Live data from Hacker News

Why do you think people are poor?

harpers.org

291–292 of 292 posts

Re: Why do you think people are poor?

#291
post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please forgive me for misinterpreting, since at the only clarification you had at the time of my comment was > And the implication of everybody being well educated is that everyone will have white collar jobs or prestigious blue collar jobs. If everyone is well educated then who will want to take a job as a street cleaner when they've just spent $80k on their education? The solution is clearly not limited to just edu…

I've thought a fair bit about this now and finally understand what point I was trying to make. Educating the poor is not enough because the rich are an integral part of the problem. Just as the poor are so because they lack education, so the rich hold deep prejudices against the poor because of their lack of education. It's just like psychotherapy on an individual scale - the problem is never limited to just the pers…

Thank you for engaging me in this thread. I still think you're missing the point, if you think people need it pointed out to them that there's more than one reason the poor are poor. Well, they do, but not if they've read this article, since the author is more than aware of this, and illustrates what he calls the "surround of force" throughout.

In terms of educating the rich, what exactly do you propose to teach them and how do you suggest convincing them to give you the time of day?

Re: Why do you think people are poor?

#292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wrong. If this were true, then when the colonists from "core" countries left a colonized area, then that area should have seen an increase in wealth because those rent monies would have remained in the colony. The history of numerous areas, such as Haiti, Kinshasa, and Zimbabwe say that this did not happen. The wealth of the upper class comes from courage, determination, intelligence, organization, and productive use…

Actually, in most cases, former colonists immediately stuck the decolonized nation with massive debts conjured up for the "theft" of the national assets. That's why Haiti is still poor: they've been in debt to France for the "theft" of "French" assets in colonial Haiti ever since their revolution.

Sorry for the late rebuttal...

Actually, according to Wikipedia, Haiti paid off their debt to France that resulted from the Haitian Revolution in 1883: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/External_debt_of_Haiti.

Free of their French "landlords" the Haitian "renters" should have seen increasing prosperity since they were sitting on one of the most agriculturally productive (in terms of sale price for crops grown, not total amount of all products grown) regions of the New World. So, what went wrong?

Post reply on HN