While my wife was driving me to a doctor's appointment this morning, we discussed poverty, and it was rather interesting. I have often talked about how the US has only relative poverty, not absolute poverty, at least not when compared to the rest of the world, but let us look at what, historically and presently worldwide has been meant by poverty, and what it means in the US.

Let us start with food, as that was what got my wife and I on the topic. Throughout history, and around the world outside of western Europe and a handful of other wealthy countries, "poverty" meant mostly "no food". And, no, I don't mean the "I ate ramen for a week" type of "no food", I mean the "if I don't eat in the next week, I'll die" type of "no food". There are still many places in the world where that is the case, where poverty means starvation. But not the US. Here "poverty" often means obesity, ironically enough. Not only are our "poor" people not starving, they are too fat. That is probably the greatest signal that what we consider "poverty" is not what has historically been considered poverty, or what still is poverty in much of the world.

Having written that, I am almost certain someone will come along and point to a case of starvation somewhere in the US. A homeless man, some family in West Virginia, or some other sob story. But that misses the point. Perhaps there are truly poor people, people without any food. I don't doubt some exist. But even in their case, the poverty they experience is different from the rest of the world. You see, the US is rich, very rich, and being relatively poor in such a rich nation gives them advantages other nations lack. Historically, and world wide, event he well off often have little more than the food they need to survive, and so the poor, while having no food of their own, also have no recourse to charity, as the food simply isn't there. Not so in the US. Not only does the government, both state and federal, go out of its way to feed those who lack food, but countless private charities also exist to supplement that food. Given the incredible wealth and the surfeit of contributions, as well as government funded charity, it is hard to imagine any circumstance in which someone could unintentionally die of starvation in the US.

That is not the case historically, or in much of the world.

But food is not the only difference. Think of shelter. Yes, we have our "homeless" individuals, but even they almost always have the option of a shelter of some sort, though many reject it due tot he rules against drinking, drugs and coming and going at will*. But most of our "poor" not only have shelter, but have housing that would be considered relatively comfortable through history in in other nations. Yes, public housing may be a bit shabby and less than perfect, but compared to the shanties which house poor people in many lands, or the hovels in which the poor squatted throughout history, when lucky enough to have even that, our poor are living in luxury.

Let us move along to clothing. Thanks to our wealth, even the poor of other countries now have several changes of clothing thanks to cast-offs donated by the richer nations, but the "poor' of our nation are truly amazing, at least from a historical perspective. Historically, poverty meant rags. Even the middle class rarely had more than a handful of changes of clothing. Granted, technology and world wide wealth has changed this for everyone, even in poor nations, but even so, the amount of clothing owned by our "poor" is comparable tot he wealthy of many nations.

And that brings me to automobiles and televisions. In many nations owning either is proof you are not poor. Granted, both have become more common world wide thanks to growing wealth and increasing technological improvements in manufacturing, but despite that, owning a car and TV is hardly considered "poor" in any nation outside of the richest. The same for personal computers, air conditioning and a host of other luxuries routinely purchased by our "poor".

I could go on, but I think you get my point.

You see, we do not have "poverty", or if we do, the truly poor number less than a fraction of a percent of our population. What we have is "relative poverty", people who can provide themselves with the bare minimum for survival, plus a bit more, but without enough to live the life they wish. Oh, they may have to share a home with some people, or cook their food rather than buying pre-made. They may have to forget about designer clothes and live with basic cable, but they have what they need.

And yet, these people are constantly put before us as the reason we should surrender half our income, destroy our economy, eliminate on our rights and otherwise destroy all our traditions and safeguards. Just so that we will no longer have relative poverty.

Even worse, the solutions proposed, from Johnson's "Great Society" to the present, have not solved the supposed problem of relative poverty, but have instead created our one type of real poverty, the multigenerational welfare family, people who could support themselves, but for the government telling them they don't need to do so. In other words, we have gone from relative poverty to real poverty, from those would could support themselves tot hose who can't, all because we have done too much, when we should have done nothing at all.

And yet the demands never stop. Rather than ask if we made a mistake, going back and starting over,t he only solution offered is more of the same, in the bizarre hope that this time it will have a different outcome. And all of it undertaken just to eliminate the "specter" of relative poverty, hardly a crisis at the worst of times.

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* Before anyone tries to convince me that "there but for the grace of G-d go I" concerning the homeless, recall I worked in social services for some time. I met these people. In almost every case they were drunks, drug addicts or insane, or else simply too shiftless to work and too apathetic to even take what was offered them. Or else they were fugitive criminals, illegal aliens or fleeing other legal issues, such as massive unpaid child support debts. I cannot recall even one homeless individual who was homeless "through no fault of their own". That does not mean I don't have sympathy for the crazy, drunk or drug addicted homeless, but it is dishonest for people to claim that anyone could be homeless at any time. I suppose it is possible, but most sane and responsible homeless individuals would take advantage of a shelter, find a job and work their way back. The fellows squatting in doorways asking for change really are there through some sort of choice, or because of drink, drugs or insanity. They are not just ordinary folk fallen on hard times. (Yes, I grant there may be some exceptions, but I have never met one. From my experiences, by far the vast majority are homeless for very obvious reasons.)

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POSTSCRIPT

Two points to make here.

First, though I mention my wife in the writing above, these conclusions are not necessarily hers.Though we did discuss poverty, the conclusions are mine alone. If she cares to make her thoughts known, likely they will appear int he comments (probably under my name, though).

Second, I know I did not supply anything like my normal wealth of supporting arguments. I have written on this topic many times before, but at the moment do not have a good list handy. So, for those interested in this subject, I would recommend reading "How Democrats Keep the Poor Poor", "Specious Argument", "Fairness and the Free Market", "I'm Fed Up", "Exploiting Workers?", "Capital Investment", "Utopianism and Disaster " and "Greed Versus Evil", and following the links in those posts. It should help you find a lot of what I wrote before, though perhaps not all.

POSTSCRIPT II

I don't want anyone to misunderstand my argument. When you are in relative poverty, of course you feel like you are poor. Compared to those around you, you ARE poor. Still, we have to be careful when we discuss poverty, especially in terms of the world, as what is poverty here is not what poverty is in Chad or the Ivory Coast or Papua New Guinea (to pick three nations at random). Similarly, we have to be careful to avoid hyperbole. Many who argue for welfare talk as if the poor are starving in the streets, and Americans, being generous people, are obviously willing to give money to help keep people from starving. But when they learn what relative poverty really means, many of those people do not feel the same urgency to give support, as there is a world of difference between fighting starvation and making sure someone is not deprived of a new car or a decent apartment. So making clear what "poverty" really means in the US is our first step in making clear in the public's mind just what our welfare state really does, and what it does not do.

POSTSCRIPT III

To avoid claims that I contradicted myself, yes I did mention government food assistance as one of the resources keeping people form starving, but that does not make my last postscript hypocritical. If the government aid were to disappear, I believe the private aid alone, along with the food many families could buy were they to economize on other nonessential purchases, would be more than enough to prevent starvation as well. After all, we are a nation that has an obesity crisis among the poor. Does that sound as if government food support is an urgent necessity? (If the government really wanted to make food available, they would stop farm price supports and allow food prices to drop, making food cheaper for everyone. But that won't happen so long as Iowa is the first primary and farm bills are treated a s a sacred duty -- see "The World's Oldest Myth".)