Poverty, Needs, and Inequality (Sowell Follow-Up #1)
Added 2025-02-19 17:45:57 +0000 UTCAn open conversation!
References (in rough order of appearance)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_yC0dsTtRVo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZjSXS2NdS0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fo2gwS4VpHc&
https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691247625/economics-in-america
https://www.census.gov/topics/income-poverty/poverty/about/glossary.html
Comments
Not that it adds to your question, but I found this old video piece from the CBC so moving. I have a number of people in extended family and my professional life who feel like poverty can't be solved, that some people just won't fit into society, but that just seems wrongheaded and I thought like the actual stories of people are mostly the product of a society that provides no floor on the level of misery we will let citizens endure, despite all the Dickens we might have read. https://youtu.be/w-s1p5z_W5E
Jeffrey Grabell
2025-02-24 15:40:00 +0000 UTCAnother location specific aspect that is not obvious - I grew up in rural Canada. The closest shop was a gas/petrol station a 4km walk along the side of a highway from my home. There is no public transit or bike paths. A car, and all the expenses that incurs, is a necessity for people in such areas, but as someone who has lived in cities with transit, bike paths, even just sidewalks exclusively for 30 years, and who almost never drives anymore, I can understand how ridiculous it sounds to suggest a car as a necessity. Most jobs were at least a 30 minute commute to a neighbouring town or city.
Jeffrey Grabell
2025-02-24 15:35:21 +0000 UTCTo me, the argument for flattening needs into wants seems to have a specific ideological bent that's more pertinent to those who argue it than pure academic logic. Like, if needs are just incredibly strong wants, what exactly is the difference between just recognizing that needs exist and creating a scale of wants where everything above a certain magnitude could just be rhetorically referred to as a need? In the end, not wanting to recognize the term need has to serve some other point and I think it IS just rhetoric all the way down. Coupling the idea that needs and poverty are both tied to place and time is going to worm its way through my brain all week btw, which is definitely going to make me more sufferable to my friends and family.
Thor Harter
2025-02-21 16:31:04 +0000 UTC
