Would you give up your standard of living if it would definitely end world poverty.?

Question

If it was prooved to work would you be prepared to reuce your standard of living to a very basic one to put an end to all the worlds poverty and related problems. If you had to accept a basic way of life that did cater for all your needs like food and shelter and warmth and the possibility of intelectual growth and stimulation but had none or very few luxuries such as holidays and cars and nintendo. (You could use the inter-net but it would be at the library)

In exchange for your luxuries all the world would have enough to eat and a chance to provide for their families. Not only abroad but at home as well.

This is purely hypothetical so no answers saying that this could never happen.

Answer 1

no. The median standard of living we would have to drop to, is far below what you are thinking of. Just be glad you live in the rich part of society, and not in Haiti or Ethiopia.

Answer 2

It would be interesting to see how long this basic ration stuff would last. Jose Farmer in his "Riverworld" series had a population that was all equipped with a container. Every few hours the container would be filled with clothing and food. The immediate result was slavery and the seizing of people's containers.

Much of the problem isn't poverty but greed and unfair distribution. The junta in Burma seized  the aid supplies and eith sold them or gave them to the regimes supporters That was duplicated in Zimbabwe that went from a food exporter to being dependent on imports.

You could research people that donate money to support overseas charities. What percentage of them live at the very basic level soley due to their donations?

Answer 3

yes

Answer 4

If I knew that it would end poverty, of course, but how do I know if I am just going to be a one miserious dude while everyone else lives dicently and rubs it in my face, then probably no.

Answer 5

Yes, I'd go for it.

Answer 6

Three cheers for Doc. He has put into one response all the scattered thoughts that I have and could not consolodate in the order he has. (Give him 10 points.)

Answer 7

I'm not rich, so I can't really answer this question fairly,  but if i were, i would give up my standard of living to end poverty, but it just isn't possible. Moreover, social classes are necessary for society to function. There is a very real reason the world functions the way it always has. Social Darwanism is at large!

Answer 8

Yes, it has to be hypothetical since, as you must be aware, it COULD never happen. But the reason it couldn't happen is, I think, an important point of discussion.

The concept of wealth being finite is a flawed theory.

Your question begs this point. It assumes that wealth cannot be created, but that there is only so much, as is often depicted as a pie.

The folks who assume finite wealth see the only option as slicing thinner and thinner pieces of the pie as populations grow, and that as there are more people, so they each get smaller, and smaller slices of pie.

But reality proves that the pie, if left to a free market economy, gets larger and larger, and so each person in the society gets more and more.

Of course there's one group of people who must be eliminated to allow wealth to grow: that is the group that acts as the management company, i.e., the government.

Your side (that is, the side of statism) has historically attempted to use government, with its penchant to use deadly force to accomplish its and your social and political goals. Statists always seem to forget that the management company has the ability to create new rules, and always, without fail, has written laws (rules) that make it unlawful to exact redress from wrongdoers therein. They continue then, to vote themselves larger and larger chunks of the action (pay raises) and impose further restrictions upon the very people from whom they draw their salaries, namely those citizens who create wealth by producing goods and services useful to others.

We could easily have the world that you desire were we to understand that it is freedom and liberty that allows for the unbridled creation of wealth, and by allowing people to earn as much as they can, and also spend as much as they want, our economy will experience growth heretofore unknown except in places like Hong Kong, 1897-1996.

Witness the state of the American economy. Politicians from both sides of the aisle have been steadily taking our liberty and freedoms from us since before the time of Lincoln. This last administration has gone farther than any other, except maybe FDR ,in imposing burdens on peaceful people under the guise of redistributing wealth from those who have to those who have not.

The problem your side (statists) never seems to take into account is that government always takes the lions share of the wealth they confiscate to (allegedly) redistribute. The reason for this is quite understandable: The act of becoming a government official/employee does nothing to erase basic human nature! All those in government remain human, and retain all the fallibilities of human, including selfishness, greed, and a desire to get something for nothing.

The only fair market is a free market.

The only path to peace and prosperity is one framed in liberty.

All others are doomed to fail.