Politics

Author: Richard R. Tryon and others

Compassionate Conservatism and Poverty
by Richard R. Tryon

The Star Dec. 3 issue published words of José G. Velez Gilormini. He wrote beautifully and correctly about how citizens of P.R., like so many elsewhere, prefer to ignore poverty and therefore it still exists. Why? As happens so often, well meaning people call attention to a condition that is undesirable, but ask the wrong questions. While his writing is dispassionate and scholarly, there is a fatal flaw in his presentation, which offers no solution to the problem, only a series of facts that show that poverty has not disappeared in P.R.

The flaw is in his words: “But regardless of its less than sorrowful face, poverty is still immoral.” Is poverty immoral? Because a condition can’t be ‘immoral’, one assumes that he meant that society is immoral for allowing it. Can it be eliminated by any external societally provided means like redistribution of income? If so, is it moral to exert such means?

To a Compassionate Conservative, it is necessary to first recognize that the very word ‘poverty’ has multiple uses. We all tend to think of economic means as a test of presence or absence of poverty. Closer scrutiny shows that, if this is the only kind of poverty, then the test is not universally a function of some dollar denominated amount. First, we do not all live in the same place; nor do we have the same responsibilities or needs. A healthy male New Yorker, with a wife and family, taking care of another family of some size, may have far greater fiscal needs to avoid ‘poverty’ than another that is single, in good health and is living off the land in a place like Puerto Rico, where it is impossible to freeze or need winter clothing. Even nature conspires to provide a lot of fruit for the picking, if you live in the right place. There is no universal measure of economic means that accurately defines this value.

One can suffer from intellectual poverty because of an inability to read, even if no physical impairment exists and every opportunity to learn has been previously provided, or if access to books is limited. That deficiency may contribute greatly to the apparent lack of motivation and/or of individual success at being self reliant; or to having a poor ability to express good thoughts to others.

Perhaps the Christian words of the Lord “The poor shall always be with you” need to be examined. Do Christians have a reason to declare then that we have no moral need to try to eradicate poverty of any sort? Physical, mental, or fiscal? Not necessarily, but are the liberals right in claiming that poverty of an economic nature is immoral? If so, what do they mean? Are they saying that those who let themselves sink into poverty for lack of motivation to learn at an early age, become immoral for this failure? Or do they contend that it is the parents that have failed to accept and perform well enough to help the youngster avoid falling into poverty? Are the parents then immoral? Or are they saying that parents or no parents, one, or two, or none, it doesn’t matter who failed, we are all morally responsible to see that nobody falls into the level of existence that somebody defines as being in economic, social, political or cultural poverty?

Liberals like the last definition and want to see a simple solution. They want to claim that all those that have money are responsible to share it with those that do not, whenever the latter group can’t find, or want to find a way to avoid being in the defined condition. In short, the only way to be absolved of the immoral act of letting others fall into poverty is to redistribute the wealth of the productive to the unproductive. Do this to the point where all have the same per capita income, as per the best socialist or communist models, and then either there is no poverty or everyone is in the same condition.

I submit that liberals should be less inclined to find the rich basketball and baseball players or anyone of wealth guilty of being immoral because others have failed to achieve a standard of living, which can be considered above some defined minimal fiscal level. When this is achieved then nobody else is in danger of the pejorative label of being ‘immoral’ because of the condition. On the other hand, if citizens of a nation, a state, or even a city, deem it important that all should pay taxes to support schools that can teach skills needed to avoid poverty; contribute to churches that can provide a moral compass to help avoid poverty from lack of motivation; and work to contain illicit birth generated by a lack of real morality of the sexual type; then we may find the common ground on which the Compassionate Conservative can be willing to join together with the liberal’s desire to eliminate poverty.

However, who among the world’s would be saviors is able to assure us that God’s will is served, if new born children have no chance to witness poverty, or sin? Is it our task to teach all to be morally perfect so as to gain admittance to heaven? How can it be done, if nobody can learn to know sin or poverty and then make a ‘free-will’ decision to avoid sin and poverty?

We should feel comfortable with the conclusion that we will eliminate poverty when we find a way to see that children are only born to circumstances in which all that are genetically normal may expect to have a chance to be nurtured and able to learn to avoid becoming part of a poverty statistic. That will require a lot of work aimed at providing a community in which all possess a capacity to make the correct moral decisions to further their own lives. If that happens, it won’t be necessary to call the condition of poverty an immoral position, as it won’t exist! Heaven will be here!

Of course, some will maintain that poverty is relative- all that fall into the first XX% of average per capita income- are deemed to be in poverty! No matter what standard of living is achieved, the bottom group will enjoy a ‘relative position of poverty’ and therefore be deserving of some special economic support. Compassionate Conservatives can support providing educational opportunity and emergency support, but they fear forcing a system where underachievers are just subsidized by everyone else.