Wealthy Versus the Poor

I attended a group discussion in Second Life today.  The topic was economics.  Some of the attendees seemed to be a bit absolutist about the evilness of wealthy people.  I noted that things are not always that black and white.  Not all wealthy people got wealthy by abusing the poor and some poor people are poor because of their state of mind and other personal faults.  This did not go over well with some.

Now, I am not wealthy.  I was once quite poor.  My poverty was due to a combination of inadequate education, bad social conditioning and a lack of focus.  When in that level of poverty, I saw a variety of people who were poor for a variety of reasons.  I knew of nobody who was poor purely because of abuse by the wealthy.  There were some cases where bad decisions by the better off did affect some of them.  But the reasons for their and my poverty were mostly a complex mixture of things.  I eventually stabilized my life and worked up to a middle class income.  But it took a lot of changes on my part.

I once had some access to the lives of the wealthy.  This was through some of the sons and daughters of wealthy parents.  Some of the parents were away a lot. The offspring would have parties and other events at the mansions when the parents were away.  I had a chance to see some aspects of the wealthy which showed me that the sources of wealth are at least as complex as the sources of poverty.  It is true that some wealthy people have done really bad things and others have a mixed record.  It is also true that there are wealthy people who are quite negligent.  Even too many of the people who made their wealth by hard work and who try to treat all people respectfully do not do things as well as they should.  For instance, once father made his wealth in some kind of environmental business which I do not recall.  The son and daughter both claimed that the father cared for the environment.  Yet there was no solar panels at the house and they had multiple large vehicles.

The point is that discussions about how to get people out of "poverty" need to include a discussion of the various contributing factors and not simply lay blame on one side or the other.  That is not to say that we should not place blame where it is due.  But we need more honesty in the conversations.