Swank writes:
And poverty in the sense of people not being able to make ends meet and access to basic services isn’t necessary in capitalism. Capitalism’s great utility and reason for adoption was that it would produce better outcomes for the majority of society.
But yes, accepting all terrible things in society as inevitable necessary evils that are earned is a great example of the Just World Hypothesis.
Pure capitalism with no socialist elements will always, always, always produce poverty, often mass poverty. The idea that the best way to get rid of poverty is more capitalism is like a cruel joke.
The only, and I mean only, way to alleviate poverty in any capitalist country is to add in elements of socialism. Socialism is the only political economic system that has been proven to alleviate poverty.
You want rich people? Fine, then you are going to have to manufacture some poor people. This is what people just don’t get. Americans always think that everyone can be rich. Guess what? Everyone can’t be rich. Rich means you have lots more than nearly everyone else. Think about it. How can everyone have more than nearly everyone else? It’s like Lake Wobegon where everyone is above average.
We are rich in the First World because they are poor in the Third World. The First World exploits and lives off the Third World. We drive BMW’s because they make $1 an hour, or they make $1/hour so we can drive Beamers. Why is this so hard to understand?
I would say that yes, poverty is inevitable under any capitalist system, and therefore, any capitalist system must therefore have enough socialist elements added to it to deal with this inevitable side effect of capitalism – poverty. Just because something is inevitable doesn’t mean you can’t substantially fix it.
