| | Very insightful.
I wonder if Jane Jacobs has read Rand, who would say the same thing. According to Objectivism, wealth has to be produced, in the absence of which, poverty is man's natural state.
You've heard the old adage, "the best things in life are free." Nothing could be further from the truth. Life itself isn't free. In order to be sustained, it requires work, effort, productivity. To gain the benefits, you have to incur the cost. You have to pay the price, either by producing a value directly or by producing something to exchange for it. Yet, today people say that the most vital goods and services -- those most necessary for life, like medical care -- should be free, which simply means that someone else should produce them either directly or indirectly and give them away at no cost. The people who are demanding free medical care are claiming that the providers have no right to be paid for their services, because that's what "free" means in this context. It means that consumers get a value without having to pay for it. It means that the providers should be forced to work for nothing, which is slavery.
Another adage that we often hear is that "Poverty causes crime." In fact, it's just the opposite. Crime causes poverty, because people whose property is robbed or vandalized are made poorer to the extent of the losses inflicted on them. Victims of physical assault are made poorer to the extent that their injuries incapacitate them from earning a living and add to their medical expenses.
Even the criminals are made poorer, because of their time in jail and because a criminal record makes it far more difficult for an ex-con to find gainful employment. The ones who are lucky enough to avoid detection must worry about being arrested and are at high risk of being victimized by other criminals.
So, there is a sense in which poverty does have a cause, the sense in which people by their own malfeasance can impoverish themselves by neglecting their only means for overcoming poverty -- the creation of wealth; not the mooching or looting of wealth, but its actual creation. That is the only way to overcome poverty. The sooner people realize this and begin to vote the looters and their representatives out of office, the better off they'll be.
- Bill
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"Poverty has no cause. Only prosperity has causes."
