Poverty and the poverty mentality is a cycle, and ideas are passed from the elder to the younger, and it is only the rare insightful intellect which questions much prior to puberty. A success story from such a background is a rarity, and is wonderful.

Of course everyone is responsible for himself, and also for the contents of their noggin. But can you remember a time in your life BEFORE you discovered that the contents of your mind are you own free choice? And that you can feed your mind the right ideas and take good actions and get good results? Might your childhood circumstances have helped you to those notions in a way that is impossible for alot of poor kids? Once you concede this, then it is not hard to have sympathy for a kid who just doesnt QUITE get it. Or is struggling, but is not quite there yet. Or a kid with a boatload of talent, but who is so filled with the wrong ideas that he will ultimately be killed in gang crossfire.

Really, you have NO sympathy for any of these? Leonid, you have to personally meet these kids and they have to EARN your sympathy? Really?

No wonder people think Objectivists are crackpot robots.

Scott DeSalvo

www.desalvolaw.com
FREE Injury Report and CD Reveal the Secrets You Need to Know to Protect Your RIGHTS!

Shortly there will be a by-election in a constituency in Glasgow and the Daily Telegraph has an article about the people who live there.

I says..."A sense of despair pervades thousands of residents, half of whom live in social housing, and many have given up hope on any political party improving the area.."

It goes on...."half of those living in some of its communities are unemployed and it has the highest number of benefit claimants of any constituency in Britain. The average life expectancy in parts is 63 – 14 years below the national average..."

and..."The Sandwick Square shopping centre in Easterhouse epitomises a lot of what has gone wrong with Labour's great post-war social experiment – the area's sprawling mass of council estates. A sad collection of shops – Pound Saver, a pawnbroker, a bookmaker, Farm Foods – sandwich one of Labour's by-election campaign offices. One entrance to the centre is littered with broken glass and graffiti, the other is a favourite meeting and dealing place for the local drug addicts .."

I freely admit I do not have any sympathy for people living in such places and under such conditions.

I believe they should take responsibility for their own problems and stop looking to others, and in Glasgow this sort of thing has been taking place for decades, the "Red Clydesiders" used to make speeches in Parliament 80 years ago about living conditions in Glasgow....hard to be sympathetic, and the only conclusion I can reach is that Glasgow people quite like how they live, and others should mind their own business.

http://nzcapitalist.blogspot.com/

Atlascot: "Sympathy? Every mentally healthy person feels sympathy! It is a part of being human, being able to appreciate your fellow man's circumstances."

Yes, but for whom and for what? It's no such a thing as "blanket cover" sympathy. My sympathy as like as my friendship has to be earned. Just "circumstances" aren't enough, especially if my fellow men are responsible for them. Somebody's else suffering, disease , misfortune or plain stupidity is not an automatic claim on my money or on my feelings. Regarding to genuine cases you mentioned, like orphaned children and mentally ill who have no other sources of support (families, friends)-they are marginal cases in any functional society and could be treated as charity cases. Safety net, you mentioned, doesn't exist in real life. If it were, it would mean that every man is omnipotent and we know that this is not so, even in regard to the healthy, clever and able people, let alone mentally ill. Safety net is an artificial creation of welfare State, based on its ability to rob its citizens with impunity. Tell me, who could be safe in this situation? Now war veterans are altogether different story. People, who sustained injuries protecting public safety, are entitled for full payment from the State.

If you want some stock market 'helpful suggestions' you should become a regular  reader of my weblog, which covers the Australian stockmarket (which opens at 7pm your time).

I would appreciate it, Scott, if you did not use year old threads on solopassion.com to engage in an unnecessary attack on my good self and draw conclusions about things you know nothing about.

I am more than happy to explain the difference between 'sympathy' for the poor and 'common sense' if you want...

http://nzcapitalist.blogspot.com/

I grew up poor, went to public schools, have worked since 14 years old in some tough jobs, took advantage of government-backed student loans to finish college and law school. I have never had a Rand-esque benefactor or private individual take interest in me or give me help when it was needed at any time, and yes, there were times when the change I found in my couch or in the unused ash tray bought me a 50 cent bean burrito from Taco Bell as my only meal for the day. (This was years ago, and things have changed, obviously!)

I LIKE the idea of some economic safety net. Not as it exists now, but for the mentally ill and those with truly no other options. Or, for example, war veterans with terrible injuries, or destitute orphans. This is a legitimate role of government and would be a laudable use of government tax dollars. But, it would have to be administered very closely and frugally to work as I would like to see it.

The welfare system is the United States now is rife with fraud. There are alot of women with two children claiming four or six, and working under a different name on the side. Alot of able-bodied people who COULD work, but then they would not qualify for free public housing. It is amazing how many able people become the poor and needy when it is discovered that the government is giving away money. If you give free money away, suddenly entry level jobs are not very attractive. Business go under because they have no labor force at the price point required to sustain a profitable business. The once employable person learns to embrace the role of useless victim, as it is the source of their sustenance. They are rewarded for out of wedlock children, the more kids, the more money. What do these social engineers think is going to happen?

There are alot of people who might be partially employed or fully gainfully employed, but who are on Social Security disability. What you get from the government is a pittance, but is still money for nothing. The current system encourages, not fighting to become well, but submitting to the notion that, once broken, you can never be fixed, you are unemployable, worthless.

You cannot build up great systems of welfare addiction without automatic taxation at a ridiculous level, which is what we have now, and which is getting worse. For the same reason Socialism does not work (the hard workers soon figure out that they are killing themselves so that lazy asses can have a color television), the current system is going to have to fail under its own weight. You can only tax man's industry so much before profitable ventures no longer are. Mark my words, this will happen. We cannot have a Socialist President like Obama and not have even more taxation and more social spending. We are going to go further in hock to the Chinese.

All taxation is not wealth generated, but is wealth stolen from wealth generators. It is time someone stepped up in government, acknowledged this, and stopped using citizens' bank accounts as the government's personal ATM.

Sympathy? Every mentally healthy person feels sympathy! It is a part of being human, being able to appreciate your fellow man's circumstances. If guys like Elijah were really so cold hearted as to have no feelings of sympathy, then how could they ever enjoy a novel, a film, great opera? They couldn't. Anyone who says sympathy is "wrong" is a pathologic AHS-hole (Kiwi for the nasally American asshole) in my book. And my book is quite a very good book.

Elijah, why aren't you laying out for us your brilliant stock market scheme that beings fabulous wealth at your feet every single day with but a few clicks of a mouse, whilst you go on despising those whose results are below yours? You inherited your money, didn't you?

Scott DeSalvo

www.desalvolaw.com
FREE Injury Report and CD Reveal the Secrets You Need to Know to Protect Your RIGHTS!

Emma, if I may, I like to share my pov with you, because I know how you "feel." Having grown up poor, I can't share Elijah's "instinctive hatred". At the same time, I found myself making the same point the other day to an aquaintance who "instinctively" hates the rich, that many poor people are poor when they don't have to be. So the following is a challenge from one poor person to to your appeal for the poor.

Elijah: "And before anyone starts sneering or making excuses, far from being theoretical, I have friends and acquaintances who have been pointed in these directions ...".

I certainly won't "sneer," but just want to say that it's a bit "optimistic" to expect people who've lived this way all there lives to up and do it. Not because they can't, but there are so many psychological walls to overcome. It's similar to the objections against an Objectivist political party (to whom would such a party speak?). First they have to educate themselves to think differently. There is a lot of ignorance which breeds fear. Many from the older generations did not have access to information, some had racial barriers, some had cultural barriers within that race (think the Indian caste system), and that ignorance got past on generation to generation.

Before YOU object to this, Elijah, think of Rand's essay "The Comprachicos." The mind is distorted so much that that type of existence becomes "natural," and just as you have a hard time imagining why people would remain poor, they have a hard time overcoming all the "teachings" of poverty: they're not worthy, who are they to try, who do they think they are, etc. It's as if the Indian caste system was inherited. So much mind damage is done, that even Rand acknowledged that those who are able to overcome it are heroic in their struggles. (She wasn't referring to poverty specifically, but I think the same principles apply.) This doesn't even take into consideration the lack of knowledge (although this is LESS forgivable today, and if I don't "instinctively" hate "poor people," I get just as angry at those who DO have access to information and CHOOSE to look the other way. I don't mind people watching "American Idol," it's when they make excuses for not being able to provide for themselves, but demand such breads and circuses.)

(Incidentally, I don't consider "income" to indicate wealth, since many "rich" people are in reality either in too much bad debt or, worse, corporate welfare leeches who's businesses would have gone under without government bailout. But that's understood, I'm sure.)

But Emma, when you write: "And I'm sorry if this disagrees with your "morals", but we all have to live in society (we are a societal species) and at some point we have to make a decision what kind of a society we live in - in mine, people get the short-term help they need so that we don't have an even larger band of criminals than already happens naturally."

As a "poor" Objectivist, I have to reject your solution, not because of the desire to offer "short term help," but that's what charities are for, not governments, but because of the "threat" of crime. This statement perfectly illustrates the thread's theme that "sympathy is a failure of imagination." That, in essence, is nothing more than blackmail, whether you realize it or not. So I'd like to offer another illustration.

And before you object to this, Emma, one of the better parts of RICH DAD POOR DAD* books are that they do address the psychological issues and causes of poverty. Better yet, Kiyosaki has visualized it brilliantly with his "quadrant." Basically, four division: E for employee, S for self-employed, B for business minded and I for Investor. With self assessment, you can see where you fall in as far as income source, and it's a good indicator of your implicit beliefs and philosophy as well as psychological makeup. Employees look for safety and security, self employed are usually individualists with perfection streaks (and I think many Objectivists are romantically inclined towards this; Howard Roark would be a prime example.) The problem with these first two is that they are either reliant on others, or in the case of self-employed, are usually more technicians than businessmen, and work themselves to death because they won't delegate, and their business is so tied up in themselves that if they don't work, they don't get paid.) These first two are in the business of making things or providing services, the latter, B's and I's, are in the business of making money, meaning their "income" is passive, generated by their assets, and not reliant on their own "work."

These 4 categories are not mutually exclusive, and as Elijah pointed out, it's often easier to start from one and work towards another (i.e., start selling piano lessons, for example, learn how to invest that money in the meantime.)
Kiyosaki advocates the "underachiever" approach: don't look for the "quick fix" or fast track, but start out where your skills and knowledge are, and slowly but surely build up. I think most people who reject the "bootstrap" argument do so because they are expecting instant riches.

I'm a little hesitant to say any of this, because I'm not wealthy (physician, heal thyself, right?) ; I grew up poor, Christian, and artistic, so I took poverty as a badge of honor. If it weren't for ATLAS SHRUGGED, I'd probably still do so. But that was in 1996, and even though I came around, I still had to overcome a lot of bad habits, subconscious beliefs and years of "indoctrination." But I feel like I've transitioned myself mentally from employee to self-employee, and working my way into investing in myself via freelance work, artistically and musically. What's more important is that I broke free of the mindset that said I wasn't allowed or qualified to do these things, and I've seen my income rise as well as my self esteem. And I'm a long way off from success, so I still have "fears," because I don't rely on the security of a "job," which means the onus is on me to succeed, not my employer. And I've had a bit of help from people who believed in me, for which I am very grateful, so I treat that help not as a gift or charity to be squandered, but as an investment for which I hope to repay them someday. It also serves as an incentive to do better when I get scared or make mistakes I'm still paying off one beginner's mistake. But if I ever used my "poverty" as an excuse to steal to survive, I'd not be worth that investment from those who helped me. I am NOT Jean Valjean. I work as an "employee" currently, and feel no shame in that. At the same time, I've educated myself to move beyond that. The point is that I don't "think" as an employee, meaning, I don't expect my employer to provide me with security or success. I am not his child. I treat my services as a business, as a step for my own. I oppose the coming mandated health insurance (it's reality in one state already), I oppose the minimum wage laws, because after educating myself in economics, I know that's not going to help me make more money in the long run. (Unlike Keynes, I don't plan on being dead that soon.) I have consciously rejected the use of my need as a weapon, and come to appreciate that the only way I will ever rise is through self education, initiative, and, most importantly, the willingness to take the risk and responsibility to do it.

This is what those "morals" offer me.

* I don't offer my total support of the books or author.

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Spaceplayermusic.com

To add to Elijah's suggestions, as "fuel" for such endeavors, there's a show called THE BIG IDEA with Donny Deutsch that showcases people who have started their own businesses from scratch. Some segments are "Why didn't I think of that?" and "I was unqualified...and did it anyway!". Inspirational.

RE Rich Dad, I agree with the book's principles, but regarding his real estate strategies, he starts to sound like an infomercial, with the risky advice to buy no money down and flip, etc. I wonder how much of this contributed to the current bust with the sub-prime loans...

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Spaceplayer Sight and Sound

that Japanese chap is quite right.

We have socialist teacher unions who take young minds and condition them to being employees.

All very sad.

The only problem with Rich Day, Poor Dad is the requirement of borrowing large amounts of money if you want to be a property investor.
(I have a fear of borrowing money and have never done so)

Regarding this Woman mentioned in Emma's post...

There are a myriad of things she could do.

She could start selling things on TradeMe (our version of ebay)...very, very easy to do and anyone with half a brain could be trousering $200 or $300 per week in profits, which if reinvested in more 'stock' to sell, during the initial period, would rise to $1000 per week in no time.

Does she have a skill of some sort?

Can she play the piano? (if so, start giving lessons)

Can she type? (plenty of call for 'Secretarial Services' typing up CV's or Documents or whatever from home)

Can she clean? (a house cleaning business catering to Remuera is like shooting fish in a barrel in terms of getting contracts)

Can she cook? (start a catering business)

Can she read a map? (hire a bus and take tourists around Auckland)

Everything mentioned (and 1001 other ideas) do not involve any real 'Capital Investment' so a person surviving on welfare has no excuse in terms of money, and can be easily undertaken whilst her children are at school (so no excuses there, either)

All that is required is to actually start doing it.

And before anyone starts sneering or making excuses, far from being theoretical, I have friends and acquaintances who have been pointed in these directions ...(with a good kick up the backside due to my Control Freakery demeanor)...with excellent results in all cases

On the topic at hand, of failure of imagination...This reminds me of a Simpson's episode, where Mr. Burns, the nuclear plant owner, loses his plant and is broke. The town gloats, because in the world of the Simpsons, all big business owners are vampires. Anyway, Lisa, the resident leftist, thinks that Mr. Burns has "reformed," and decides to help him. But she accidentally helps him in a way that violated her vegetarian principles when he invents the Burns Omninet out of the six pack plastic that "kills dolphins" and rapes the sea to make fish slurry, earning a fortune and buys back his plant. (Of course, this made him "more evil when he tries to do good," according to Lisa.) The funny thing, is that in the episode, he was sincere. "I don't understand," he says, listing all the beneficial uses of the net.

The reason why I'm reminded is because of the idea of "putting yourself into someone else shoes." We're constantly asked to do so, usually as a threat, to imagine ourselves in a begger's shoes. Dylan's "Like A Rolling Stone" comes to mind (Once upon a time, you looked so fine..now how does it feel, to be on your own...). It's a failure to imagine that the opposite is possible. Mr. Burns is the villian of that show, but he should be a symbol of what's possible when someone imagines a life besides poverty. Despite the intent of the writers of the Simpson's, that episode is a response to Dylan's song and the threat to "imagine yourself in someone else's shoes." Instead, it urges those who'd say that to ask, "put yourself in the entrepreneur's shoes..."

"I believe it's possible to pull oneself up by the bootstraps-I saw it done at Cirque de Soleil." -Stephen Colbert

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Spaceplayer Sight and Sound

Thanks, Elijah, for clarifying. There were some debates on SOLO recently about being an employee that got heated about whether or not that attitude (of considering oneself a "private contractor") counted as being self-employed.)

For anyone who hasn't read the RICH DAD book, the main argument addresses that many "employees" are psychologically children, in that they treat their employers as "parents" who provide security and stability. (Which is why, when a company goes under, you see so many stories about the "helpless" employees of the aftermath.)

I wanted to offer another take on this, however. In Alvin Toffler's latest book REVOLUTIONARY WEALTH, he talks about how, in pre-agrarian and agricultural societies, the self-sufficient farmer was, in essence, self-employed, but that it was a rough life. Division of labor and the birth of a monetary system was a boon. After going through the Industrial Revolution's factory system, which basically turned those self-sufficient people to employees, that mindset was lost. But now, Toffler argues, in the information age, big companies are competing with self-starter "prosumers" who often create their own goods. It's an interesting theory, and certainly an interesting time for Objectivists who are looking to break free of the employee mindset.

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Spaceplayer Sight and Sound

JoeM has hit a nail on the head!

This is something I feel very strongly about, yes, I believe absolutely everyone can and should be self employed.

Everyone from the Company Chairman to the cleaner should work for themselves hiring out their labour in a competitive labour market.

This would eliminate Trade Unions, and the add-on costs of employing someone, as well as providing dignity and greater prosperity for all.

This sort of thing is already fairly common in places like New Zealand and Australia where the Company Tax rates are 30% but the personal income tax rates are much higher.
Enterprising chaps form a company and 'hire' their services to a company as an independent contractor.

But there is no reason why a teacher should not be able to say to a School Board "if you want my expertise, here is my monthly rate" ...or a cleaner saying "unless you want to clean up the vomit on the toilet floor yourself, here is my fee" ...etc etc.

Sorry if this is a hijack, but it seems to be going this way, anyway...

Elijah, based on your posts here and your comments elsewhere about the undesirability of being an employee: I'm curious if you have a developed theory about that. I ask because I've seen similar sentiments before, in good places (i.e., the book RICH DAD POOR DAD) and bad places (i.e., late night infomercials.) I don't know if you have employees in your business (you've mentioned a maid elsewhere), but I'm curious if you think that it would be feasible economically if everyone were (miraculously) follow the advice to be their own boss. How would this affect industries that are based on mass production, etc. Can a society like ours (post industrial, information economy) function without "employees, since it runs on a division of labor?

This may require a separate thread?

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Spaceplayer Sight and Sound

Elijah -
I am curious about your solution for Emmas sister. I'm also very curious about the gold trading you mentioned in another post. Anything you care to share won't be wasted.

Cheers

Emma, emotionally driven arguments about unfortunate who, what, where, why , or when's are irrelevant in this context. The simple fact is; government welfare is enforced at the point of a gun to make an individual comply with 'helping' someone else. In essence, it is a violation of ones right to his own life 'justified' in the name of 'goodness'. There is nothing good, right, or moral about making people slaves to other people because of their misfortune. It is morally repugnant for the government to put a lease on other peoples lives for what someone else thinks is what should be theirs.

sounds like your sister has endured a few headaches Emma.

I would happily make a few sensible suggestions..(none of which involve the undignified last resort of "getting a job")..to turn things around for her, which merely involve a bit of imagination and actually 'doing it'.

I can guarantee that within 3 months her problems would be ancient history.

I am worried, however, about spending time giving helpful advice only to see nothing done on her part.

Gosh, I can feel this potentially getting out of hand, but I'm going to soldier on anyway because I think it's an important topic.

"The reason for their poverty is an absence of capitalism in their lives and a refusal to do (anything?) required to improve the situation."

This statement leaves me absolutely speechless. Now, I'm a huge advocate for decreasing the amount of money we give out to the poor (particularly in the case of the Maori), but the reasons for their situation are numerous, and I'm certainly not going to put a blanket "hate" over the portion of the population who earn under whatever arbitrary amount you've placed on the definition of "poor".

Are you simply refering to the people who claim the dole? If so, I can understand your frustration. However, I relate to you the story of my sister. My sister is one of the most hard-working people you will meet. She has an unwavering work ethic, and has worked very hard to get to where she is now. However, she's been through a tough time in her life. She had a mental illness in the form of anorexia for several years, meaning she was in hospital for most of her early teens and never finished college (not even School Certificate). This could have potentially been fine, but when she did get better she was still very vulnerable mentally and emotionally, and ended up marrying a guy at 17. Four years, two kids and a string of bills, unpaid (though he said he'd "taken care of it"), and in her name, later, she filed for divorce and took the kids in her care (which, believe me, was the right thing to do considering this guy's track record). However, having no education, little work experience, and two young children at home (not to mention what she was still going through in terms of the divorce, and the last.. 10 years of her life) made it very difficult for her to get a job. So she went on the dole. Now, the reason she went on the dole was not because she was "without capitalism in [her] life". There was a whole history behind her state at that particular point in time, and going on the dole helped her get through the next year of her life, take care of her kids, before returning to the work force to try to build a career and a good life for her children. And, in fact, I would be willing to argue that with a pure capitalist system in place, she would have been worse off, and even worse, her children would not have gotten the start they needed and deserve.

I have no doubt there are other people in similar positions, and I have no problem giving up a relatively small portion of my wage to them to ensure that they get the support they need during their break from working life (for whatever reason they need it), instead of having a string of people becoming so down and out because of their short-term situation that they have to take drastic measures just to stay alive - in the form of illegal activities, whatever the case may be. And I'm sorry if this disagrees with your "morals", but we all have to live in society (we are a societal species) and at some point we have to make a decision what kind of a society we live in - in mine, people get the short-term help they need so that we don't have an even larger band of criminals than already happens naturally.

Perhaps this is the wrong place to discuss this, if so just point me towards the appropriate thread.

all rather sad how the Socialists are in control of the moral highground, alas.

...intense in the UK too. However, you get the impression that as long as the economy remains relatively stable, but rights are still violated in the name of the collective - the sheeple just respond with Baaaaaaa...!

Have you looked at the response to this article? All responses strongly disagree with straying from the collective wisdom of feeling sympathy (or guilt) for the poor or uneducated. Jamie Whyte is caricatured as a backward Victorian and they want his head on a platter.

And it is thought that challenging Global Warming or Islam are the hate-evoking issues!!!

wish we had similar widespread debates today, rather than the sterile, unimaginative torpor which is "Helen Clark's New Zealand")

I find it impossible to be sympathetic towards poor people.

I have an instinctive hatred of poor people, for example...(yes, an actual hatred)

The reason for their poverty is an absence of capitalism in their lives and a refusal to do (anything?) required to improve the situation....(not to mention endless jugs of Lion Red and takeaway food and gambling and bad genes)

If I was a taxpayer..(and thankfully online Sharebrokers, Nominee Companies and offshore banks ensure I am not)...I would greatly object to even a single dollar being spent on the poor.

However, the relief of poverty seems a great objective of Government and the massive theft from the most productive people to this end.

The spurious arguments Government engages in, which encourage people to put themselves in the situation of the poverty stricken, are utter nonsense as most people would presumably not be so undignified or lacking in self respect to ever be poor.

It reminds me of a wonderful quotation from a British MP, David Mclean, who said "Whenever I see a beggar I always give them something...I give them a piece of my mind"