What is the minimum standard of living a society should accept for its poorest?

[BrentWil]

Simple question, very complex answers. Thought this is a very basic discussion that one should spend some time thinking about every so often.

[H2O Man]

1. Question:

Do you mean our society?

[BrentWil]

6. I meant any soceity...

However, do you suggest that the responsibilities of a society go up as the wealth of the society goes up? If so, how does that work?

[H2O Man]

9. I'd venture

that different societies have different capabilities in this area.

[StarsInHerHair]

54. depends, do you think it's all good for an African "President" to be

a millionaire or billionaire when the average citizen is very poor and going hungry?

Personally, I think a civilized country can only be called such if it has a safety net for its' citizens, if it has a working system to offset a work accident that disables a person and they can no longer work. Also it should have laws like this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_manslaughter and NOT resemble the Dicken's era of Britain. Or the 19th century of America. Child labor should be eliminated and education should be valued and protected. Child prostitution should be outlawed. The government should prevent the wealthiest from steamrolling everyone else, government should prevent large corporations from using the courts against their smaller competition, as well as preventing large corporations from determining laws that exclusively benefit them to the detriment of most others.

And a VERY IMPORTANT PRINCIPLE: the law applies EQUALLY to everybody, rich and poor, cashier and judge. 1930s and 1940s films have alot to say about what makes a good society, with the exception of racism; films from the 30s and 40s portray women as equally competent as men for the most part.

[ZombieHorde]

2. Health care, housing, food, and D&D. nt

[HEyHEY]

4. Dungeons and dragons? That seems excessive, and nerdy

[ZombieHorde]

I am excessive and nerdy; my replies sometimes reflect that. nt

[Codeine]

27. Save vs Poverty

Shit, I fumbled!

[ZombieHorde]

28. LOL! Awesome. nt

[HEyHEY]

3. Shelter, food, healthcare, education n/t

[Motown_Johnny]

19. + water, heat (or air conditioning in extreme climates) Some other energy provisions

such as simply having electric lights a refrigerator and a way to cook food, proper sanitation, proper clothing, some minimal creature comforts such as basic furniture


Security should go without saying, police and fire protection as well as EMS services if needed and national defense.




I know it seems like I am listing a lot but it is less than what we spend keeping people in prison.

[HEyHEY]

30. I consider those part of shelter.

[truedelphi]

45. If we don't keep on keeping people in prison - a

lot of rich people will suffer.

Slave labor is depended on, you know.

[ZombieHorde]

23. How could I forget education?! Education is a must. nt

[leftstreet]

5. Article 1, Section 25, Universal Declaration of Human Rights

Article 25.
(1) Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.

http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/index.shtml

[jody]

10. Excellent answer but what if there's not enough wealth to go around? nt

[leftstreet]

12. Go around where? We the people CREATE the wealth

There's enough of OUR wealth in the hands of the global ruling elite to tide us all over nicely

:-)

[truedelphi]

46. Leftstreet, have you followed the story about the man on

The Indian reservation near Wounded Knee, in the Dakotas.


He started growing industrial hemp, and then got contracts for the crop, and then started hiring people to help him so that he could spread his wealth around.

Then in came the DEA - and he had to

1) quit growing the hemp

2) quit employing people

3) I imagine he also has to spend a lot of money just to get his case heard. And so far, all the judicial system has done is harass him.

Meanwhile in Canada, some three to four hundred miles north, people are growing the same crop and making huge amounts of money.

[leftstreet]

49. ...

Was that at Pine Ridge? If so, I think this was the same guy who'd tried a few years earlier on Oglala Res.

And if I recall the DEA claimed he didn't apply for the permits, or something.

I lost track of it but remember thinking it was Tribal land so wtf was the DEA doing?

[truedelphi]

51. Probably is the same guy. And like you say,

Just what the F___ is the DEA doing on rez land. You'd think they'd ahve something better to do.

[DJ13]

13. Theres always enough wealth, no matter the country

Take a country like Mexico for an example, it has an abundance of wealth derived from its rich mineral deposits, but the wealthy have never developed a sense of sharing, so theres a huge disparity between the well off and extreme poverty.

Its getting the obscenely wealthy to share thats the problem in most every country.

[socialist_n_TN]

29. That seems to be the way this country is trending..........

Aren't there some guidelines for a "living wage" somewhere? I would think this would be a minimum along with sensible "general welfare" things like education, healthcare, safety and health protections for ALL citizens.

[BrentWil]

31. Was that the problem under Mao or the USSR? NT

Just pointing out that total sharing does create a incentive for work. You can go to far in the other direction.

[DJ13]

35. I wasnt advocating the wealthy end up like the commoners

Just that they have been taking their addiction to greed way farther than is reasonable.

If they lost just half their wealth they would remain wealthy, and the poor would use their newfound resources to buy more of the products the wealthy sell, which would put the wealthy right back where they were before.

In the end everyone benefits from that kind of economy.

[M155Y_A1CH]

48. Yes, I agree

It should be siphoned off wherever it tends to pool.

If you want to keep it circulating.

[DJ13]

50. Circulating, yes thats exactly whats needed for a healthy economy

Its too bad no one ever realizes (or admits publicly) that is the crux of our failing economy.

Too much money is stagnant in the hands of the wealthy now.

Excellent way to put it, thanks!

[Hannah Bell]

36. what?

[slackmaster]

39. I'm not sure about Haiti right now

There are a few rich leeches, but the country really is poor in terms of natural resources.

[TBF]

18. Then we cut defense spending. ** GASP** nt

[handmade34]

24. there is enough n/t

[TBF]

17. I'm good with that description. nt

[Hell Hath No Fury]

69. I would agree with that Declaration --

and add education if that were not already covered under "social services".

[demmiblue]

7. Food, housing, healthcare, education, modest vacation. n/t

[bobbolink]

8. After the obvious necessities, FDR included recreation.

But, then... he was a Commie.

Seems reasonable that poor people should have access to things like recreation centers... to be able to swim, work out, take classes, etc. Even the Indian villages of New Mexico do that for their people. Why is it so unthinkable for the rest of the nation?

[demmiblue]

16. Good point. n/t

[dkf]

11. What is the minimum a society can expect from an able bodied citizen?

That is probably the flip side to this question.

[TBF]

20. Define "a society" - the rich person who owns everything? Here we go again. nt

[dkf]

26. No...a society meaning the collective citizenry.

Ask not what your country can do for you...ask what you can do for your country.

[TBF]

38. So off topic I don't even know where to start. nt

[demmiblue]

21. I would be interested in reading your minimum expectations. Please, elucidate. n/t

[leftstreet]

25. George Bush is an 'able bodied citizen.' What's yer point? n/t

[Donald Ian Rankin]

60. To refrain from breaking the law; nothing more.

The obligations of a citizen are laid out in the country's legal code.

[Luminous Animal]

14. Guaranteed income for all adults.

I'm thinking $24,000 a year indexed to real cost of living increases. For every dollar you earn, a dollar is taken away.

[Codeine]

32. Will those adults be expected to do anything in exchange for that 24G?

I could live comfortably enough on that. What would be the motivation for a person to do anything useful?

[Terry in Austin]

52. Doing something useful

The humanistic assumption would be that doing something useful (however you define it) is motivation enough for most people.

[Obamanaut]

57. Who gets to determine what is useful? nt

[Terry in Austin]

67. Exactly! -nt

[Codeine]

63. The humanist assumption

is not borne out by observation of the behavior of those around us.

[Terry in Austin]

66. So you're the one who defines what is "useful"?

People do what's useful for themselves. That's what people do.

Your somewhat disturbing assertion is that they fail to do what's useful for you, and so they are wrong for it.

That same sentiment coming from someone in power is going to be even more disturbing, as it's the very basis of an authoritarian social structure. You can have it, but not for me, thanks.

[Codeine]

70. The fact is that if we want to provide for our citizens

then those things that are needed will have to be produced, and those services are are needed will have to be performed. We cannot clothe a population if nobody makes he clothes. We cannot feed a population if nobody is going to perform farm labor. If we do not have people picking up our trash we will not have a healthy population and so on.

I won't be the one to decide, but if society is to agree to provide those things then society will decide what is useful to demand in return from those it provides goods and services to. A permanent leisure class on the dole will not fly, not long-term.

[Luminous Animal]

55. Adults would be expected to do nothing.

But most adults would do something and it would save society billions in donations to useless poverty pimp organizations, useless corporate tax write-offs for dumping failed products on the poor, and administration and surveillance costs for food stamps, WIC, and welfare.

[Codeine]

62. Why would most adults do something?

It's patently absurd to assume that a person will exert any effort at all when provided with a decent living for zero effort. You underestimate the tendency for a body at rest to stay at rest. I do not believe the average person is possessed of that much altruism.

I'm a firm believer in "to each according to his needs", but only when that is coupled with "from each according to his abilities". I expect society to provide for the common needs of its citizenry, but in turn that citizenry has an absolute and unbending obligation to work to fulfill the needs of society. Somebody needs to make the clothes, grow the food, build the homes, haul the trash, clean the streets, and build the machinery that would be needed to make sure everyone is clothed, fed, and sheltered and lives in a clean, safe environment.

[catnhatnh]

33. Just slightly off...

For there to be an incentive to work (which benefits the society) something more like a 50 cent reduction would work better...when I make 72K or more in income I'm on my own...

[grasswire]

15. maybe the answer lies in FDR's four freedoms

The third one is freedom from want which -- translated into world terms -- means economic understandings which will secure to every nation a healthy peacetime life for its inhabitants everywhere in the world.

The Millenium Goals of the United Nations list these:

Goal 1
Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger
Target 1
Halve, between 1990 and 2015, the proportion of people whose income is less than one dollar a day
Target 2
Halve, between 1990 and 2015, the proportion of people who suffer from hunger

Goal 2
Achieve universal primary education
Target 3
Ensure that, by 2015, children everywhere, boys and girls alike, will be able to complete a full course of primary schooling

Goal 3
Promote gender equality and empower women
Target 4
Eliminate gender disparity in primary and secondary education, preferably by 2005, and to all levels of education no later than 2015

Goal 4
Reduce child mortality
Target 5
Reduce by two thirds, between 1990 and 2015, the under-five mortality rate

Goal 5
Improve maternal health
Target 6
Reduce by three quarters, between 1990 and 2015, the maternal mortality ratio

Goal 6
Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases
Target 7
Have halted by 2015 and begun to reverse the spread of HIV/AIDS
Target 8
Have halted by 2015 and begun to reverse the incidence of malaria and other major diseases

Goal 7
Ensure environmental sustainability
Target 9
Integrate the principles of sustainable development into country policies and programmes and reverse the loss of environmental resources
Target 10
Halve, by 2015, the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation
Target 11
By 2020, to have achieved a significant improvement in the lives of at least 100 million slum-dwellers

Goal 8
Develop a global partnership for development
Target 12
Develop further an open, rule-based, predictable, non-discriminatory trading and financial system (includes a commitment to good governance, development and poverty reduction — both nationally and internationally)
Target 13
Address the special needs of the least developed countries (includes tariff- and quota-free access for least developed countries exports; enhanced programme of debt relief for heavily indebted poor countries and cancellation of official bilateral debt; and more generous ODA for countries committed to poverty reduction)
Target 14
Address the special needs of landlocked countries and small island developing States (through the Programme of Action for the Sustainable Development of Small Island Developing States and the outcome of the twenty-second special session of the General Assembly)
Target 15
Deal comprehensively with the debt problems of developing countries through national and international measures in order to make debt sustainable in the long term
Target 16
In cooperation with developing countries, develop and implement strategies for decent and productive work for youth
Target 17
In cooperation with pharmaceutical companies, provide access to affordable, essential drugs in developing countries
Target 18
In cooperation with the private sector, make available the benefits of new technologies, especially information and communications
................

This is not posted as an answer to your question, but as information that can limn discussion.

[quaker bill]

22. I do not have a problem with it being simple

and somewhat spartan. But food, basic clothing, basic healthcare, and modest shelter, likely shared, access to education through secondary/vocational ed, and some form of employment (community service if all else fails), would seem about right. I would favor some additional support for those truly incapable of work through physical or mental handicap.

The system needs to leave an incentive to work in place, but I don't think anyone should be left hungry or without shelter in the richest society on the planet.

[flvegan]

34. Accept? Seems that this question would then be best posed to those subject to the answer.

I thank God that I have what I do have, so I'm not going to even try to decide what my "society" should accept for our poorest brothers and sisters. I'd rather ask them what they need, then say "this" and hand over their answer.

[catnhatnh]

37. I'll add one more right....

whether individually or shared-internet access. In this country at least, even the economically marginal NEED it.

[bobbolink]

41. You are right. Thank you. Just like phones used to be considered a "luxury", net access is

necessary to conduct modern life.

But, then, so are things that reduce stress, too... very necessary for health, both physical and mental.

[catnhatnh]

43. See...

...I forgot a phone-try to get a job without one!

[bobbolink]

71. Try to do anything without one... ever need a doctor, and have to use a pay phone????

Next to impossible.

Pay phones now shut off after 5 minutes, and we are put on HOLD longer than that!

[truedelphi]

47. That is a very deserving item on the list.

Thanks for mentioning it.

[slackmaster]

40. This is a great question. I have no idea what the right answer is, but I'm here to learn.

:hi:

[astral]

42. There is the working poor, the people who cannot work,

the people who will not work, and the people who just can't find a job, the mentally-ill who cannot get it together and the people playing the system playing to be mentally ill, there are the drug addicts and alcoholics who can not work, for other reasons, and there are people who have never actually had a job at all.

We have a lot of broad answers to a question that is too broad to be a SINGLE question.

The poor who are working: Should they get access to health clubs and gyms that they could not afford to pay a membership for? Should everyone included in the general meaning of the word 'poor' have that?

The people who will not work: Not to judge or explain or guess all the reason why, here, but I see it as no matter what your condition or reason for it, you deserve to have, at the minimum:

safety: you should not have to live out on the streets and feel in danger.
warmth: you should not have to be cold and / or risk freezing to death or dying of the elements.
food: you should not have to starve or go hungry.
cleanliness / clothing: you should have the right to be showered and have clean clothes to wear / way to clean your clothes.

And of course, plenty of safe healthy drinking water.

People need free places to use restrooms! I personally, one year while riding a bus in Portland, saw a fella taking a pooop right in the middle of the grass or whatever it was surrounding highways going by him and above him, and I realized people are not necessarily allowed to walk in to any restroom anywhere just to use the toilet, think about that, one of life's basic needs, the need to relieve yourself.

Do we want to provide Section 8 housing with individual toilets / bathtubs / stoves / refrigerators to ever single entity out there? Or, do we want to provide more shelters with all life's basic needs to make hitting bottome not such a hard hit?

We need people who are just down on their luck or just plain down and out to be able to reach the bottom rung of the ladder. Maybe they can't interview for a job if they're hungry and cold and dirty and scared! Maybe even if those basic needs were addressed there wouldn't be any jobs out there where the person was.

What can we provide? Who can we provide it for? Everyone?

Perhaps with a one-world government this issue will be addressed, perhaps they already know how that is going to happen. I am not too crazy about what all else that entails but believe we are headed in that direction.

However, alot of things can get alot worse before they start to get better. Or, "different."

[snooper2]

44. apparently this...San Fran CA

[Terry in Austin]

53. Sufficient, decent and ordinary. But there's a better question.

If we're doing it right, we don't have any "poor." People should have a right to a decent life and to be ordinary. Horatio Alger is a myth.

The more telling question is What's the maximum standard of living that a society should tolerate for its richest?

I'm with Plato -- the top should be no more than five times richer than the bottom.

[RandomThoughts]

56. That is why Capitalism system is failing.

The consolidations, it sets all the formulas screwy and everything breaks.

It is not compatible with information exchange advances that have allowed for a very few to have far to much influence over many.

and debugging spaghetti code is really tough. As metaphor.

[SoCalDem]

58. A roof over their heads, a full belly, medical care, education & meaningful jobs

That would be a good start:)

[Donald Ian Rankin]

59. How rich a society?

In the first world, I would say that societies should be providing healthcare, shelter, free education and reasonable levels of unemployment benefit. In the third, "trying to make sure that at least some of their children don't starve to death" is sometimes all that's manageable.

[katnapped]

61. Quite simple....

Plenty of empty gutters and cardboard boxes out there! Why should the rich be forced to suffer because the rest of you need to subsist? SHEESH! :sarcasm:

[bemildred]

64. I thought the idea was to make it as high as possible, not set a floor.

Though all the basic necessities - food, shelter, clothing, medical care, education - should be free as a matter of right.

[Travelman]

65. Don't forget transportation!

Lots of good suggestions here, but I'm throwing access to transportation in the mix. What good is a meaningful job if it's fifteen miles away and you can't get there other than walking in the rain?

[Shagbark Hickory]

68. healthcare, housing, food. They should at least have it as good as convicted serial killers.