[Back to Economic Reform]

Introduction

We had a discussion about poverty in August 2026; here are some thoughts on the subject following the discussion. 

On reflection it seems to me that poverty is one of the topics where humanity, morality and economics all work together.  The same policies work to satisfy the needs and desires of the majority of individuals, are evidently morally just, and tend to create an economically successful society.

Our dominant systems and structures work to promote social stability - that is, they protect the interests and dominance of the rich and successful, they maintain a significant number of reasonably comfortable people in the middle, and they ensure a large number of poor people will never find anything more than temporary relief from their constant struggle.

Much of the stability of the present system comes from the well-honed strategy of divide-and-conquer: you convince each section of the poor that their main enemy is a different group of poor people.  The truth, of course, is that the rich get richer, and every rich person gets richer than their talents and abilities deserve precisely because beneath them are vastly more poor people getting far less than they are worth.

How to help most people

It's actually quite easy to address the problems caused by poverty.  Of course, you can't help everybody, but you can help most people.  And you can almost completely eradicate the problems by addressing their causes.  None of this is rocket science: it mostly comes down to love and work.  Or community and purpose.  You can use all kinds of language, but the obvious truth is that happy, secure people in loving relationships, living in accepting communities, doing worthwhile work which stretches them but doesn't take over their lives - these people hardly ever get addicted, and they rarely suffer from mental health problems which require a medical professional.

Young inner-city males start dealing drugs, not because they don't know any better, but because they know that they have no better option.  The answer is not to come down harder on the drug dealers, but to give them better options.  Which is not a trivial challenge, but it is a genuine solution, while 'Just say no' and 'Lock them up!' is an admission of failure.

There are many good people working for the Police and the Health and Social Services, and what they do is vital, but what they do can never be enough - not because what they do is wrong, or even because it is under-funded (and that is also a serious problem we need to fix), but because what they do cannot address the real needs.  The statutory services and the voluntary sector need to work together, because the government will only fund services to fix problems, and people are not problems to be fixed: they may be dysfunctional and need healing, they may be broke and need work, but while they may have many problems, they are always and most importantly people who need to be loved.

Perhaps one day the government will be happy to fund this vital activity, but I'm not holding my breath.  I recently came across a nice demonstration of two ways of providing care in the community, which describes this beautifully - 'What if we stopped treating social care like a service? A small village community in Yorkshire showed me another way'.

The actual choice

Opponents of progress always present us with a binary choice: successful capitalism, or failed communism; allow talented and hardworking people to get rich through their efforts, or impose a drab equality on everyone.  But social policy is never a binary choice, and - just like in a living organism - the optimum state is rarely found at the extremes: what we generally need to aim for is a healthy balance between all the competing needs and concerns.

In any case, the usual choice we are presented with is a false one: both capitalism and communism failed.  The capitalism which Karl Marx so clearly and correctly criticised no longer exists.  There is no clear agreement on what we should call the present system, but 'debtism' is one option.  Here is an AI-generated overview of debtism.

What Debtism is

• The term "debtism" refers to the economic system which has replaced capitalism, where leverage, credit creation, and debt (both sovereign and consumer) replace traditional profit-driven production as the core engine of society.  Rather than operating on free-market competition and capital investment, the system now relies on managing endless streams of public and private debt.

How Debtism Works

• Credit over Production: Money is created primarily through debt issuance by banks rather than physical goods production.
• State Bailouts: Central banks step in with monetary support whenever credit markets stall, keeping insolvent entities afloat.
• Stagnant Wages: Flat real wages mean households rely on mortgages, credit cards, and loans to sustain basic living standards and economic demand.

Key Effects on Society

• Sovereign Strain: National economies run on high public debt, where tax revenues increasingly go toward servicing interest payments rather than public services.
• Asset Inequality: Wealth concentrates among asset owners who benefit from cheap money and asset inflation, while everyday citizens manage growing debt burdens.
• Systemic Fragility: The entire structure requires continuous borrowing and low interest rates to avoid collapse, making the system vulnerable when borrowing costs rise.

There are no sovereign nations any more, because the whole world is interconnected, and no nation can survive in isolation.  Albania tried, and fell apart.  North Korea pretends to, but relies entirely on its trade with Russia and China.  And no nation is sovereign because every nation is in debt - not to other nations, but to multinational corporations and trillionaires.

Marx dreamed of the day when the workers control the means of production.  These days, the ownership of capital is almost entirely irrelevant: you may own the factory or the farm, but whether you can make a profit from it is determined by the market, and the market is controlled by corporations and regulated by rules which are set according to the lobbying of the corporations and the preferences of the ultra-rich, who are always best buddies with the members of the present government.

The rules of the game are not set in stone, they are not some immutable law of nature; in fact, they are constantly being revised and updated.  Of course, they are being modified - more often than not - in order to provide greater benefit to the rich and powerful.  But democracy can actually work if we are prepared to put in the effort to make it work, and the rules which are being revised to ensure one group of people benefit can also be revised to ensure a different group benefit.  The only important question is: how?

There seems to be little point in sitting back and hoping for a change of heart on the part of the big corporations and the rich.  And a change of heart would require them... no, let's not go there.

What can be done?

What can be done?  I'm not claiming this as an area of expertise but, on the face of it, there are three fairly obvious strategies.

Firstly, numbers.  The present system depends entirely on the passive acceptance of a compliant workforce.  If we were prepared to vote for politicians who told the truth and were prepared to do something plausible to address the real problems we face, that would be a good start.  If we were prepared to invest our money in charities which worked to help people (and there is a lot more I could say about this...) rather than buying the latest phone or TV, that would go a long way.  If we were prepared to speak up and say what we believe and care about - and challenge, when we see it, not only lies, but also any callous indifference to suffering, that would go a long way towards creating a healthier society.

Secondly, self interest.  The present system is not sustainable.  If we continue down the present route, civilisation will collapse, and the ultra-rich will die with the rest of us.  Or, maybe they will survive an extra six months on their horded tins of baked beans, if they have remembered to equip their bunkers with a manual tin-opener.  In any case, when the electricity grid goes down and no more petrol is being produced, and nobody is delivering food to the supermarkets any more, then the fact that you had trillions in the bank a few weeks earlier is probably going to matter a lot less than many people assume.

Thirdly, create.  Create and celebrate, don't just complain.  It's easy to say what is wrong, to identify problems and weaknesses.  This may be a helpful first step, but if you don't go on to suggest something that might work - whether you have come up with it, or someone else has - then it's not achieving anything.  Your possible solution may have weaknesses, but talk about it anyway: someone else may be able to overcome those weaknesses, or your idea might spark a better one.  Even if someone else has solved the problem, solve it a different way: their solution may prove to be unworkable, or people may prefer some combination of the two.

Most rich people are not bad people, I believe.  But they have been brought up to believe a whole bunch of lies - lies which were designed to protect the status quo, and their privilege with it.  One of those lies is that a few radicals want to tear down the current system because we hate them.  The truth is that we want to fix the current system because we love them, just as we love everyone, and we want to fix the system because everyone benefits from living in a healthy society.

I remember one line from 'A Man For All Seasons': silence gives consent.  If we stay silent, we consent to the present system, which is destroying our planet and keeping vast numbers of people trapped in poverty so that a few can over-indulge.  If we do not consent to this, the alternative - the starting point for an alternative, at least - is simply to open our mouths and speak both truth and love.