I've been thinking about that poverty thing today, and it occurred to me that poverty is the original human condition. According to stuff I've read, everybody was poor before the last glacial period. When the climate was warm, there was no need to stockpile supplies for the winter, so people just lived hand to mouth. When it started getting colder, people had to learn how to make clothes out of animal hides, which requires a certain amount of tools. Once you go through the trouble of making a tool out of a piece of stone or bone, you're not likely to throw it away after one use, so it came to pass that people started accumulating things. Some people, rather than do their own accumulating, would knock people on the head and steal their stuff, which caused the accumulators to band together for their common defense.
When you think about it, we were all born poor, we came into this world with nothing. There's an old joke about that: A bunch of immigrants were bragging about how little they had when they first came to this country. One of them finally said that he came to this country with nothing but the clothes on his back, and another guy topped him by saying that he didn't even have that because he was born here. Reminds me of what Edward Gibbon said about the Roman emperors: The richest emperor that ever lived didn't even have a shirt on his back or glass in his windows.
I never cared much about "getting ahead" if, by that, you mean getting ahead of other people. I wanted certain things in my life, but I didn't care if other people had more than I had, as long as I had what I wanted. This reminds me of another joke: This White guy suddenly became rich, so he bought a 20 room mansion out in the suburbs. One day, he was sitting on his patio when he heard a rustling in the bushes that divided his yard from his neighbor's yard. He looked up to see a grinning Black face sticking out of the shrubbery and taunting him, "Hey White Boy, we is better than you is because we gots a 40 room mansion." The White guy, not willing to be bested by this Black guy, ordered a swimming pool constructed in his yard. The next day, there was this rustling in the bushes, and the Black guy said, "Hey White Boy, we is still better than you is because we gots an Olympic size swimming pool." So next he bought his wife a mink coat, and his neighbor said, "Hey White Boy, we is still better than you is. I bought my wife a sable coat." Finally, the White guy gave up trying to compete with his neighbor and didn't buy any more stuff for awhile. Nevertheless, there was this rustling in the bushes one day, and the Black guy said, "Hey White Boy, we is still better than you is. We ain't got no colored folks living next door to us."
The kids in my neighborhood wouldn't steal your bike and keep it, but they would take a ride on it without your permission, leave it someplace, and you would have to go looking for it. That happened to me only once, then I bought a padlock and chain and secured my bike to some immoveable object whenever I left it, even for a few minutes. Problem solved! They told us in the army that a lock wouldn't stop a thief, but it would keep an honest man honest. I guess that means the kids in my neighborhood were basically honest, if a bit mischievous at times. We had some bully types who tried to pick on the younger kids, but all you had to do was stand up to them and they would leave you alone. You might have to fight them once but, win or lose, they never bothered you after that.
I don't admire somebody because they are either rich or poor, I admire them if they're honest and don't pursue their goals at the unfair expense of other people. I don't know about the hard working part. If a guy can find an easier way to get a job done, more power to him. I used to think that there was a certain virtue in doing everything the hard way, but old age has cured me of that. Bring on the power tools!
It just occurred to me that one way to fight poverty might be to break up all the poor neighborhoods and make all the poor people live among the rich people. I'm not sure how this could be accomplished without violating everybody's civil rights, but it's at least worth considering. Let's think about it over the weekend and see what we can come up with.
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