Yes, but what are the unskilled masses to do? Unless we start shovelling them money, are they to starve? What made America great was that an average person could have a house and car working 40 hours a week, what is going to happen to that?
Nobody knows what the future is made of, but obviously the world is moving toward a higher need for skilled labor. And the fact that more and more people are going to be connected to the very same network, everywhere with mobile devices, will create new potentials for exchanges, commerce and so on. I am not too worried.
"And now even a person at the brink of the level of poverty in America has access to clean water, toilet, TV, mobile phone and for most of them, internet as well"
This is so far from reality that its hard to know where to start.
[1] http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/11... [2] http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/nation/documents/usda_r...
WHAT POOR OWN Although people often equate poverty with material hardship, studies have shown that people in poverty often have a variety of major appliances and entertainment and informational equipment.
The chart shows the percentage of people in poverty who own major consumer goods and appliances.
Goods; Percentage Homes, 46 Car or truck, 72.8 Two or more cars or trucks, 30.2 Refrigerator, 98.9 Clothes washer, 64.7 Clothes dryer, 55.6 Dishwasher, 33.9 Garbage disposal, 29.7 Microwave, 73.3 Color television, 97.3 Two or more color TVs, 55.3 Cable or satellite TV, 62.6 Large screen TV, 25.3 VCR or DVD, 78.0 Two or more VCRs or DVDs, 25.3 Stereo, 58.6 Telephone answering machine, 35.3 Cell phone, 26.8 Computer, 24.6 Internet access, 18
Source: U.S. Department of Commerce, American Housing Survey
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this is from 2006 so you should expect the mobile phone and internet access ratio to be on the significant rise.
Sample bias. Just because you do not perceive it, does not mean the thing does not exist. LMGTFY: http://ukpmc.ac.uk/abstract/MED/10064320
Sure, it's not very recent, but nothing that happened during the 00s would leave me to believe the problem has somehow been solved.
About the sample bias, I agree with you, but if noone around you has ever heard or anyone dying of starvation in their lifetime (including your grandparents), the "sample" becomes more significant. Now, when people die of starvation, it's so extraordinary that they make movies about it ("Into the Wild" by Sean Penn - excellent movie, by the way).
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/nation/documents/usda_r...
Food insecurity merely measures the subjective feelings of humans. If an obese person fails to consume his normal 4500 cals/day because he ran out of cash, this is counted as food insecurity.
In inner-city communities, the unemployment rate is over 30% in many cities. 30% of the able-bodied population does not have a job of any kind. 40 years ago, those same communities in my city were filled with people working in various industrial facilities, one of a dozen local financial institutions, small retailers, etc.
Have fun in the upper middle class ivory tower. But when the market for whatever you produce implodes due to an infusion of some low-cost commodity-type competitor, be happy. You may be 50 then and unemployable, but you can take pride in the fact that you'll be able to live out your retirement in a room somewhere, and that you'll no doubt have a color television, microwave and maybe internet access.
No, I do not know anyone immediately around me starving to death. However, that is partly because my friends, family, community, and I will spend our resources preventing that. I do hope that we come together as a community and do what we can so that people can earn resources more effectively, even if what they're doing is not what is traditionally defined as "work".
I do worry that it is in the interests of certain members of our society that poverty should exist as a moral incentive to others.
No it has not: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akVL7QY0S8A
In contrast "create more jobs" often ends up shrinking the overall pie in the course of making the distribution more equitable.
Well then this will be a much greater improvement then.
(in case I fucked the sarcasm up: America was the greatest country because it gave each person the freedom to do with their lives and produce what they wanted, which is why it produced the greatest wealth the world has ever seen).
No, America was the greatest person since it had a stable path for people to make it into comfortable middle class lives. The America the rest of the world admires(admired?) is the America of the post-war boom. Subdivisions, cars, and factory jobs for everyone. That's America's greatness.
The freedom to fail and end up destitute with no safety net is something only the perverse admire.
I don't believe this was ever true. A huge amount of mainly white middle class people were able to own a small home and vehicles in the past, but it certainly wasn't true of the "average person", unless you define average to be something so narrow as to be a self-fulfilling description.
How come there was a housing bubble and subsequent economic collapse? It wasn't because all those subprime average people already owned nice houses and cars. Were they all just upgrading their houses to bigger houses? Maybe. Or were many of them overreaching during a time of unprecedented economic froth, trying to upgrade to suburban life from their small apartments and shared tenements and public transit?
I think this sort of nostalgic argument always goes along the lines of, "everyone could own a home... except for the huge portion of the population that couldn't, but they don't count."