The Great Paradox of Political Economy


From the article :

http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=MTE3NWFjODRiY2I1MTQzZWYyNjI3ZDE4ZWJlYTNkYzQ=

"Poverty, as defined for millennia, is pretty much nonexistent in the United States. Until very recently, poverty was defined by material scarcity of essentials, chiefly food, shelter and clothing. Today, some people go without these things, but scarcity isn’t the culprit. “If poverty today remains a serious problem,” Christopher DeMuth noted in Commentary nearly a decade ago, “it is a problem of individual behavior, social organization, and public policy. This was not so 50 years ago, or ever before."

I know it's Jonah Goldberg, but is this point even *arguable* any more?
No, this does not mean anything's *complete*, but I still find this
amazing.

And I suspect that the difference between those of us who do, and
those who do not, might be access to people old enough to
*remember* poverty.

We rag on LBJ, but didn't he, for all intents and purposes, *win*
the war on poverty?
Reagan picked up the gauntlet, it's been continued. So far as
I know, this is *the first time in human history* that
this has been so, at least since agrarian civilization
began. Before that, it was the random death of the hunter-gatherer.

It's been bipartisan, swift and relatively complete.

The standard 50 years ago was like the "song" "Little Red
Shoes" by Loretta Lynn:
http://www.cowboylyrics.com/lyrics/lynn-loretta/little-red-shoes-12981.html

That's just unconscionable, today.

Is there room for improvement? You bet. But it's gotten *so* much
better, *so* fast...

--
Les Cargill


.

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