|
|
May 25, 2013
|
|
|
|
 The War Against the PoorPosted on Nov 7, 2011
By Frances Fox Piven This article was originally published by TomDispatch. Click here to read Tom Engelhardt’s introduction to this essay. We’ve been at war for decades now—not just in Afghanistan or Iraq, but right here at home. Domestically, it’s been a war against the poor, but if you hadn’t noticed, that’s not surprising. You wouldn’t often have found the casualty figures from this particular conflict in your local newspaper or on the nightly TV news. Devastating as it’s been, the war against the poor has gone largely unnoticed—until now. The Occupy Wall Street movement has already made the concentration of wealth at the top of this society a central issue in American politics. Now, it promises to do something similar when it comes to the realities of poverty in this country. By making Wall Street its symbolic target, and branding itself as a movement of the 99%, OWS has redirected public attention to the issue of extreme inequality, which it has recast as, essentially, a moral problem. Only a short time ago, the “morals” issue in politics meant the propriety of sexual preferences, reproductive behavior, or the personal behavior of presidents. Economic policy, including tax cuts for the rich, subsidies and government protection for insurance and pharmaceutical companies, and financial deregulation, was shrouded in clouds of propaganda or simply considered too complex for ordinary Americans to grasp. Now, in what seems like no time at all, the fog has lifted and the topic on the table everywhere seems to be the morality of contemporary financial capitalism. The protestors have accomplished this mainly through the symbolic power of their actions: by naming Wall Street, the heartland of financial capitalism, as the enemy, and by welcoming the homeless and the down-and-out to their occupation sites. And of course, the slogan “We are the 99%” reiterated the message that almost all of us are suffering from the reckless profiteering of a tiny handful. (In fact, they aren’t far off: the increase in income of the top 1% over the past three decades about equals the losses of the bottom 80%.) Advertisement Being Poor by the Numbers A moral economy for our own time would certainly take on the unbridled accumulation of wealth at the expense of the majority (and the planet). It would also single out for special condemnation the creation of an ever-larger stratum of people we call “the poor” who struggle to survive in the shadow of the overconsumption and waste of that top 1%. Some facts: early in 2011, the U.S. Census Bureau reported that 14.3% of the population, or 47 million people—one in six Americans—were living below the official poverty threshold, currently set at $22,400 annually for a family of four. Some 19 million people are living in what is called extreme poverty, which means that their household income falls in the bottom half of those considered to be below the poverty line. More than a third of those extremely poor people are children. Indeed, more than half of all children younger than six living with a single mother are poor. Extrapolating from this data, Emily Monea and Isabel Sawhill of the Brookings Institution estimate that further sharp increases in both poverty and child poverty rates lie in our American future. Some experts dispute these numbers on the grounds that they neither take account of the assistance that the poor still receive, mainly through the food stamp program, nor of regional variations in the cost of living. In fact, bad as they are, the official numbers don’t tell the full story. The situation of the poor is actually considerably worse. The official poverty line is calculated as simply three times the minimal food budget first introduced in 1959, and then adjusted for inflation in food costs. In other words, the American poverty threshold takes no account of the cost of housing or fuel or transportation or health-care costs, all of which are rising more rapidly than the cost of basic foods. So the poverty measure grossly understates the real cost of subsistence. Moreover, in 2006, interest payments on consumer debt had already put more than four million people, not officially in poverty, below the line, making them “debt poor.” Similarly, if childcare costs, estimated at $5,750 a year in 2006, were deducted from gross income, many more people would be counted as officially poor. Nor are these catastrophic levels of poverty merely a temporary response to rising unemployment rates or reductions in take-home pay resulting from the great economic meltdown of 2008. The numbers tell the story and it’s clear enough: poverty was on the rise before the Great Recession hit. Between 2001 and 2007, poverty actually increased for the first time on record during an economic recovery. It rose from 11.7% in 2001 to 12.5% in 2007. Poverty rates for single mothers in 2007 were 49% higher in the U.S. than in 15 other high-income countries. Similarly, black employment rates and income were declining before the recession struck.
1
2
3
NEXT PAGE >>>
TAGS:
|
Marching in Chicago: Resisting Rahm Emanuel’s Neoliberal Savagery
Email 
Print
Share
Email to a friend
Newsletter 
Like Us
Follow Us
Get Our Feed
Tags|Bazaar|Podcast|About Us|Contact Us|User Agreement|Privacy Policy|FAQ: Comments and Moderation | Google+
© 2013 Truthdig, LLC. All rights reserved.
By Zeitgeist, November 11, 2011 at 7:13 am Link to this comment
Hind sight makes everyone wise. There is no point in blaming bankers or corporations
Report thisor even the government of ” we the people “. The fault is every bodies..we all enjoyed
while the going was good ,unquestionably ,uncritically, unsuspecting believing blindly
Nobel Laurates , Economist theoreticians,forgetting ethics. By indulging in excessive
consumerism, we took pride that some of us could become unbelievably wealthy and
irresponsibly even dreamed that everyone could also, just by virtue of being an
American.. All of us who didn’t have the means also started behaving mindlessly like
millionaires reveling in rank consumerism, without tarrying to think where was the
money coming from.If the bankers and the corporations exploited our own debauchery,
who should take the blame? All of us were alike in our unreasonable pursuit of
happiness. So stop it ! Let’s get down to basic work. We all are now paying for our
over- vaulting ambition and “we the glorious 99% ” are in our ” finest hour” to borrow
the pithy phrase from Winston Churchill.
The bottom- line of the remedy is to bring back to America “manufacturing and
production of GOODS sending the money-grabbing “Financial Service industry” into the
back offices where they should have belonged to in the first place. We should not
allow the ” services ” to boss over industry.Abolish the designation,“Finance Manager”
They are there to SERVE the activity of Production and Manufacturing of Goods and,
Trade and Commerce, on the terms and conditions dictated by the manufacturing and
marketing sectors.The bankers must take orders and not give them. Our mistake was
in giving Finance Managers and the Economists, undue importance. Their fancy
theories were a total dis- connect from human beings ; centering only on generating
greedy profits for a few shareholders. It was a zero- sum game touted as a win- win
game that has brought this “cancerous growth ” .We must now,together fight it out by
becoming more sensible and moderate and realistic in our habits .We have found out
that excessive consumerism does bring in prosperity to the rich only but not to the
consuming society that does not produce any Goods. Pollution brought out by
manufacturing could be dealt with effectively . SO, START MANUFACTURING AND
START PRODUCING GOODS , BECOME A PROSUMER .PRODUCE WHAT UOU
CAN CONSUME WITHOUT EXCESSIVE OVER-PRODUCTION to END UP
WORKING FOR THE BANKERS.MAKE THE BANKERS WORK FOR YOU ON YOUR
TERMS AND CONDITIONS . BANKERS ARE ALSO RESPONSIBLE TO THE
PEOPLE’ s GOVERNMENT AND MUST WORK UNDER THEIR CLOSE
SUPERVISION AND TOTALLY REGULATED BY A DEMOCRATIC
GOVERNMENT.(CONTD).
By Nikki Alexander, November 10, 2011 at 2:59 pm Link to this comment
I always wonder why human beings are poor to begin with. What kind of political-economic system creates poverty in the first place and how could we conceive an alternative system?
Think about the N’avi in Avatar and the arrival of the Sky People.
We need to start from scratch and ask the right questions.
Abundance is natural - we see it everywhere in nature. What is interfering with natural abundance and depriving so many people (and other species) of their inherent ability to be in dynamic exchange with the world around them?
Identify the mechanisms that produce scarcity and inflict poverty on most of the human race. These are man-made, artificial mechanisms conceived by antisocial minds that we blindly accept as if there is no alternative.
How can there be such a thing as the “working poor”? If you are working you shouldn’t BE poor.
This system is rigged to favor a select few at the expense of everyone else. We can change that if we study the system itself and ask, “What conditions would foster well-being for the whole society?”
Report thisBy Morpheus, November 9, 2011 at 9:42 pm Link to this comment
Wall Street is not the cause, it is a SYMPTOM!
We can’t afford to get distracted.
JOIN THE REVOLUTION
Read “Common Sense 3.1” at ( http://www.revolution2.osixs.org )
FIGHT THE CAUSE - NOT THE SYMPTOM
Report thisWe don’t have to live like this. “Spread the News”
By goredbytheright, November 9, 2011 at 12:51 pm Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
I don’t condemn the rich for being rich.
Report thisWhether they were born into it or earned it through hard work, I have no problem with them.
What I do condemn is when they completely stack the deck against others or buy influence so they can take what little the guy at the bottom has left over, such as pensions , Social Security, and Medicare, which the guy at the bottom has also sacrificed for in the form of lower wages and deductions.
Middle Class and the poor folks are not criminals although quite a few people treat them as such.
By Textynn, November 9, 2011 at 12:26 pm Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
I don’t think it’s a mistake that in the past the news started at 5:00 which was the minute most working people finished their work day and were heading home and then again at 10:00 at night when most working people were already sacked out because they had to hit it again at 7:00 am. Up until now, we only heard a miniscule fraction of what the OnePercent were doing to us and who the major players were, and then that was heavily spun. NO MORE!! AND THEIR FREE RIDE IS OVER. WE ARE DONE SUPPORTING THESE UNAPPRECIATIVE PARASITICAL SOCIOPATHS. FOREVER.
Report thisBy anaman51, November 9, 2011 at 12:13 pm Link to this comment
I’m not asking for anything special from my government. All I want is what I was told would be waiting for me in the event that my entire life’s work came to nothing: enough support to live out my days without having to eat cat food to survive. It was supposed to be a given, this end-of-life support, the same support my parents had when they retired. It was supposed to be provided by this nation in return for my lifetime of hard work, the same nation I helped build, one house at a time.
Realistically, not everyone can achieve the American Dream. Many of us work hard all our lives only to see it come to nothing in the end. There was nothing left of our paychecks after the bills were paid to put money aside for retirement. In my case, I worked until my body broke down, and I had no choice but to stand down. I served in the Navy when I was young, but all the benefits that were supposed to come with that service have been taken away. That seems to be the government theme these days, to take away what was promised and leave the helpless even moreso.
Yes, it’s class warfare, and it’s been going on ever since The New Deal came into being. The GOP feels that only the rich deserve to live decently after sixty, and they’re making sure the poor are punished accordingly for not having the decency to kill themselves once they became unable to pay taxes any longer.
Report thisBy o.i.812, November 8, 2011 at 5:45 pm Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
So a few are supremely wealthy and use that wealth to influence, well, whomever,
Report thiswhatever. So be it. Some use it for good. I somewhat understand the complaint,
the poor me, having struggled through low paying jobs in uncomfortable
situations while the voice inside me is screaming, nigger, slave. It makes it hard
to spend money on shitty food in Cisco restaurants, on new anything. Being
money poor leads to time rich- and how you choose to spend that defines your
poverty. What is your ripple effect going to be?
By EmileZ, November 8, 2011 at 12:50 pm Link to this comment
I would love to see this article turned into a feature length documentary, or even a longer, more sprawling, six-part, sort of reverse “Eyes On The Prize”.
Report thisBy balkas, November 8, 2011 at 11:48 am Link to this comment
the time cldn’t be riper to finally stop dichotomizing us
system of rule into two systems: republican one and
democratic the other.
verbally one can do that and the onepercent [or is it
anywhere from 0001% to 30% ?] will surely continue
doing that.
splitting asunder verbally what cannot be split asunder
empirically is one of the oldest ruses ever employed for
enserfment of people.
it is of enormous value to the clero-sybaritic-wasteful
class of extremely selfish people to keep splitting
people into two categories [or any shade in between]:
godful and godless, good, and evil, smart and stupid,
hopeful and hopeless, lazy and not lazy, deserving and
undeserving, peaceful and warlike, educated and
uneducated, etc.
[did u guyz know that pristine and highly civilized
societies such as indigenes of n.america and much of
afrika had no word “stupid” to limn [and thus abuse] a
person??
ok! i made this up—only partially, tho! but it makes
lots of sense to not call people stupid, regardless!
on level of doing things, one cld split u.s politicians
into two categories: asocialist [for greater and ever
greater inequality, fears, insecurities, bloodbaths] and
socialist [for ever greater equality, peace,
interdependence, etc.]
[and guess which category is being demonized?]
alas, in u.s 99.9999% of all u.s judges, cia/fia, army
Report thisechelons, columnists, ‘educators’, politicians fall in the
former category.
mathematics don’t lie. they are very educational. and
the ratio of prowar, anti-equallity, etc., say, just
politicians in u.s., to that of antiwar ones appears from
10k-100k to one.
now, that’s educational! tnx
By gw2007, November 8, 2011 at 11:43 am Link to this comment
The Associated Press released today that there are 49 million Americans living in poverty; that’s 1 1/2 Canadas. Shamefull. Tax the rich and corporations who are stashing 9 trillion US$ in offshore accounts to avoid taxes according to the Boston Research Group. Communism’s looking good based on these numbers. After all, Wallmart would not last a day without China.
Report thisBy BrooklynDame, November 8, 2011 at 11:25 am Link to this comment
I loathe the term ‘class warfare’ as it’s currently being used. There is a war but it’s
certainly not on equal terms; one side has nearly all the tools they need at their
disposal (including lobbyists, media spin doctors and bought-and-paid-for
elected officials) while the other side is consistently vilified and told that it is
greedy for just wanting a seat at the table. There’s a war but the 1% declared it
against the rest of us years ago.
http://borderlessnewsandviews.com/2011/11/we-got-plenty-of-nothin/
http://borderlessnewsandviews.com/2011/10/they-dont-care-about-us/
Report thisBy mrfreeze, November 8, 2011 at 8:43 am Link to this comment
But….but…. Just talk with some of my conservative friends who always have two things to say about poverty (especially in America):
1) It’s a lifestyle choice….if you’re poor, you deserve to be poor. It’s your own fault…..work harder, “become entrepreneurial,” embrace “the American Dream,” read “Think and Grow Rich,” “get a better attitude,” “they should have studied harder in school,” blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah….......
2) And my favorite: “The poor today live better than most people in history. WTF are they complaining about?” After all, they all have TV’s, cell phones, refrigerators…....
Of course my conservative “friends” are a bunch of self-righteous, condescending ass-holes. Most of them come from a modicum of privilege. The worst of them grew up during the “morning in America” days of R. Reagan. Few of them are “trickling down” anything. Most complain about taxes they aren’t paying and about regulations that don’t affect them.
Report thisBy IMax, November 8, 2011 at 7:50 am Link to this comment
“It is utterly amazing, when you stop to think about it, how so few can create so much havoc and misery” - gerard
Report thisBy balkas, November 8, 2011 at 7:44 am Link to this comment
i do not know if any value accrues from knowing or saying that war for
poverty [for most people] and riches [for 0001-1% of the people] had
started millennia ago in mesopotamia, hindus valley, egypt, china.
the warfare for poverty [spiritual-bodily-educational] then spread to
greece, rome; and later to germanic, slavic, gothic, celtic, euroasian tribes.
and these peoples brought the warfare to americas. thus, nothing new
ever happened in u.s. it had always been business as usual; waging wars
[via ‘education’, religion, enactment of ‘laws’ [read, please, diktats] never
ending warfare against weakling nations, repression at home, etc]
asians who left the continent for america 2,3,4,5 millennia before the
sumerian system of mastership over majority of its people had been
established, retained an unspoiled structure of society until euros, led by
clero-nobility decided to utterly destroy it.
and they did! now, the question arises how to restore the pristine
structure of governance and society we once had? and facing such an
enormous evil governmental structure nearly everywhere.
i think that most people vastly underestimate this evil and what it is
Report thiscapable of doing to keep it going forever! tnx
By Shenonymous, November 8, 2011 at 6:58 am Link to this comment
On the fly…It takes two to tango and it takes two to make a war.
Report thisThis is not a war, this is a massacre the 1% as symbolized by Wall
Street is committing on the poor. Unlike the middle “class” the poor
cannot make war, they have no resources. They must tuck in their
tails, put their heads down before their massas, believe as some
Republicans insist they are responsible for their own abject poverty,
and just suffer what is dealt them, or die.
By joegod, November 8, 2011 at 6:28 am Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
the sick sad truth of it is that many people can’t bear to face and/or deal with
Report thisthis issue. Most people do their best to ignore homeless people on the street
or talk about why our system exists indefinitely with a large amount of people
homeless ,jobless,and/or hungry. We’ve been conditioned to accept this as an
inevitability. Until we can get past our pre-conceived notions and artificial
explanations about why things are the way they are(which mostly have been
pounded into our collective psyche since birth), how can we actually make the
changes necessary to solve these problems?
By Robespierre115, November 7, 2011 at 11:28 pm Link to this comment
@blogdog, agree with you on every point except the postmodern notion that class war is somehow unattached to ideaologies or specific philosophies. Left Vs. Right is useless when it comes to Democrats Vs. Republicans, but it is very relevant when it means Bakunin, Kropotkin, Luxemburg Vs. Ayn Rand, Thomas Friedman, Ronald Reagan.
Report thisBy gerard, November 7, 2011 at 9:39 pm Link to this comment
It is utterly amazing, when you stop to think about it, how so few can create so much havoc and misery and so many have such difficulty in getting the ear of their government. And in a democracy, at that!
Report thisThe world’s richest, most “powerful” country, yet it can do nothing for 99% of its people? Frankly, I doubt it. Come on, you guys. Get with the program!
Otherwise we have a financial Titanic on our hands.
By Arwen, November 7, 2011 at 8:05 pm Link to this comment
What a lucid, concise, precisely
Report thistargeted piece. I have a new
heroine.
By blogdog, November 7, 2011 at 6:48 pm Link to this comment
keep pushing till no doubt remains among the under classes everywhere - the war
Report thisis not a war ideologies (e.g. Left vs Right, Conservative vs Liberal, etc.) - the only
war that matters is between the oligarchs and the under classes - to the oligarchs
we’re all cannon fodder - make them feel it - call for a massive global, general
strike, withhold from the oligarchs all goods and services that can only be
delivered through the labour of the under classes - don’t give them the time of
day, no matter what they offer to pay