of poverty and violence. And we cannot stop it by putting money into violence instead of into alleviating poverty. More war and more poverty will beget more nationalism, more war and more poverty, which in turn will beget hopelessness, anger, and terrorism. We, the people of the world, can stop that vicious cycle by ending poverty with the resources that we currently let our governments use for war.

I have often mentioned the inherent link between war and poverty. When I think of poverty in Israel, Gaza, and the Middle East in general, it always reminds me of the relationship.

Earlier in this post, I mentioned that poverty has risen among both Jews and Arabs. Poverty and militarism will cause nationalism that will likely continue to lead to those peoples fighting each other. But we can stop the violent, nationalist conflicts by coming together to alleviate poverty for all and build a better world for all–which we can only do by funding global poverty alleviation instead of nationalistic wars.

What do you think? You can post comments on this post and on the relationship between war and poverty in this thread at the World Hunger and Poverty Forums.

Biotech Crops Experience Remarkable Growth

Someone sent me a notification about a report about biotech crops by the ISAAA (The International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech Applications). According to the report, biotech crops have experienced remarkable growth over the last dozen years. The report also points out some socioeconomic benefits of biotech crops, namely the ability of poor or struggling farmers to increase their income by growing more crops for less costs.

From what I know, scientists use biotechnology with agriculture to genetically engineer crops to increase the yield of the crops.

Some people believe that biotechnology can help reduce world hunger by producing more food to feed the hungry. However, for the most part, I do not believe that because the world already has enough food to feed anyone.

Nonetheless, the ISAAA report points out that poor farmers can increase their production and reduce their costs with biotech crops. That does make sense. The farmers that use biotech crops can make more money with them, and that will help alleviate poverty when poor farmers use the technology to increase their income.

I always feel skeptical of newly powerful technology because I do not think humankind has achieved the required social responsibility to make it safe to posses the power of technology. Large amounts of individuals will each choose to adopt a new technology that helps each of them personally in the short term, but the combined use of the technology could have devastating effects on society as a whole. For example, consider the pollution and deaths caused by automobiles, or the threat of the technology of nuclear bombs.

Technology can help greatly when used wisely with the proper social responsibility, but it can cause devastation and self-destruction when not combined with wisdom and social responsibility.

Wisdom and social responsibility come about most of all from knowledge and a well-informed public. For that reason, I appreciate that the ISAAA provides information and reports about crop biotechnology. In fact, their website has a knowledge center, in which they say, “we believe that a transparent, science-based debate is essential for maximizing the potential benefits of crop biotechnology…”

I agree.

What do you think? How do you feel about crop biotechnology? Post your answers to that and your comments on this post in this thread at the World Hunger and Poverty Forums. We welcome all viewpoints.

Affordable Housing in Affluent Neighborhoods

Homelessness causes a lot of problems. For one, it greatly contributes to the poverty cycle because children who grow up homeless will not learn the skills or have the opportunities that they need to avoid poverty as adults. Of course, most people want to avoid homelessness, which means they may need to waste a lot of money on expensive housing.

Affordable housing can help a lot. It helps some people avoid homelessness, and it helps others have more money to spend on other needs.

Nonetheless, I have noticed a major flaw in the way that most affordable housing works: location. Most affordable housing and subsidized housing is located in poor neighborhoods.

It may seem to make sense to put housing for poor people near poor people. However, these people would have a better chance of escaping poverty if they moved away from poverty. Most importantly, poor children will have more of a chance of escaping the poverty trap if they grow up in a more affluent neighborhood.

Affluent neighborhoods have less crime, better schools, better role models, and other factors that incredibly reduce a child’s chance of ending up in poverty.

I would recommend that poverty-fighting organizations that work in the housing sector try to find ways to put as affordable of housing as possible in as affluent of neighborhoods as possible. Then get poor families into that housing, making sure the adults get sufficient employment and the children get quality schooling.

What do you think? Do you agree that putting affordable housing in more affluent neighborhoods would help more? Post your answers to that question and other comments in this thread at the World Hunger and Poverty Forums. We welcome all viewpoints.

Collins College on Squidoo

Squidoo provides helpful information about various topics with pages created by users. One interesting page on Squidoo is the one for Collins College: http://www.squidoo.com/Collins-College

Collins College offers education in creative fields such as game design and film production. The good thing about creative fields is that people who have a career in them usually like it a lot. People can find something that they love and then create in it. People enjoy expressing themselves artistically as well as being productive. That can help them start a good career which will pay them enough to take care of themselves and their families.

I see education as the most important tool we have in ending poverty and creating a better world for all. Education empowers people and it can enable them to overcome the oppression of poverty. Additionally, a more educated society will run itself more wisely.