> The alternative to letting the individual determine what they want is to let someone else choose for them.
In real-world "free" markets, the poor have their choices made for them by the wealthy.
In real-world "free" markets, the poor have their choices made for them by the wealthy.
For example, if you are poor and living in the tenderloin in SF, any give California assembly person has way more exertion on your quotidian economic choices than Jeff bezos.
Wealthy tell poor mothers to buy junk food instead of healthier (and cheaper) options?
Wealthy tell poor kids to watch TV instead of doing homework?
Wealthy tell poor that having a budget and sticking to it is a dumb idea?
Who owns the fast food chains? The marketing agencies? The land where the stores are built?
Who lobbies politicians to allow them to do anything they want in the name of profit? Who owns the media brainwashing the masses into voting for X or buying Y?
I'm sorry but literally everything is done for the wealthy and by the wealthy.
No. That happens naturally, while the parents are working at their second jobs.
As for having a budget and sticking to it, no one is better at budgeting than the poor, out of sheer necessity.
Why poor people would?
The wealthy control the society that...
a) ...has food deserts where poor people can't access fresh food and vegetables, and in many of these areas, junk food IS the cheapest option.
Learn more: https://www.moveforhunger.org/harsh-reality-food-deserts-ame...
b) ...has tons of enriching and educational and recreational activities for wealthier students compared to poor students. In addition, just being poor has HUNDREDS of correlating factors for poor academic performance -- it's very lazy to just say "poor people are bad parents who just let their kids watch TV, that's why they are bad at school."
Learn more: https://www.apa.org/pi/ses/resources/publications/education
c) ... does NOT, despite your strawman point, ever tell poor people "that having a budget and sticking to it is a dumb idea." Every financial counseling service for poor people includes budgeting classes. But if you're a single parent of two kids with $1900/month gross income (well above minimum wage) and the median rent for a 2BR apartment in your city is $1200/month, good luck with that budget.
Learn more: https://povertyusa.org/facts
So, we might not blame an individual wealthy person but it's fair to blame the people holding the cards in society.
By the way, when people repeat the arguments above, it reads to many people as incredibly uninformed and displaying an astonishing lack of empathy. I don't mean that as an attack, since many people on this site pride themselves on their lack of empathy and their ability to never have to interact with any lower-class people, other than complaining about homeless poop in the Tenderloin.
One more thing: rarely, there are incredibly driven and talented and lucky poor people who break through every possible disadvantage of childhood poverty and become successful. Sometimes those people will reply to a post like this and say "Well, I did it, so it's possible! [fuck the rest of them!]" But MOST of the people in that situation developed enough empathy and real word apperception to realize the rarity of their success, and agree that society should strive to offer more pathways up for everyone.
There is nothing "free" about a system that favors the wealthy.
Within any system, be it a society a family or a friendship, communication is important to react to shifts and regain balance (or to restructure the system). Talking is not dictating, talking is talking and the other person can always respond.
Capitalism is not perfect; apparently it is the better of the alternatives we have right now.
In order to effect fundamental change, and find a better alternative to capitalism, each human being needs to fundamentally change themselves--yet apparently no one is willing to do that. As long as we let instinctual passions like desire, and social emotions like envy, hold sway over us so will continue to exist institutions like capitalism and fashion. And forced change (like socialism), without fundamentally addressing the underlying human condition, wouldn't achieve anything fruitful as evidenced from history.
So, I am not against and all for personal change and growth but absolving the economic system from change doesn’t make this task any easier. Humans are to a huge extent a product of their environment and it is certainly in everyones best interest to design “humane” or “prosocial” systems which allow humans to thrive and cooperate.
The key answer is contained in my comment -- to wit: "yet apparently no one is willing to do that [fundamentally change themselves]". Even most intelligently people, the demographics of HN, are unwilling ... hence the (mindless) downvotes.