How do we do more to tackle poverty and inequality?

Poverty is a special case of inequality, and it’s perhaps not the most instructive form to consider, fraught with traps of simplistic economics on the one hand and horrific reality on the other. It’s hard to consider dispassionately and humanly; discussion tends to degenerate into outrage on the one hand and numbers on the other.

Most forms of inequality are hard to rectify in practice: the problems are deep-seated, and those at a disadvantage don’t have power, while those with power have little incentive to help them. In any case, inequality is not eradicable in a fair and just society. Providing equality of opportunity, a safety net for those who aren’t competent (and how to define the boundary between the incompetent and deserving, and the criminal, which falls somewhere in the zone of laziness) and safeguards against the malicious requires more will from the majority of society than currently exists.

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Last updated 2005/02/27