What Happens Next: A Gallimaufry

melancholic romantic comic cynic. bi & genderqueer. fantasy writer. sysrae on ao3.

you can’t end poverty by punishing the poor

you can’t end poverty by punishing the poor

you can’t end poverty by punishing the poor

YOU CAN’T END POVERTY BY PUNISHING THE POOR

Seriously though, why is this such a difficult fucking concept for some people to get their heads around? If your primary consideration in dealing with poverty as a concept - as an institution - is “make sure nobody is getting free stuff who absolutely 100% cannot live another day without it as long as they’re also a good person according to my morals and if we even catch a GLIMPSE of some unworthy not-poor-enough person or criminal or cheater benefiting even a FRACTION of the time from our anti-poverty programmes, then those programmes get cut for EVERYONE because THIS IS WHY WE CAN’T HAVE NICE THINGS”

then YES, THAT IS WHY WE CAN’T HAVE NICE THINGS

because - OK. Let me ask you a fucking question:

Which is the better, more functional society: one where nobody lives in poverty, or one in which the poor are punished?

If you prefer punishment, congratulations! YOU ARE THE FUCKING PROBLEM.

If you prefer no poverty, then let me explain you a thing: in order for this to happen, YOU HAVE TO STOP MAKING MORAL JUDGEMENTS ABOUT WHO “DESERVES” YOUR HELP, AND TRYING TO ONLY HELP THOSE PEOPLE WHILE EXCLUDING OR PUNISHING EVERYONE ELSE.

Here’s why:

Because allowing widespread, institutional, inescapable, ingrained poverty to flourish unchecked, with all the horrific abuses and deprivations and sacrifices that entails, is, by an order of magnitude, a far worse crime than being a welfare cheat. ALWAYS.

If you believe that every child - EVERY CHILD, regardless of whether their parents are criminals or morally upstanding citizens or single parents or married or mentally ill or queer or straight or struggling or rich or born to poverty themselves or addicts or religious or atheists or able-bodied or disabled or college educated or high school drop outs; EVERY CHILD, regardless of who their parents are - deserves to have a good start in life, then it shouldn’t fucking MATTER if a handful of people try to cheat the system by having eighteen kids and cashing in while never lifting a finger - even assuming this EVER FUCKING HAPPENS - because THOSE KIDS STILL DESERVE A GOOD LIFE, and the SECOND you start making moral judgements about the kind of people who really and truly deserve your help, YOU ARE PUNISHING AND PERSECUTING THE INNOCENT CHILDREN OF THOSE YOU’VE DECLARED UNWORTHY.

And the thing is, when you do this? You’re not just hurting children. You’re hurting YOURSELF, hurting your own society and its future, because one day? Those children - the ones who survive, anyway - will grow up. And even though you made their childhoods miserable and poverty-ridden and dangerous; even though you made them swallow, day after day, the acid of your moralistic contempt; even though you stole their dignity and their hope and their futures, you will somehow, magically, now that they’re adults, expect them to have metamorphosed into healthy, functioning members of society; into well-adjusted people who are just as invested in the equitable running of a system that’s been grinding them under its wheels since they day they had the misfortune to be born to the wrong sort of person, or with the wrong sort of illness, or in the wrong sort of neighbourhood. You set these people up for failure, and when they confirm to your expectations - when the dirt-poor daughter of dirt-poor parents falls pregnant at fifteen to the first boy who ever treated her like a person, drops out of school and decides she can make more money living on welfare than by studying and working, because nobody in her entire life has EVER told her she’s worth more than that - you say, well, of COURSE she’s cheating the system. She’s the wrong sort of person, and always has been.

Poverty is what happens when we decide that social safety nets, food, housing, affordable health care and good education are privileges earned by moral behaviour, not rights owed to every child equally from birth. I would rather build a generous welfare system that eliminates true poverty at the expense of enabling potential cheaters than a stingy, inaccessible welfare system that enables true poverty by treating anyone who needs it as a potential cheater. Because no matter how much it sucks to think that some people out there are abusing and coasting on a system designed to help the neediest, poorest people, their crimes are a drop in the ocean compared to what happens when we decide that some people - some CHILDREN, which is what this ultimately boils down to - deserve to be poor, or at the very least, don’t deserve help, because of who their parents are.

YOU CANNOT ELIMINATE POVERTY BY PUNISHING THE POOR.  

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