RE: For Crying Out Loud, Poor Shaming Won't Fix Hunger
Shaming people for being poor is kind of like shaming a kid for not knowing how to read. Prosperity is often a matter of skill, not motivation. This is particularly true of the example you gave where schools were shaming kids about lunch money.
To put it differently, shaming is a way of saying "you're a bad person", rather than, "you're making a mistake". Again, this is a question of skills. It is a question of skills on both parties. The target of the shame lacks the skills to do better. The person doing the shaming lacks the capacity to teach the skills that a poor person would need to do better. I have often observed that people are more interested in "teaching a lesson" of pain than teaching the skills to do better.
One reason that people tend to punish before teaching skills is that it is often assumed that people are motivated to be poor, or lack motivation to do better. I seriously doubt that poor people look in the mirror in the morning without wanting to improve their life. I believe that with investigation, we will find that most people want to do better, but lack the skills to do so.
Another reason people will choose to punish rather than to teach a new skill is that punishment is what they learned from their own parents. When a parent punishes a child for a mistake, there is no empathy for the child on the part of the parent. There is only an expectation of a certain result without consideration of the skills required to achieve the desired result. When kids are punished, they lose the ability to have empathy for themselves. When those same kids grow up, they lack the capacity to have empathy for others, unless they have a corrective experience that shows them they are worthy of love, and self-love. With empathy for oneself, it is easier to ask for help and to learn new skills.
I believe that poverty can be relieved and potentially eliminated by teaching skills, and doing so without shame, and with empathy and compassion. Empathy is required to relate to student on a personal level. Compassion is required to remember that no one really wants to suffer. We all want to do better.
The skills for prosperity must be taught and cannot be bought. Such skills provide the resilience required to achieve the goals one must meet in order to prosper. It is this resilience that gives people the hope they need to try and do better.
I agree with you mostly, and you've got a great way with words! However, there are plenty of people who are well suited to working as clerks in a store or doing other jobs that just don't pay that well. Some folks are disabled and can't work, though people tend to have a little more sympathy for them. As the studies show, most families that get assistance with food do have at least one person who works. Something's wrong when people can't live on their income, and it's not something wrong with the people.
Generally, I've found that low wages have more to do with public policy decisions than how economics works. This is something I learned from one economist I've been following, Dean Baker at the Center for Economic Policy and Research (CEPR). He's been compiling data for more than a decade to show that policy choices over the last 40 years in the United States have been designed to redistribute income upwards.
I agree with you that some people are more suited to simpler jobs than others and that doesn't mean they should be paid so little that they require assistance from the government. Along those lines, I'm exploring the idea that a currency that operates independently of the government might actually be fair enough that government assistance won't be required. I'm thinking that if banks aren't the issuers of the currency, as in fractional reserve banking, then the temptation for self-dealing is vastly reduced. Just a thought, anyway.
I appreciate your compliments about my use of words. Writing is something that I really enjoy, so it's always nice to get feedback.
Having skills doesn't necessarily mean you get out of being poor. We currently have a situation where the employment situation is such that hundreds of highly skilled people are out of work. There are so many applications for the few jobs available that many of them will be staying out of work for a long time to come. These people a classed as "too qualified" for "menial" jobs and are being turned away. So I feel assumptions can't be made for any situation.