The Nature of Things

There's been a lot of talk about poverty in America this week. The impetus for all the talk was, of course, the fiftieth anniversary of President Lyndon Johnson's declaration of a War on Poverty. A lot of the talk has been scoffing at the whole idea of a War on Poverty and of the various programs that were first implemented in the '60s to try to help the poor. There is a segment of our population and of our political thought that believes that any attempt to help the poor to pull themselves out of the downward spiral of poverty is doomed to failure. Indeed, any such efforts will just make the poor lazy and rob them of the desire to better their lives. On the contrary, the people who subscribe to this line of thought believe that government should aggressively institute policies that will benefit the rich and make them even richer because this is obviously good for society! This is the kind of thought that has dominated a large part of our politics for many years. It is how ...