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.
In the book, it was referring to lottery based admission to the better schools. The result was that it didn't matter whether the students won the lottery or not. They performed equally well (on whatever generic criteria you use to judge academic performance in hs, most likely state standardized tests). The point being that students who cared enough to want to be in the better school would do well no matter where they were.
It's possible to go to an excellent school and fail to learn anything if you don't want to, especially if you have been culturally conditioned to hate school.
At least a good school does provide the opportunity, from stories I've heard from people who have worked at or attended bad schools it would be an environment where it would be basically impossible to learn anything even if you wanted to.
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.
I did find the lowering of barriers that would impede access to education like providing free meals, free transportation, and access to free babysitting to have been really helpful. In a way, it's like lowering the activation energy required to get motivated students into an environment where they can flourish.
I'm not sure how you came to that conclusion. In fact, it seems like the study you mention supports the exact opposite. Those that wanted to learn (as evidenced by being first to apply) didn't show signs of being better able to learn given the same environment and resources. Wanting to learn isn't enough, but requires an environment in which to flourish.
I can't find the exact reference but I believe somewhere in the book they talk about the mere fact of entering your student into this lottery to go to a better school meant that the student would have better outcomes (regardless of whether they "won" the lottery or not).
The idea being that it was the mere "intent" of a parent wanting better for their child that had the most impact on student performance.
My question to your takeaway point would be, if these people are so motivated that they do better in courses, why do they stay so poor? Either merit is being suppressed by social forces (most definitely), or merit isn't the only requisite thing for social ascent.
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.
> 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.
So, our society (which may or may not be structured around our competing cultures) has a mechanism for valuing these goods. We have the principles of economics - supply and demand. The things you mentioned are all objectively good to have. They're essential, even. But we've become very good at generating these goods. We've studied crops and health to maximize the good that these things provide, and we can now generate them with fairly little skill and effort. The reason that people who perform these ESSENTIAL tasks earn so little is that the supply of people ready and willing to do them is so great compared to the amount we need them to produce. If the supply of people who could perform these jobs decreased, or the demand for the goods they produce increased, the workers could demand higher wages.
I don't disagree that there are many factors that can and are used by "the rich" to keep "the poor" down, but I disagree that how society values these basic goods is really a significant source of this discrimination.
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.
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.
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.
> 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)?
You shouldn't do that, it's not permissible under current tax rules… IRS requires that officer shareholders be paid a reasonable salary, and if you're making enough money to pay dividends, minimum wage will be hard to justify as "reasonable." I'm not sure how paying bonuses will help with tax avoidance as those are taxable like regular wage income.
Do you really think the average business owner makes more as a business owner than they would as an employee? I don't have the statistics at my fingertips, but I'd find that surprising. I know I'd be making 3x-5x what I'm making now if I was working for other people.
Yeah, running a business means that you have a possibility of making a whole lot of money, and yeah, if you have the contacts to get investors to give you money in a situation where you get paid well if things go well and the company closes (with no fallthrough to you) if things go poorly, sure, you are doing pretty good; but that's not how most real businesses work.
> 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)?
That's the one I don't get. At tax time, it's still income. It's not like that bonus/dividend is magically untaxed because it doesn't show up bi-weekly or monthly.
The rest of isn't taught because The Man wants to keep you down - it's because teachers aren't taught those things either (at any level) and most of them have enough on their plate just trying to satisfy state requirements. You make it sound like a grand conspiracy of old, rich white people and it's not.
What the wealthy do have that most of us do not is the access to resources and a bit more free time to use those resources because they're not scrambling for a dollar like the rest of us.
I generally agree on the rest of it, but I'll add this: sometimes you're so far down a hole that the existence of light or that someone gives a damn about you is not even imaginable. Sure, you may have people that will get your back in a tight spot, but that's a far cry from knowing people who can make your life materially and spiritually better and would willingly do so.
>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.
While I agree with you that schools should do more to encourage people to own their own business, do you really think school curriculums in the US are decided by a shadowy cabal of the wealthy?
Whether to teach business and entrepreneurship would be almost entirely up to the local school district. There are thousands of them and each one is independent--that's a pretty far reaching conspiracy. I know members of my local school board, and I can assure you they aren't part of the "people at the top" trying to keep the poor man down.
The real reason people more people aren't self employed is that we've managed to link health insurance with employment.
It sounds like you're talking more about things that could help middle class people. Very few poor people have issues that could be helped with "pay [themselves] a minimum wage and make up the rest as a dividend".
I hate these "it's the system" arguments almost as much as I hate argument ignoring the systemic issues entirely.
It's clear that in your world view, a bunch of rich, white "fat men" (read: Republicans, according to you) are controlling everything from banks to schools to everything else. I feel sorry for you. The world is not the gigantic conspiracy you've created in your mind.
What you have suggested is tax evasion. You must pay yourself reasonable rates, otherwise, you will be treated as evading employment taxes. For a white collar job, that means significantly more than minimum wage.
The penalties (higher back-interest rates and fines) for tax evasion are quite severe. Jailtime is also a possibility.
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.
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.
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.
Success of this program can be explained by the social connections made during the course - teachers were all having better quality of life - also students were shown different way of life through the lectures. If teachers were good as it seems they have backed their lessons with real life stories. In a way, the daily lessons were their out of the situation they were in.
The problem with poverty in the US is not 'no money' the problem is not knowing how to live without it. If you have math and problem solving skills you can avoid a lot of huge money sinks everywhere from the grocery store to transportation etc. You can decide to keep your apartment cold enough that your neighbors help heat it. But, when your desperate the idea that you will suffer now to get ahead becomes unacceptable, anything to feel better now because the future is not something you want to think about.
PS: Mental illness runs in my family so I have plenty of poor relatives, and a few rich ones. It's not hard to find two people that make about the same amount of money living vastly different lives. Just compare grad students with other people living on what they make.
Fuck, I grew up upper-middle class and I agree with you wholeheartedly. What good was the course to the woman who got fired from her fast-food job for trying to unionize (which is blatantly illegal but happens all the time)?
What would have been good for her? 1) A liveable wage. 2) A society that doesn't fuck her over for wanting a liveable wage. 3) A society that doesn't fuck her over for trying to get a liveable wage by unionizing.
I love you man. You speak the truth, some people won't be able to get it, because it's against their DNA. I'm growing sick of this herd of pompous self-satisfied kids pretending to understand everything without actually listening and helping anybody but themselves.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
One TL;DR would be that the liberal arts are very important. As such it follows that reading, words & meaning, as well as the pursuit of thought are very important. The conclusion is that you should read the article.
[+] [-] tokenadult|13 years ago|reply
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/03/us/earl-shorris-who-fought...
New York Daily News obituary:
http://www.nydailynews.com/blogs/pageviews/2012/06/rememberi...
Obituary in The Nation:
http://www.thenation.com/article/168212/remembering-earl-sho...
A list of his articles published in Harper's:
http://harpers.org/subjects/EarlShorris
[+] [-] gms7777|13 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] clarky07|13 years ago|reply
In the book, it was referring to lottery based admission to the better schools. The result was that it didn't matter whether the students won the lottery or not. They performed equally well (on whatever generic criteria you use to judge academic performance in hs, most likely state standardized tests). The point being that students who cared enough to want to be in the better school would do well no matter where they were.
[+] [-] jiggy2011|13 years ago|reply
At least a good school does provide the opportunity, from stories I've heard from people who have worked at or attended bad schools it would be an environment where it would be basically impossible to learn anything even if you wanted to.
[+] [-] scarmig|13 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] zzeroparticle|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hackinthebochs|13 years ago|reply
I'm not sure how you came to that conclusion. In fact, it seems like the study you mention supports the exact opposite. Those that wanted to learn (as evidenced by being first to apply) didn't show signs of being better able to learn given the same environment and resources. Wanting to learn isn't enough, but requires an environment in which to flourish.
[+] [-] ramses0|13 years ago|reply
http://www.freakonomics.com/2007/10/04/more-evidence-on-the-...
I can't find the exact reference but I believe somewhere in the book they talk about the mere fact of entering your student into this lottery to go to a better school meant that the student would have better outcomes (regardless of whether they "won" the lottery or not).
The idea being that it was the mere "intent" of a parent wanting better for their child that had the most impact on student performance.
[+] [-] jshen|13 years ago|reply
Wasn't it their parents that were applying? Doesn't that change the conclusion you drew?
[+] [-] cantankerous|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] grandalf|13 years ago|reply
Small disadvantages multiply, as to small advantages.
[+] [-] Produce|13 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] dkokelley|13 years ago|reply
So, our society (which may or may not be structured around our competing cultures) has a mechanism for valuing these goods. We have the principles of economics - supply and demand. The things you mentioned are all objectively good to have. They're essential, even. But we've become very good at generating these goods. We've studied crops and health to maximize the good that these things provide, and we can now generate them with fairly little skill and effort. The reason that people who perform these ESSENTIAL tasks earn so little is that the supply of people ready and willing to do them is so great compared to the amount we need them to produce. If the supply of people who could perform these jobs decreased, or the demand for the goods they produce increased, the workers could demand higher wages.
I don't disagree that there are many factors that can and are used by "the rich" to keep "the poor" down, but I disagree that how society values these basic goods is really a significant source of this discrimination.
[+] [-] Jun8|13 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] mhartl|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] eli_gottlieb|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sparkie|13 years ago|reply
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|13 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] wtn|13 years ago|reply
You shouldn't do that, it's not permissible under current tax rules… IRS requires that officer shareholders be paid a reasonable salary, and if you're making enough money to pay dividends, minimum wage will be hard to justify as "reasonable." I'm not sure how paying bonuses will help with tax avoidance as those are taxable like regular wage income.
[+] [-] lsc|13 years ago|reply
Yeah, running a business means that you have a possibility of making a whole lot of money, and yeah, if you have the contacts to get investors to give you money in a situation where you get paid well if things go well and the company closes (with no fallthrough to you) if things go poorly, sure, you are doing pretty good; but that's not how most real businesses work.
[+] [-] drivingmenuts|13 years ago|reply
That's the one I don't get. At tax time, it's still income. It's not like that bonus/dividend is magically untaxed because it doesn't show up bi-weekly or monthly.
The rest of isn't taught because The Man wants to keep you down - it's because teachers aren't taught those things either (at any level) and most of them have enough on their plate just trying to satisfy state requirements. You make it sound like a grand conspiracy of old, rich white people and it's not.
What the wealthy do have that most of us do not is the access to resources and a bit more free time to use those resources because they're not scrambling for a dollar like the rest of us.
I generally agree on the rest of it, but I'll add this: sometimes you're so far down a hole that the existence of light or that someone gives a damn about you is not even imaginable. Sure, you may have people that will get your back in a tight spot, but that's a far cry from knowing people who can make your life materially and spiritually better and would willingly do so.
[+] [-] learc83|13 years ago|reply
While I agree with you that schools should do more to encourage people to own their own business, do you really think school curriculums in the US are decided by a shadowy cabal of the wealthy?
Whether to teach business and entrepreneurship would be almost entirely up to the local school district. There are thousands of them and each one is independent--that's a pretty far reaching conspiracy. I know members of my local school board, and I can assure you they aren't part of the "people at the top" trying to keep the poor man down.
The real reason people more people aren't self employed is that we've managed to link health insurance with employment.
[+] [-] herdrick|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|13 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] nl|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] zithtar|13 years ago|reply
It's clear that in your world view, a bunch of rich, white "fat men" (read: Republicans, according to you) are controlling everything from banks to schools to everything else. I feel sorry for you. The world is not the gigantic conspiracy you've created in your mind.
[+] [-] rprasad|13 years ago|reply
The penalties (higher back-interest rates and fines) for tax evasion are quite severe. Jailtime is also a possibility.
[+] [-] taskstrike|13 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] dredmorbius|13 years ago|reply
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|13 years ago|reply
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|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] zokiboy|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Retric|13 years ago|reply
PS: Mental illness runs in my family so I have plenty of poor relatives, and a few rich ones. It's not hard to find two people that make about the same amount of money living vastly different lives. Just compare grad students with other people living on what they make.
[+] [-] eli_gottlieb|13 years ago|reply
What would have been good for her? 1) A liveable wage. 2) A society that doesn't fuck her over for wanting a liveable wage. 3) A society that doesn't fuck her over for trying to get a liveable wage by unionizing.
[+] [-] mnl|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] soc88|13 years ago|reply
> 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.
LOL. Dunning-Kruger comes to mind.
[+] [-] erikpukinskis|13 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] tgrass|13 years ago|reply
[Edit] and still relevant...just pointing out the date.
[+] [-] chipsy|13 years ago|reply
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|13 years ago|reply
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|13 years ago|reply
Individuals and societies that don't do this grow poorer.
[+] [-] dedward|13 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] Mz|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] drharris|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] usablebytes|13 years ago|reply
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|13 years ago|reply
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|13 years ago|reply
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|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] emil0r|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] shin_lao|13 years ago|reply