Poor Minds

Why do poor people do such stupid things? Why do they make such poor choices in life? It's so tragic and so sad; if they would just listen to reason, stop complaining and start to better themselves, everything would be alright.

Right? ... We all know them; the beggars, the drifters and the homeless, stumbling through life, getting drunk when they get a few dollars instead of buying a loaf of bread... Do they even deserve our pity? And these are just the extremes; there are many millions of people who live from bill to bill and paycheck to paycheck, with a part time job that could be gone just like that, always uncertain if they'll be able to pay next month's rent.

What's wrong with these people? This seems a harsh question to ask, but there's no disputing the facts; research after research shows that the poorer people are, the most likely they are to eat less healthy, use more alcohol and drugs, smoke more, are more likely to get arrested, get thrown out of school more often, watch more TV and exercise less, read less and are more likely to be illiterate, among many other things.

Still, it is wrong to ask what's wrong with these people. And a self-help book, pointing to the "power of the mind," teaching them how to bend a negative mindset into a positive one, will not help most of them. To suggest that they themselves have the power to change their lifes, is to misunderstand poverty and human psychology. Margaret Thatcher once called poverty a "personality defect." That's so easy, and so wrong.

There's a reason why poor people make such poor choices in life. It's poverty itself that keeps poor people from making rational decisions about their own lifes. Rational decisions are usually made for the long term, the choices we sit down and think about, planning a route toward some goal in the future. And even then we're not completely rational, just because of who and what we are; just think of presidential elections for example, where research shows we make our decision mostly based on good looks, a trustworthy face, charismatic personality, and much less on actual past voting behavior or even the written proposals of the man or woman. But still, a rational decision is something completely different from an ad-hoc decision we make when falling in love, or when confronted with a crisis.

In crises we're not that smart and often make terrible decisions. But one thing we can't do, and that is forget about the immediate crisis; it demands solving right away, or else there's no brainpower left to focus on the all important long-term goals. We all know that immediate concerns always trump any mid- or long-term plans; when we're working on something, and our stomach reminds us we haven't eaten since breakfast, it's best to pause and eat a bite, or else we won't concentrate on the work that has to be done, our stomach won't let us.

This is poverty. Poor people's minds are in constant crisis-solving mode. None of our advice will get through to those minds. On average of course; there's the occasional exception everywhere. Trying to teach these people how to "help themselves" is done with the best of intentions most of the time, but it won't work.

Today's post was inspired by a TED talk from Rutger Bregman, who upset the billionaire community at the World Economic Forum in Davos by addressing their tax-evasion policies. Rutger is also a strong supporter of the introduction of some form of Universal Basic Income. Personally I am of the opinion that there's no reason for poverty to exist; there's more than enough wealth to go around. The existence of poverty is detrimental to all our lifes; it costs more money to fight all illnesses, crime and other poverty related drama's, than to just give them all their basic needs to live a somewhat decent life. Another huge advantage I see, is that we'll be motivated by different reasons to work. No one should work, just to gain the right to exist. Working for a living shouldn't even exist anymore; most work will be done by AI and robots anyway.

The above is a redacted version of an article I posted in February, 2019.

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