Marx is not famous for his analysis of the problems of industrialization, many others before him, that you could never name, covered that ground far better. Marx is famous his solution. Even his solution was not novel but he is given credit because the Communist Manifesto was successful in puresuading people of his views. Unlike the his turgid tomes like Das Kapital, it was accessible to every revolutionary wannabe.
That I could never name? What makes you so certain that I could never name them?
And he is famous for more than his solution;
And if Marx’s solution was not novel…then why does he get the blame in your book for what happened in the 20th Century if he wasn’t even the originator of his ideas.
Das Kapital is a rather odd book because in one paragraph, the writing can be pretty gripping, and then five lines later it can be just about the worst thing in the world. I have not read the whole thing, but my Econ class did read significant sections of it.
Are you also going to argue that sociologits should study Hitler? He gave a very thorough analysis of the problems that post-WWI Germany faced criticizing the pathetic Weimar Republic and the vengeful WWI victors. I doubt it.
Why do you keep comparing Marx to Hitler? They are not comparable figures, since one is actually responsible for millions upon millions of deaths, and the other wrote a book.
Charles Murray’s work is focused on American poverty, not world poverty. I noted earlier that the challenges for modern American poor were different from the challenges the poor in other countries and times.
Nevertheless, even India is experiencing its own ecnomic progress with growth rates double or quadruple our own. Their own trajectory is likely to be very similar to ours: farming will reqjuire fewer and fewer people to produce the same amount of food. America, which is a net exporter of food, has negligable farming employement. In fact, Indians will need to make the same farm to factory transition that every more advanced society has made.
You failed to respond to my general point, which is that the case of Norman Borlaug illustrates that the course of a life can be greatly shaped by factors totally beyond the control of an individual. (name removed by moderator)ut does not equal output.
But back to the relevant issue.
Although you are using the term differently from everyone else, I do like your concept of “help” because it helps to emphasize that abundance of help that is available to even the poorest American in mondern society.
The querstion returns to why, in spite of the enormous opportunities avaialble, poverty remains so intractible.
The three points, which you seem to regard as condescending, are unfortunately beyond the abilities of those trapped in poverty.
I don’t regard your three points as condescending; I regard them as lacking any kind of empathy or understanding for the problems facing the poor, and having a ridiculously parochial view of the process of getting a job in a market where there are more applicants than jobs available.
There are enormous opportunities available; I’d much rather be poor in New York City than poor in Ethiopia or Bhutan…but that doesn’t mean that there are enough opportunities available for everyone who works hard and lives morally to make it.
I don’t know why I have to restate this, but I will-since my mother and father were born into the middle class, it was easier for them to obtain jobs that allowed one of them to be home when my brothers and I got home from school, for both of them to help us with our homework and keep us involved in extra-curricular activities, for both of them to ensure that we had regular doctor’s visits, and for both of them to ensure that we grew up in a safe neighborhood. Because of this, it was easier for me and my brothers to do well in school, easier for me to get into a good college, and it is now easier for me to get a job that will help retain my own middle class position.
If they were absent or chronically ill, or I became chronically ill, all of a sudden things get much harder. I might work hard, but without help I might not do well enough to get into a good college, might not be able to
afford a good college, and might have to end up working a dead-end job. Then my own children would face a similar situation. Generational poverty.
Furthermore, a member of the upper class can afford to make a few mistakes in a way that a member of the lower class cannot. Everyone has to go in debt for college nowadays except the very rich, but the less money you’re making the closer you are to the edge. I’ll have to pay back student loans, but I wouldn’t be constantly under the gun. When you’re trying to fight you’re way out of poverty, for all the opportunity in the world…one mistake and you’re off the tightrope.
Of course, I don’t expect this to really matter to you-in this strange world you’ve created, everyone deserves exactly what you get and the poor are poor because they are bad people.
Why don’t you do a comparison of societies that were ruled by Britain at one time or another against those that were not. What you’ll find is that Zimbabwe is an outlier. Hong Kong, for example, has long enjoyed a higher standard of living than the UK.
Hong Kong is a city. They face challenges and have solutions that are not available to large nations.
Also, societies ruled by Britain at one time or another tend to do better than those that were not because the British, as the world’s most powerful nation for a very long time, was able to make colonies out of all the best lands. The British were able to get their hands on resource-rich colonies, while, say, the Germans were left to colonize dirt-poor, resource-starved countries.
