General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: So really ... what is wrong with redistributing wealth? [View all]haele
(12,650 posts)Defining poor and wealthy is where the vast amount of sticky differences exist. The reality of experiencing poor to wealthy in Sweden is quite different than the reality of experiencing poor to wealthy in Haiti.
Even the experience of poverty from the late 1950's to poverty now is significantly different in America - I observed from growing up in the 1960's that amongst my "generational compatriots", a poor child (even the "no indoor plumbing" poor) had a greater chance to achieve the success of a living fairly comfortable life with little outstanding debt and some savings to carry over into old age than a child that is growing up in the current definition of poverty, because the current child is required to go into debt just to "buy" most chances for that same sort of success that society invested in the dirt-poor child of the 1950's/1960's.
There will always be those who are poorer than most due to circumstance and opportunity, whether outside or internal to that person, just as there will always be those who are richer than most - also due to circumstance and opportunity. Not everyone can be a manager or a leader because there are not jobs for 1000 managers in an organizational production line that requires 1001 people working to create a product or service at a company. And not everyone has same the temperament, skills or ability to be a professional, to be a compassionate, attentive doctor, the confidence to do persuasive work in public as, say, a lawyer, the savvy to be a good salesperson, or even the strength and persistence to just to do manual labor or a precise and tedious desk job. Some people are best at a simpler hunter/gatherer existence, and there is no longer a frontier that they can escape into and make their own lives.
How we as a society deal with these inequalities, the personal economic and the production states, is what defines the experience of being "poor" or "wealthy".
There are some people out there that consider themselves wealthy because they are comfortable and secure, rather than rich. They may be making just enough to keep the roof over their heads and feed the kids, but to them, that's enough - they're not struggling and they're happy.
And there are those people out there who are mired in an emotional poverty they can't seem to buy their way out of, no matter how large their bank account is - and I certainly wouldn't consider those constantly needy people "wealthy".
Haele