Privilege of Poverty

TED talks are full of people who discuss how they started from “nothing” and rose to prominence, which is supposed to encourage people to hustle. Recently, someone described an athlete that had risen from poverty into prominence. Apparently, Alireza Beiranvand is an Iranian soccer player who used to be a shepherd, and had he stayed in his hometown, he likely would have remained a shepherd like many people in his family. One day, he ran away to Tehran and while sleeping in parks, he worked at a carwash and nurtured his dream. Conservatives and idealists would focus on his “resilience” and “drive” for pushing himself out of poverty to become an international sensation. However, the most important element of his story was less about his success and more about his being allowed to be poor without substantial interference.

People often tell stories of “triumph” that mention how poor people were, and how they rose from “nothing” to become the icons that everyone knows and loves. What people fail to mention is how poverty has drastically changed, and is no longer nearly as “hospitable” as it was in the past. During the feudal eras pre-Industrial Revolution, there were several poor people and it was impossible to escape such a life. Fortunately, life was manageable to a certain extent, and the poor created a number of ways to rely on each other, since the feudal “leaders” were inconsistent. They knew their role requirements of worship, but for the most part, they ignored the truly wealthy.

Without poverty-based harassment, people can simply navigate life without ambition, and they have no need to steal from others or create unrest. Unlike the romanticization of poverty, the only reason that people feel compelled to take more is that others are taking more from them. For example, no one needs to steal someone else’s things if they have their own things. No one needs to take someone else’s food if they have their own, even if they would rather have different things to eat. This is one of the reasons why people were more willing to allow for “incrementalism,” or any other fake term that involves forcing others to suffer for one’s comfort. A consistent modicum of resources makes waiting for “more” a lot easier.

Among the poor, social systems are often created that allow for a relatively functional existence, which is why people were able to be poor for so much longer in the past. In long-term communities, people had reliable babysitters and eldercare because even though people were working multiple jobs, there were still people home and a sense of community. Previous farming communities, especially among marginalized people, were places where everyone could eat. People wanted their communities to function, so they made a point of making that happen without allowing too much friction. There were problems, but even the problems were manageable because having enough to eat and places to sleep kept the worst issues at bay.

Envy creates strife because not having enough means that someone needs to make more effort just to level out, rather than a life that one can live without to much interference into the lives of others. When there is less envy because life is manageable, it is much easier to build political coalitions because fewer people are lacking the basics–which is the main reason why the wealthy have destroyed these solutions. Also, even when some people manage to acquire more, some people care but the majority of the others continue living their lives without thinking much about it. Being able to live without thinking about what others have is both financial and emotional liberation.

Most importantly, allowing people to be poor without interference still creates stigmatization, but without criminalization, which allows people to recover. “Elites” are inherently insecure because their position demands that there be people below them. If nobody has to care what insecure people think, the poor can respond to their own problems by engaging with one another. Criminalization means that people have to pay bails, predatory interest, and constant medical debt; stigmatization means that those who have no common sense are disrespectful. Without meaningful deprivation, nobody really cares what others think. However, “elites” are cruel and need everyone’s imitation, so they created ways to both deprive and criminalize people who never cared about the wealthy in the first place.

Letting people be poor without interferences creates more breathing room to shape a future because there is room to fail. A system that lacks a space for recovery is irredeemably dysfunctional and creates an emotionally unhealthy society. The leaders of such a society enjoy the power it gives them because instead of people being able to be calm and enjoy a sense of self worth, everyone is competing with each other, distracting themselves from their abusers. If everyone was allowed to be poor without great risk to themselves or others, the wealthy would not have power because no one would care about wealth.

The “elites'” psychotic need for attention was the main reason that the social safety nets needed to be destroyed because under the “trickle-down” mentality, everyone starts begging rich people for some relief from poverty. Not enough people are willing to admit that they support unmitigated harassment in the name of supporting social hierarchies, because that would make them “bad people,” too. When there were stronger social networks and more autonomy, it was easy to forget that there were people who had more than their share of the resources. Even when people were facing discrimination, they were able to secure a future for themselves that allowed them to escape devastating poverty. Now, all “elites” with control and resources are gleefully watching the destruction of the poor, patiently refusing to lift a finger to help. Being poor could have been so much easier, but abuse dynamics dictate that abusers need targets.

* Image originally found here.