zlacker

>>tysone+(OP)
Poverty in America is a result of American capitalism, at a very high level. At a very very high level, it is caused by human greed, and a lack of love for our neighbors.

We can talk about wages and employment rates, and race all day long, but those are just details. It's human greed in the end, and our inability to love others like we love ourselves.

>>brickc+73
Is that why hunter gatherer societies didn't have poverty? Is that why communist countries weren't poor? How is that working out for Venezuela? Capitalism is literally the only thing in human history that has ever lifted large numbers of people out of poverty.

>>darawk+bG
Well, there was America's gilden age, which was also present in wide areas of Europe; Factory Owners would get all of the money and the workers got almost nothing. In Germany this was so bad that children over the age of about 12 generally worked in the factory along with the entire family to be able to affort a 10sqm single room housing in the city with 2 meals a day.

The factory owners largely didn't care and caused quite a few large scale accidents facing little to no consequence for it.

That only changed in Europe after strikes, unions and socialist programs got punched through (also stuff like the 48 hour work week, 2 days of rest a week, sickdays, social welfare and healthcare and a lot of other stuff that was largely not capitalistic in nature), in the US only after anti-monopoly rulings where deployed en masse (while still paying out the factory owners shitloads of money).

>>zaarn+nX
Yep, that's true. Unfettered capitalism is not without its flaws. But it's still the only thing that has ever lifted large numbers of people from poverty in the entirety of human history.

>>darawk+UX1
It also kept large numbers of people on the verge of starving while working themselves to death.

>>zaarn+882
It didn't keep those people anywhere. They were free to go live as hunter-gatherers whensoever they chose. They chose not to do that, because they believed that working was a better life.

>>darawk+cQ2
In later stages it actually did keep those people there because they either couldn't afford to leave the city without half the family starving and/or militia hired by the factory owner enforcing people stayed there.

>>zaarn+sv3
> militia hired by the factory owner enforcing people stayed there.

That isn't capitalism.

> In later stages it actually did keep those people there because they either couldn't afford to leave the city without half the family starving

I'm not sure what that means. Cities weren't that big. Just walk out and go live on some uninhabited BLM land if you don't want to participate in the capitalist economy.