How the poor were lost.
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Author: Vincent Wilmot The poor in developed countries like the USA and UK are now
a minority, though up to maybe the 1950's or 1960's they
had been a majority.
While the poor were a majority their main problems were
simply economic poverty and economic exploitation.
Government bodies manned by the upper and middle classes
understood this sufficiently to be able to handle the poor
with some appropriateness, if not always entirely to the
poor's liking. The votes of the poor majority were
basically sought with a policy mix of small economic
titbits and nationalistic policies.
The poor becoming a minority.
In the USA by 1950, and the UK by 1960, growing economic
prosperity saw the numbers of the poor begin to fall until
soon they became a minority. This was helped by more
enlightened government policy, and was good for the many
that then escaped poverty. Unfortunately the remaining poor
as a minority were to face seriously increased problems.
There were two main reasons why the modern minority poor in
advanced countries faced increasing problems. The first was
that the poor soon had more complex, though supposedly
helpful, welfare systems applying to them and giving them
new problems and also as a minority they now also hit new
minority social exclusion problems. The second main reason
the modern poor in advanced countries faced increasing
problems was that they became less seen and less understood
by the governing upper and middle classes, so their
governing became wildly inappropriate and plain wrong.
How affluent governments lost their poor.
When the poor in developed countries became a minority,
democratic political parties began to see their votes as
unnecessary, though the poor are a socially significant
minority whose misgovernment can seriously undermine
society.
Majority middle-class issues became prioritised, for
example huge anti-tobacco-smoking resources being applied
by government and employer bodies but much less on
drunkenness, drug-taking or weapon-carrying pushing many
from cigarettes to these. Socially tobacco is a small
undesirable but the available alternatives for the poor are
really much worse. And some of the health problems of
smoking may be due to inhaling cigarette lighter flints
rather than inhaling tobacco.
All government, charity, employer and other bodies being
now run by a middle-class having no real understanding of
modern poor minority problems has led to many policies
affecting the poor becoming totally inappropriate. And
developed countries prioritising middle-class issues and
worsening the position of their poor minority are in effect
doing a Nero and 'fiddling while Rome burns', but their
governments basically lost the poor.
Re-finding the poor.
In developed countries now, those producing policies are
educated professionals with little or no experience of the
poor today, and they may commonly have correct general
theories but often be missing the correct practical detail
needed for correct modern policy making for today's
minority poor. They urgently need to find and involve the
tiny handful of street-wise professionals who somehow do
happen to have substantial real experience of today's poor
themselves but as yet they are totally unaware that this
is needed.
Or if modern affluent middle-class government cannot find a
way to better govern their poor and other minorities, then
perhaps modern democratic government will demand less
middle-class officials. Maybe a percentage of politicians
should not be elected, but instead be randomly selected
from elector lists ?
About the Author:
Vincent Wilmot currently lives in Grimsby UK and has
several interesting websites including
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