Poverty is a Terrible Thing

Editor

1996

Published in:

Technocracy Digest, 3rd quarter 1996, No. 321

POVERTY has many meanings. The Concise Oxford Dictionary lists these: Being poor, indigence, want, scarcity, deficiency, inferiority, poorness, meanness. And a Poverty-line is a minimum income level needed to get necessities of life.

The Encyclopaedia Britannica, c1966, devotes three pages to a description of poverty. (We also consulted the Britannica c1995, and although its explanatory text has been `downsized', poverty still has the same meaning.) We quote a few of these: ``Poverty may be defined as an insufficiency of the material necessities of life. This is not a very exact definition because the necessities of one society may be luxuries in another and unknown in a third. The idea of insufficiency is likewise difficult to fix with precision. Some writers distinguish between poverty as the normal condition of the poorest stratum of a population, and indigence as a crisis caused by the interruption of income.

``...The range of want is bounded at one end by literal starvation, a common phenomenon throughout the world in earlier times and one that still occurs with appalling frequency in underdeveloped regions and in the wake of war. At the other extreme of the range, poverty may be merely a failure to achieve the expected level of living in a particular society at a particular time. Since the level of living of technically advanced countries rises steadily, there are many inconsistencies of time and place.

``...Regardless of variations in the phenomenon of poverty, there are two important things which may be said about it:

``First, the penalties of poverty are always severe. Compared with their contemporaries, the poor appear always to have shorter lives, more illness, more physical and mental defects, more personal crises, less education, less opportunity for improvement, and less protection from hazards.

``Second, it appears plainly that the economic progress of advanced societies in the past few centuries has tended to mitigate poverty by abolishing famine and raising the minimum level of living which society will tolerate. Although many doubts have been expressed as to the ultimate value of this economic progress, it is absurd to deny its existence. There is hardly any useful commodity whose per capita consumption has not increased in a spectacular way in the last century. In the more industrialized countries of the world, attention has shifted almost completely from the age-old problem of finding enough food for the population to the new problem of furnishing every family with automobiles and refrigerators and even in many of the most backward and overcrowded agricultural regions, the increase of productivity and the improvement of transportation have made it technically possible to protect everyone from hunger.

``Despite these favourable omens, the majority of the world's families in mid-20th century were still desperately poor compared with the average family of North America or Europe. The first result of a secure food supply is a violent increase in population; consequently, there is sometimes a decline, rather than an advance of living standards, in the presence of increasing social wealth. Although the semistarvation which was normal throughout past history is now comparatively rare, it is estimated that half of the human race still subsists predominantly on coarse grains, and that at least seven-tenths do not have a nutritionally adequate diet.

``... A primitive economic system, without much use of non-human energy, may nevertheless be able to provide a fairly high level of living if the density of population is low and there is an abundance of arable land and other natural resources.

``... Individual poverty in the prosperous countries may be said to be well on the way to solution. However, many residual problems remain. Pensions and welfare payments tend to be meagre when first established and to become more so with time as they lag behind changes in the price level. In the United States especially, the high cost of medical services creates a special category of hardship. The piecemeal nature of most welfare programs and the prevailing sentiment that public welfare benefits should be kept at a low level means in practice that although starvation has been abolished, misery is often perpetuated.''

That about sums it up. One exception is their statement: ``Individual poverty....well on the way to solution.'' If this project was ever started, it certainly was never carried to the end. Over the years, more poverty has been inflicted on people, reaching an enormity in these days of downsizing. And, of course, downsizing is the result of more technology being used in the work places -- technology, which, originally, was supposed to free us from toil and give us more leisure time. However, in this present social system, where Price governs one's activities, many of us cannot afford to have leisure when there is no work for pay, as we need that cash to provide necessities for living.

The Price System is the interference

Yes, poverty is a terrible thing. It creates such terror and fear and shame and humiliation in men, women, and children. With little money coming into the home, it is painfully difficult for young people with families to survive a marriage. When they have to worry about putting food on the table, paying their rent or taxes to keep a roof over their heads, and scratching and scrimping and wondering if their is any way out of poverty for their children, it is a wonder they can keep their sanity, let alone a marriage. Many of them feel they are failures when they see that their children are not getting the education that could make a successful and happier life for them. How many hopes and dreams -- even in years past -- have been shattered by poverty. There is much talk now about this generation losing ``family values''. It is extremely difficult to hold a family together when it is assailed and buffeted in a society which holds money as a god.

It appears that, for over 60 years, Technocracy has been the only organization trying to protect children from an abysmal future.

Also, there is another poverty that people don't seem to realize will affect everyone, whether they have money stashed away in a bank or not, and that is the depleting air, water, and soil to grow food.

In this magazine, we address the reasons for all types of poverty, and we show that there is absolutely no need for any of it. There has been a ``poverty in the minds'' of people that this educational Organization of Technocracy has found most difficult to convince: that there is a solution to eradicate poverty; that a very high standard of living can be provided for every citizen of North America; that we can all enjoy good food, clean air, potable water, a fine education, and good health, if we take immediate steps to install a new social system. This Continental area belongs to all of us. Who said everyone should not have equal opportunities, and share in the bounty this Continent has to offer in the way of generous health care, education, food, and shelter? We must not sit back and say, ``there's nothing we can do.''

The Social Design Technocracy suggests, could even be an example for other parts of the world to follow, which would also raise their standards of living.

All it takes is the realization that it is not a fantasy that we should, and can, have these high standards; they are within our grasp, but we have to unite in a demand for a change. It would mean the abolition of the present Price System which, of course, is our only interference. Are we going to let the useless, meaningless paper and coins of a monetary system stop us from having a prosperous, healthy, and peaceful life?

-- Editor