To you, who is "deserving" and who is "undeserving"?

[Ken Burch]

You constantly hear some people(USUALLY our enemies)making distinctions between the "deserving" poor and the "undeserving" ones.

As the unemployment rate stays high, you hear some divide the recently made jobless into the above categories as well.

What do you think of this concept of "the deserving"?

Does it have any validity?

The notion of this division of the impoverished implys that those who live in comfort and security are entitled to and capable of those with nothing?

Do YOU believe this can ever be the case?

And who, as YOU see it, are the TRULY "deserving" and the TRULY undeserving in this world?

[Naturyl]

1. What a wonderful and hugely important question that is too rarely asked.

And I have a simple answer:

NO ONE is "undeserving" of the basic necessities of life.

Not even the unemployed who refuse work - and this is where I part company with all Repukes - and most Democrats.

[PDJane]

8. +100.

There is no such thing as undeserving poor.

[Hannah Bell]

2. i think the distinction was invented to allow exploitation to continue, by dividing people.

the only reason it's even an issue is that our form of economics depends on some getting less & some getting none. it's not about how "deserving" they are; profits DEPEND ON some being in want.

[Oregone]

3. No one is "deserving" of anything

Its an arbitrary human construct.

People are just people. Some have more needs than others to sustain their existence and become mobile (if mobility is a concept valued by a society). Sane governments should seek to promote social stability (which creates stable markets and preserves property rights) by meeting those needs; to do so, they may have to turn to those who have the least needs, and most to contribute.

[Ken Burch]

4. I used that phraseology because it comes from a mindset

that sees any display of compassion as the granting of a special privilege.

And the concept of a person being said to "deserve" something can take on many different meanings and shadings.

[Oregone]

5. Well, it doesn't even have to be an act of "compassion"

It could simply be the facilitation of the struggle between the haves and have not, to induce a symbiotic relationship that benefits each party.

That is truly what is happening here. Unfortunately, the haves try and use language to invoke the ideas that things are being taken from them and given away. I say nay. They are simply making an investment; one that will pay off greatly.

[Ken Burch]

6. I don't disagree with you on the larger intents of the upper classes.

n/t.

[Oregone]

11. BTW, this type of language I'm using...

Its useful in a discussion with those on the right. Tear all the heart and passion out of liberalism, and at the end of the day, you can convince them its in their very own self interests to stabilize the masses with concessions.

I think that allowing them to frame the debate with arbitrary, emotional notions like "deserving" will lead to nothing good. The debate can be simple, cut and dry, and very logical.

[cherokeeprogressive]

17. Does anyone "deserve" medical care? If not, should we even be discussing the concept of

"Universal Health Care"? Is it not a common statement seen here at DU again and again that "health care" is a right?

You said "No one is deserving of anything (emphasis mine). Do you really mean that? Does a child who cannot fend for him or herself deserve to be fed? That's a concrete question, that has a concrete answer; there are no in-betweens here. That's just for starters.

Does the worker who has given the best years of his or her life "deserve" another 26 weeks of unemployment compensation? If your answer is no, then I don't think you're in the right place.

Does the human being who destroys another human beings life either physically or mentally "deserve" punishment of some sort? If your answer is no, then go back to the last paragraph and read the last sentence again.

Does Socialism have as its core principal the notion that EVERYONE deserves the same thing? Should society as a whole work toward providing EVERYONE with what they deserve, which includes a hearty meal, shelter including a warm safe place to sleep, and an opportunity to help their fellow humans get what they deserve?

It MAY be a human construct, but it's a good one. We ALL deserve the opportunity to work, benefit from that work, and lift up those who cannot.

I'm not trying to cut you down; you post lots of things that I agree with totally and completely. But to say that no one DESERVES anything goes a bit further than I'm willing to accept.

People ARE just people. But, some people are more capable than others, and can provide more than others. Does that mean that those "others" are less deserving of what we should as a society be more than willing to provide?

[Oregone]

26. No one has to deserve UHC for it to make fiscal sense

Why not feed a child? A healthy child is a future productive worker and consumer.

As far as unemployment is concerned, it is effective stimulus and it pacifies potentially unstable elements.

As far punishment is concerned, is there a better alternative than not locking up dangers to society, in order to protect society?

This OP seems to be aimed at addressing the thoughts of those on the right. Appealing to their emotions when they lack a heart seems like a failed attempt before you even start.

[Morning Dew]

7. I know a woman who is pretty conservative.

Several years ago, she lost her job and wound up getting some assistance. We are more acquaintances than friends so I don't know the particulars of how much assistance she received. I do know she thought it was a Godsend at the time.

Within the last year, I was talking with her and she was going on and on about people getting assistance and how they should be trying harder. . . because if they were trying to find work and trusting in God, they wouldn't be on assistance.

I reminded her of when she was on assistance and asked how that was different. Why was she worthy and others aren't...

She didn't have an answer and we've only exchanged "good day" type pleasantries since.


So, I guess, for some folks, the "deserving" is ME and the "undeserving" is THEM.

[Ken Burch]

9. And when she WAS down-and-out

She probably prided herself on having a bigger cardboard box to sleep in than anybody else on the street.

Some people are determined not to grow a soul.

[HEyHEY]

10. After being to really poor countries in Asia

Most North Americans can kiss my ass.

[dkf]

12. The problem is that if you extend unemployment in perpetuity then that lessens the pressure to

Create jobs. If we could visualize a future manufacturing and services economy that produces good jobs then it makes more sense to aim funding toward that direction. But if we just sit back and think current policy and the magical capitalist society will produce these jobs then I think you are in for a dismal future. Corporations are more interested in manipulating the current system than in a paradigm shift

In addition, Paul Krugman is warning that 10% unemployment may become the new norm. Especially if we keep expecting people to work until they are in their early 70s we look to be in a high unemployment environment as far as the eye can see. I think that anything less than a complete concentration on jobs jobs jobs will leave millions in unemployment limbo for years and years.

So to me it is not about the deserving or the undeserving but what can we do to create the economy we need.

[Warpy]

15. Jobs aren't given away by rich people,

Jobs are created by poor people with money in their pockets demanding goods and services.

Telling the 99ers "thats all, guess you've got to live on the streets for a while" is not going to spur job creation, it's only going to make them unemployable as the streets take their toll and the demand for goods or services that allowing them subsistence income would have created will not be there any more, causing us to lose even more jobs.

Economies work from the bottom up, not from the top down, and nobody's going to create any jobs out of thin air, no matter how many bodies of unemployed people they have to step over every day.

They'll create jobs when people demand whatever that job will provide.

[Ken Burch]

19. Letting unemployment benefits expire doesn't CREATE pressure to create jobs

Those on top don't CARE whether the jobless get jobs. They'd rather the jobless be kept out of work and desperate(especially the ones who REALLY want to work, because they're the ones who are capable of dreaming of something better than the status quo)as long as possible, and those on the top would be perfectly happy to remove almost ALL jobs from this country if they could get away with it.

We do need to create an economy that includes us all. And to do this, we will have to be willing to say "so freakin' WHAT?" when those who oppose an inclusive economy call us "anti-business".

[Jim Sagle]

13. The poor sure don't deserve what they're getting now, do they?

;(

Nor will those millions about to join them in short order.

The rich, OTOH, really are undeserving - most of them.

[dkf]

18. Yet crushing the rich may not get you to where you want to be either.

I think I saw a statistic that the top 5% are responsible for 30% of consumer consumption. If you simply tax all their funds away then you've lost 30% of consumption. That can't be good can it? Of course if you expect the money to go directly to you so you could spend the money the rich sob made then that would keep consumption up. But who is worthy or not worthy of the funds they make? If Justin Bieber gets thousand of little girls to pay $50 to see him in concert did he deserve it? Does someone else deserve it more than he did by just sitting on their ass every day? Personally I would say I deserved zero of his money but that is me and I'm not starving or homeless.

[Ken Burch]

23. We don't have to CRUSH anybody to wipe out poverty and inequality in this country

We could easily create a system that let the moneygrubber types happily grub away without forcing the rest of society to have to defer to them or, as is now the case, live at their mercy.

Since 1980, we've had a political system in which corporate power essentially gets a veto over government. To maintain this power, they have to create a continual sense of uncertainty and paranoia among the non-rich majority(forcing us to continue to lead Emerson's "lives of quiet desperation").

We could find a way to structure this country that accomodated the Bill Gates' And the working-class Rainbow majority. Nobody should have to live in fear of anybody else in a decent society, especially economic fear.

And the idea that a supposedly liberal person like you would actually speak fearfully of "crushing the rich" as if that was the only alternative to the post-1980 economic status quo shows how much right-wing propaganda you've internalized. Please think about what the Reaganists have done to your head. Being a "pro-business Democrat" basically means governing like Reagan of Bush the Second but keeping a picture of Jack or Bobby on your desk to balance that off.

[Jim Sagle]

25. We don't have to crush them, we just have to pull them off our necks.

[Ken Burch]

20. Well, the rich are deserving-but not of what THEY think they deserve.

They do deserve something like this:

[Warpy]

14. 25 years as an RN taught me one major thing

and that is that everybody is doing the best they can with what they have to work with.

People labeled "undeserving" are often the people who have the least to work with, raised in poverty and despair, never given an adequate reason in school to learn things that had no practical application in their real world, limited mental capacity, and the drug problems that inevitably intrude into such lives. Depression is mistaken for sullenness and laziness, a preference for hustling instead of donning some sort of suit and trying to get a job that bores the best of us is mistaken for idiocy or inborn criminality.

I learned that other people have a right to make decisions about their lives that I'd never make about mine and that the best you can do is give them enough information that they can make a more informed choice and that what I consider a terrible choice might be the right one for them.

And the more I learned, the less I knew.

[Naturyl]

16. Limited mental capacity?

I'm on disability and uninterested in getting off - and therefore considered "undeserving" by many.

I never, never mention my IQ unless this "limited mental capacity" claim comes up (which it sadly does far too often) - and I won't specify it here, either. Just imagine a really, really large number. Now add 20.

I am always and forever willing to take any type of standardized test alongside anyone who feels that the poor have "limited mental capacity."

[hfojvt]

32. I got 13, 335, 988, 389, 020

Is that about right?

That still sounds like "you work, I eat" to me.

[Naturyl]

36. Yes, exactly right.

See you on April 15th.

[6000eliot]

21. That's easy.

The rich are "deserving." The poor are "undeserving."

[flvegan]

22. Ego is a funny thing.

Most of you don't understand it, and it creates questions like this.

[Ken Burch]

24. OK...I guess I don't understand it.

Could you go a bit further with this?

[flvegan]

28. You asked a question about deserving and undeserving.

From the eye of the beholder, ego is the difference.

If it doesn't make sense to you, don't ask me. Figure it out. Just might learn something.

[Ken Burch]

29. I supported Kucinich too. You've got no reason to get like that with me.

My response to your post was based on the fact that you were being a bit cryptic.

I'll hazard a guess as to what you meant, since you assume(falsely)that your point was obvious:

Would it be that the rich tend to be particularly egotistic, and that those middle class people who identify(pointless as it always is for them to do so)with the rich tend to share that egotism, and assume that their sense of their own superiority actually PROVES their superiority?

(btw, don't ever hit me or anyone else here with "Figure it out", again. You aren't entitled to talk to people like, because NOBODY is entitled to talk to people like that.)

[Warren DeMontague]

27. If Ken Lay had stuck around long enough to go to trial, and had ALL his money taken away

and been sentenced to 10 years working a minimum wage in a paper hat- and to have to try to live on it-

he would have deserved to be poor.

Anyone else, well, I don't think "deserving" or "undesevering" really enters into it.

[Ken Burch]

30. I'd be with you on Lay(or anybody in the Bush regime)

provided we were to agree that nobody CURRENTLY working minimum wage in a paper hat deserves such a fate.

If we're together on that point, I'd have no problem with turning the service industry into "re-education camps" for the fallen wealthy.

[Warren DeMontague]

31. No. I think we need a livable minimum wage, a SPHC system, and a solid safety net.

'course, I also don't think we need a military budget bigger than that of all the rest of the planet combined, or a $40 Billion dollar a year "drug war" aimed mostly at pot smokers.

And I'm crazy enough to think addressing point #2 might help us get to a place where we could address #1.

But, I'm not in charge. Unfortunately.

But back to your core point- I agree. It's well-nigh impossible to exist in this society on what passes for minimum wage, and no one "deserves" to be poor.

[hfojvt]

33. What about people who do not try?

I had a co-worker who constantly complained about our low wage which was $7.25 an hour back in 1999. Considering the work she did though, why should she be paid more? She was a lousy worker. Slow, always going to break five or ten minutes early, and when she got a little bit ahead of the machine, she would just sit, expecting her co-workers to break down her boxes and to bring her new supplies.

That is the point. Should people be paid $20,000 a year to sit around drinking beer and watching TV? If so, where can I sign up, because it's not like I want to spend hours mopping floors, stacking chairs and cleaning toilets for $15,000 a year.

[Ken Burch]

34. I don't know the whole story with your co-worker.

She may have had a problem with depression(her story manifests the symptoms);

This may have been a job that was a worse "fit" for her than other jobs.

There's something about your story that sounds a little bit too convenient for the making of a right-wing political point.

[Warren DeMontague]

35. If she's not doing the job, why pay her anything? She should be fired.

I mean, seriously. I never said companies shouldn't be free to fire people who don't do the job. Still, the minimum wage should be livable, and there should be a solid safety net for everyone.

The lack of a solid safety net; for instance, the fact that people with families lose health insurance, can't care for sick family members, etc. causes far more problems in the workplace than guaranteeing a basic level of decent coverage for everyone ever could.


"Should people be paid $20,000 a year to sit around drinking beer and watching TV?" If the job is beer and tv tester, then, sure. Maybe more.

[hfojvt]

40. the job is not beer tester

the beer drinker is resting comfortably in the safety net. Just like the fired worker in my example. She would be fired and receive some kind of guaranteed minimum income of $25,000 a year while I would keep working for $7.25 an hour.

[Warren DeMontague]

43. I cringe in terror at the horrible sounding eventuality that you describe.

Surely, it is only the fear of starvation and living under a bridge that keeps the lines of would-be lazybones doing their jobs.

However, out here in the REAL world, things like health coverage for families are NOT adequately covered by the free market and law of the jungle. "Resting comfortably in the safety net"... Yes, this is the logic of right-wingers who say that universal, single payer health coverage would cause people to have giant MRI and surgery parties. Because nothing is more fun than going to the doctor and getting expensive procedures and tests. Wheee!

As for the rest of it-- guaranteed minimum income and blahblahblah... first off, if there was a GMI, wouldn't you be getting it, too? And secondly, that's not what I said. I said a livable minimum wage. We have a minimum wage now, and people who don't work don't get it. If you have a job, however, they have to pay you the minimum wage. At least in theory.

[hfojvt]

45. without the GMI you still have poor people

a livable minimum wage does not prevent poverty for people who either lose their jobs or cannot find one.

[Warren DeMontague]

47. Why are you having an argument with me about stuff I haven't said?

I said, I support a livable minimum wage, a SPHC system, and a solid safety net. Since we're bringing up unrelated topics, maybe we can debate your support for mandatory school prayer, too?

I do also think there's room for assistance for unemployed people and the poor, but then, I don't think there is such a thing as 'undeserving' poor or lines of people just waiting to 'suckle at the gov't teat', contrary to the noise often heard on AM Radio. Most unemployed people want nothing more than to work, and the folks I've known making at or just above minimum wage (including myself, for many years) ALL worked a helluva lot harder than I imagine Rush Limbaugh or Sean Hannity do.

[TCJ70]

37. Everybody is deserving...

It's just that we're all deserving of something different.

[RadiationTherapy]

38. Deserve is an irrational and meaningless word.

Like would, could, and should.

[qb]

39. An argument invented by stupid greedy people.

Economic safety nets stabilize our society and our economy. They should be expanded, IMO (along with universal health care).

[blueworld]

41. I live on Planet cynicism, partly 'cause of age, partly my NJ background

I interpret "deserving" to mean those who are poor yet content to take whatever handouts & help is given to them, even when inadequate, without raising a fuss & making us feel guilty.

"undeserving" are those poor folks who seem to believe that they have a right to food & shelter & medical care on some level & when they don't get it, they won't sit quietly in the corner & cry. They get loud & demanding & then we have to pay attention & pony up something.

See, I've found that most adjectives we apply to others actually depend less on semantics than they do on how "others" serve our purposes and/or convenience.

To quote Martin Mull: "Life sux. But once you accept that, it's not so bad".

[OnionPatch]

42. I heard this "undeserving" meme this weekend.

A family member does social work finding homes for those in poverty. Another member described it as "Getting homes for those who don't deserve them." We have a "no politics" rule at our get-togethers, so I didn't ask him to elaborate, but I got it that he thinks a lot of poor people are undeserving. The only way I can think they might be is if they are truly lazy and don't want to work. I actually do know a couple of people who fit this profile and would find any way to get out of working a regular job, but the vast majority of the poor I've met are hard-working people who simply can't find jobs that will support their families. I think the right wants those people to work at any crappy job there is for as many hours as they can keep standing. I think that's asking too much of people and the other thing is, when people take any crappy, low-paying, no-benefit jobs out there, they are lowering the standards for the rest of us. Those kinds of jobs should be shunned and I'm happy to contribute some of my tax money to making sure people don't take them, because they lower working conditions for the rest of us.

[LWolf]

44. Living things are deserving of respect.

Including people.

Are some people more deserving than others? Deserving of WHAT, exactly?

I don't think some people deserve more resources, more opportunities, more education, more security, more or better health care or housing or food or transportation, more rights, or more civil liberties than others.

[TK421]

46. Nobody has the cajones to answer that question HONESTLY, Ken

especially the ones on the right who seem to think the unemployed are just lazy