One of the distinctions that anti-commerce people make about us pro-commerce people is that we 'don't care about the poor.'
The most perverted statements I hear come from Jews when I ask why they don't support President Bush, the best friend the Jews have ever had. The response is that you can't care about the poor and vote Republican.
Absolutely untrue, wrong and insulting. I can make a statement about poverty that is very clear:
Each of us has an overwhelming moral responsibility to help people who are poor to get out of poverty. That moral responsibility is absolute, unambiguous and perpetual.
That being said and true, then one
has to deal with the question of whether there is any known way of
spending money, or using government programs, to get people who are poor, out of poverty. The answer
is no. Therefore the moral responsibility exists but no action follows
from it.
The 2007 Neocons are the people who in 1970 worked in the Great Society programs to alleviate poverty and found that virtually none of the programs worked, including Head Start. Unemployment wasn't reduced. No amount of money spent on education had a positive effect. This was overwhelmingly proved by the Bishop Foundation in Hawaii, for native Hawaiians, which spent fortunes on individual tutoring and luxury schools without showing any positive effect. The previous blog deals with the same issue dealing with housing and poor neighborhoods. You can't change poverty with money or programs.
On a global scale, poor nations
seem to get worse, the more international aid money they get. Only
commerce gets nations out of poverty.
The only known way to reduce poverty, in absolute and relative terms is the expansion of commerce locally and nationally.
That is what we morally caring and righteous pro-commerce people strive for. We know how to meet our moral obligation to care for the poor....promote commerce.