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Comment by Danihan | Hacker News Reader

>We tell the poor that they have the chance to escape if they just work hard enough; that we are all equally invested in a system that doles out rewards and punishments in equal measure. We point at the rare rags-to-riches stories like my own, which seem to play into the standard meritocracy template.

I don't know anyone who "tells the poor" that. I think most people understand that capitalism is a rather brutal, territorial game. And being raised in a good household is a massive advantage.

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To the contrary, this mentality is alive and well in America. HN's own yummyfajitas usually drops in on these kinds of threads with a lot of links proving that the poor deserve to be poor due to their own poor decision-making.

It's called the "just world fallacy": everything that happens to you is because you deserve it.

Easy worldview to have if you consider yourself well-off.

I read a book by a French philosopher about this very subject. The main character remained optimistic even though he and his professor friend encountered a world of trouble. It described a brutal, yet somehow ideal world filled with endless horrors and tragedy. Can't recall the title, but the story itself was quite candid.

Candide by Voltaire

Check the last word in the GP -- I think that was intentional.

Why does it have to be so black and white? On the one hand personal responsibility goes out the window and nothing is anyone's fault. Poor? Not your fault. Addicted? Not your fault. On the other extreme personal reponsibility accounts for everything. Poor? Your fault. Addicted? Your fault.

There must be a balance between the two.

A voice of reason! I don't know why these discussions become so polarised, so quickly. Most of the time, it seems if two competing theories have supporting evidence, then there's probably some truth to both of them.

Nature or nurture? Free market or regulation? Individualism or collectivism? Career or family? Fat or carbs?

The truth, or optimal choice, always seems to lie somewhere in the middle... some combination of the two. Yet, more often than not, we immediately devolve into partisan camps fighting for one side.

Tribalism

Because American society has been sorting itself into camps of radically different worldviews over the last several decades, as is easily observed in the decline of Congressional bipartisanship. American Nations by Colin woodard is the best history book I've read on the origins of these competing worldviews. Email me at gmail if you want links to unpublished and rather turgid but substantively fascinating research on the topic by a former intel analyst (not me).

> The truth, or optimal choice, always seems to lie somewhere in the middle...

That sounds like the fallacy of the middle.

And remember that "middle" is relative. Your middle is someone else's far left.

That is practically America's motto: work hard, get rich. The poor are fed a steady diet of shaming and ridicule of this very sort constantly in this country.

Most people don't even connect that capitalism is related to the condition we are all in.

> Most people don't even connect that capitalism is related to the condition we are all in.

Like there are any provably better long-term alternatives to capitalism.

Plus, "the condition we are all in" is pretty good relative to the past. No one will ever be happy. Even if the poor all had Ferraris in 10 years, they would still be unhappy if it turned out that FIAT decided to mass produce them and make them a super cheap and accessible car. Apparently you can only be happy by having more than others.

"Like there are any provably better long-term alternatives to capitalism."

Let's all give up and drown ourselves in our gruel then.

By the way the most equal societies always top the tables for happiness and wellbeing.

What is the most "equal society" with a population over 30 million, and that is also ethnically diverse?

Many poor people believe they need to go work hard somewhere like Walmart and that somehow they will come out the other side better for it when their work is just feeding the rich upper class with cheap labor for more gross profits. Poor people need to work on their own businesses. Auto mechanics, janitorial, construction, etc where the input of labor will become joined with more and more business sense. Blue Collar Millionaires on CNBC is a great show that provides some examples of this.

> I don't know anyone who "tells the poor" that. I think most people understand that capitalism is a rather brutal, territorial game. And being raised in a good household is a massive advantage.

Do you know any poor people? Ask them. I guarantee they've been told this in some form. Hell, ask anyone who is underprivileged.

You haven't been around many conservatives whose parents and grandparents were gainfully employed in lifelong careers then. They preach that only the lazy fail to prosper, and that society does too much for them which is why they don't succeed.

You're being disingenuous. Conservatives do say the lazy fail to prosper. However, that should not be interpreted to mean that all those who fail to prosper are lazy.

I'm not in the business of pretending that racially motivated prejudice is worthy of nuance. I know what I lived through.

How did you go from "only the lazy fail to prosper" to race?

People of colour over-represented among the poor --> people of colour being considered lazier than paler people by people of means?

The term "welfare queen" wasn't coined to describe a white woman who's down on her luck.

Oh I know a lot of people who think that way. Try reading FreeRepublic.com regularly if you want to experience a social conservative echo chamber. Not responsible for any gastric disorders that may ensue.

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