The redistribution of poverty

Governments and social movements the world over often call for the redistribution of wealth; that the people with money and assets should give some of these to the poor.  They believe that it is merely the absence of cash that makes poor people poor.  They are wrong.

Just as a runny nose, sore muscles and a cough are indications of a viral infection, so poverty is an indication of an economy that is ill.

Your flu could be caused by a variety of reasons:  you may have caught it from a sick friend, you may have been coughed on in a public place by a total stranger, you may have a lifestyle that leads you into regular illness.  The former issues are unfortunate but you will recover.  It is the latter that is cause for ongoing concern.  For there is no medicine you can take that will prevent re-infection.  

There are many knowns which can cause ill-health:  smoking, lack of exercise, poor diet, lack of sleep.  Any of these contribute to reducing the effectiveness of your immune system.  You can spend a great deal of money on remedies and medication to combat the results of these habits but the problem won’t go away until the underlying causes are addressed.

The same is true of poverty.  People, by and large if left to their own devices, are quite capable of figuring out how to do something to earn a living.  The only time that people stay poor is when the environment they’re in offers them no incentive to do anything.  For instance, if a government declares – in an effort to cut the cost of basic foods to urban poor – that food prices are fixed at below their production cost, then farmers will stop farming to take advantage of the cheap food as well.  The government will then have to spend money importing food they used to produce themselves.  That money will come from higher taxes which further degrades the productive capacity of their economy.

This is usually a political attempt at wealth redistribution; diverting cash from one group of people to another.  In reality the impact is closer to poverty redistribution; moving poverty from one group of people and sharing it with everyone.

While there is only a finite amount of cash in any economy, there is an infinite amount of poverty to go round.  Instead of seeing wealth as a problem to be shared, governments should see poverty as a symptom to be addressed.

Taking a pill may give a fat person the illusion that they are doing something about their weight, but everyone knows what they need to do:  eat less, exercise more.  The period of change from an unhealthy lifestyle to a healthier one is certainly painful and unpleasant; but it is worth it.

Ending poverty in society is not a simple matter of taking wealth from one group of people and giving it to another.  It is a slow and painful process of correcting past mistakes and educating those that have been disadvantaged by the previous system on how to help themselves.

It is not the end of the world if some people become ostentatiously wealthy; it is a problem if a society dooms the poor to be forever indigent and dependent on the limited benevolence available from others.

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