Are we doomed to always have an underclass group of people?

[peeonme]

Never been poor, but boy have I been broke...

There is broke and then there is BROKE.
I have been broke all of my life, that just means that I have no "piss away" money. If what I allow myself for the week is gone I claim broke.
Since I have been working I have never been BROKE as in I have no money any where, when I got my first job at 16 I opened a secret bank account, I stashed money into every payday. When my gas and cigarette was gone I didn't dip into savings. I claimed broke.

 

[eastofeden]

For as long as there's been people, there's been the haves and the havenots. In fact, this seems to be so ingrained in our biology that even other primates show this exact characteristic in their society. Take the Japanese snow monkeys, for example. When it gets cold, they immerse themselves in hot springs. But only the ones that were higher in their social order get to go in. The rest are left out in the cold. They even have guards preventing the havenots to enter.

Are we forever doomed to always have the haves and havenots?

Yes....it will always exist. The only thing that will change is the amount of people who are part of the underclass. That will increase...

 

[Benvolio]

Yes....it will always exist. The only thing that will change is the amount of people who are part of the underclass. That will increase...

It does not need to be true, but we need to stop wanting more poor and unemployed.

 

[SLOPPYSECONDS]

It does not need to be true, but we need to stop wanting more poor and unemployed.

_?????_
icebucake
_oo tinku_

anyway

"wonda internet 2 underclass a follows 1stworldee scramegg recipee?"
_icebucake_
"okay"

tinku

 

[Kulindahr]

As long as we continue to bring in millions of additional poor, legally and illegally, there is no possibility of ending poverty.

You mean from another planet? I didn't know we'd gotten out of the Solar System!

Or are they, like, from one of Jupiter's moons?





(Inquiring minds want to know!)

 

[Kulindahr]

Their are different reasons why some have: ambition, intellect, inheritance to name a few.
Like wise their are different reasons why some are in need or have not; oppression, lack of ambition, lack of opportunity and lack of intellect to name some reasons on this side of the coin.

I have little doubt that the deck is stacked so that the "haves" keep on having. As has become a popular cry as of late from politicians "the system is rigged". That doesn't mean that one can't go from being a have not to a have, it means that it has been made difficult.

But, even on a level playing field you will find lazy people who don't apply themselves and will be in need, along with them those who just don't possess the skill or talent to do much more than menial work.
Plus, rich parents will leave money to children who could never have earned it on their own.

So, yes, their will always be an underclass for a number of reasons.

The deck is stacked, the system is rigged, and upward mobility is becoming quite rare in the U.S.

 

[Kulindahr]

Do you ever think? How it is possible to think that bringing in millions of poor people, willing to work for low wages, year after year, decade after decade, does not increase the underclass? The effect on the blacks has been the worst. Since 1865, untold millions have come in, moved up the economic ladder, but, benefiting from discrimination, leaving the blacks behind.

In South Florida, Cubans came in like that for decades. The result was greater prosperity for everyone, newcomers and original inhabitants.

That is not the only time this phenomenon has occurred.

 

[Kulindahr]

If the Powers That Be have their way, there will always be an underclass; they like having others to look down on.

But we are approaching a point in history when it will be possible for all the basics to be free. That will either mean there is no underclass, or just change the meaning. My hope is that the only underclass then will be those who just soak up what comes free and don't bother to try to accomplish anything, that anyone who finds something he can do and do well will be respected for it, whether it's making a new sand castle daily to entertain tourists or designing and making a team of robots that will wander from bridge to bridge, updating them without shutting down traffic.

 

[zoltanspawn]

But we are approaching a point in history when it will be possible for all the basics to be free. That will either mean there is no underclass, or just change the meaning. My hope is that the only underclass then will be those who just soak up what comes free and don't bother to try to accomplish anything, that anyone who finds something he can do and do well will be respected for it, whether it's making a new sand castle daily to entertain tourists or designing and making a team of robots that will wander from bridge to bridge, updating them without shutting down traffic.

The underclass is not composed of people who lack the basics.

It's composed of people who lack respect.

You could give everybody all the free housing, free education, free entertainment, free food, free healthcare, free income, free on and on and people would still find a way to stratify themselves into special positions of status.

In the future, when everything is free, prestige will be accorded to those who can pay for the extras.

 

[Benvolio]

In South Florida, Cubans came in like that for decades. The result was greater prosperity for everyone, newcomers and original inhabitants.

That is not the only time this phenomenon has occurred.

So you claim there is no underclass in South Florida? How have the blacks done?

 

[Benvolio]

The deck is stacked, the system is rigged, and upward mobility is becoming quite rare in the U.S.

That is not true. Any one who is successful the entertainment or professional sports will quickly become wealthy, possible extremely wealthy. Taylor Lautner is said to be worth 40 million. Justin Bieber is in the same range. Anyone who comes up with a new idea to sell into the mass market will become wealthy. Zuckerber of Facebook is worth many billions--I don't even know what he sells.
But, a person working for wages must compete with an ever increasing oversupply of labor.

 

[Draven]

So long as we have corrupt politicians and corporate greed to disenfranchise and demoralize the general public (translation: yes there will always be an underclass of people.)

 

[pat grimshaw]

A communist is 'One who hath yearnings
For equal division of earnings':
Idle or burglar, or both, he is willing
To fork out his penny, and pocket your shilling

Ebenezer Elliott (1781-1849)

 

[kallipolis]

The civility which money will purchase, is rarely extended to those who have none. ~Charles Dickens

Arse lickers are easily purchased; eagerly so, when a coin is dangled to employ their tongue.

 

[peeonme]

Who is "we"? and what is the underclass?
In the US the underclass lives better than the underclass in 3rd world nations.
Isn't it all relative? Have we gone from underclass to working poor? Has the gap spread?

When I grew up (yup another one of those stories) most families in the US had a car and the 2 income household was just starting to be the norm. On 2 incomes a new car was possible, along with vacations, boats and other toys. People with little or no skill set or training lived a pretty good life if they got their butts off of the couch and put in 40 hours.

This did present problems, inflation being the villain of the '70's. Too many dollars chasing too few goods drove up prices and the need for workers drove up wages. The evil "fix" for this was supply side economics and we found that money was now upwardly mobile and being funneled to the rich and that wages and thus people were stagnant and in a rut, global or so called free trade was the kiss of death to the American worker, the need for him had dropped and along with a demand for him dropping his value dropped with it.

With the architecture of economics designed in such a way as to keep the demand and thus the value of the American worker suppressed we will always have an underclass that is growing in number and becoming more disenfranchised.

The economic pie in America which had been dynamic and growing has become static inasmuch as it is kept at a certain size on our shores and the rest goes overseas, mainly to Red China, there the workers see very little, though I would concede that even very little was an improvement when their bleak existence is taken into account before the hi jacking of the jobs that maintained the American middle class.
China uses this income to build ghost cities, a huge military and loans money to America so America can subsidize the wages of Wal Mart employees who now stock the shelves with foreign goods that took away their livelihoods and insured that they would remain "underclass".
Hell yes, it is a rigged system.