Poverty - relative vs. absolute

[John Dibble]

Poverty is an issue a lot of people care about, but there are at least two kinds of poverty that come up in debates on the subject: relative and absolute. To understand these, you must first understand that economies are not zero-sum games - they can grow and shrink over time. If all the wealth in a nation was put into the context of a pie, everyone would have a slice. However, everyone's slice is not the same size.

Relative poverty is about comparison of the pieces - if someone has a very small piece of the pie compared to the average, that person is relatively in poverty compared to the rest of the population. Conversely, someone with a large piece of the pie relative to the average is considered wealthy. The common form of a solution presented to this kind of poverty is redistributing from the wealthy to the poor, either by voluntary contributions as charity or through taxation and government action.

Absolute poverty is more about the size of the pie and absolute 'quality of life' than anything else. When the economic pie grows, be it through new business ventures or advancing of technology, most people's slice grows with it, including those who would be considered poor - the poor affected by this growth are still relatively in poverty compared to others, but some would consider them 'less poor' than they were before because their quality of life has gone up. Examples of this are the increase in prevelance of things like air conditioning and other such goods that were formerly only affordable by those who were considered well-off in poor households.



My personal opinion is that absolute is more important - there will always be people who have less than others, but if those on the bottom rung of the ladder can more often than not still meet their needs regardless of their economic condition things are doing alright. I would much rather be poor in a first world country(even if there were no social programs) like the U.S. than in a third world country like Ethiopia because our poor people here have it much easier compared to the poor there.

[John Dibble]

... that's just kind of apauling Emsworth. Most people, inlcuding me will see that as I don't care it's not my problem.

I never said that I don't care about poverty. I merely said that the government should not attempt to address the issue, because when the government gets involved, things normally get worse. The conclusion that I don't care about the poor is inaccurate; I believe that their long-term well-being (and the long-term well-being of society as a whole) can be improved if government is less involved.

Total BS.

Flawless debating skills and use of logic and evidence as usual, jfern.

[John Dibble]

stfu republican apologist

kthx

LOL! Saving jfern the effort?