Technically it's still going on so it wasn't very successful. Here's the kicker. Poverty levels were in significant decline prior to the War on Poverty. They continued for a few years after it started, but once the initiatives really got up and running the rate of poverty decline started slow down and then just stopped and held steady. Makes ya' think.
Yes, you are correct... But in these enlightened times, and there's a healthy dose of sarcasm there, there's also a social contract not just to make money... On a basic level of no one has jobs or money, no one can buy the products... Concentrate the money in few hands and it is worthless... 100 people buying and selling to each other only... I forget which early economist said that money is like manure, best spread round...
In as much as poverty remains pervasive in certain areas of the world, this isn't much of a war; poverty is solidly kicking the butt of whatever is being posed against it.
The best course of action against poverty is to ensure and broaden greater empowerment of women.
In areas where poverty remains intractable, women are commonly denied the right to rise from the position of chattel, the power to be freed from the socially (and religiously) imposed role of broodsow, be given control of their fates and their bodies, become educated, or to hold gainful employment to contribute positively to their economic circumstances.
Anyone have a better idea?
This post was edited by Benedict Arnold at March 29, 2017 12:15 AM MDT
No Glis, but in areas where poverty is pervasive, women are commonly less valued and have fewer rights. Read the last paragraph of my response, it speaks pretty clearly on this.
This post was edited by Benedict Arnold at March 28, 2017 5:31 PM MDT
While that's true and I fully support said cause how that changes poverty and creates jobs escapes me. There is very little clear about how that actually ends poverty for all.
There is no blanket solution to every case, or every area. Wars can create poverty, so can bigotry or natural disasters, is there a way to solve them? Creating jobs is certainly one thing, but having enough people sufficiently educated and able to fill those jobs is another. Too often, people live in poverty because they have no skills, are physically unable, or in some countries, are of the wrong caste or gender. The problem is bigger than any one answer.
This post was edited by Benedict Arnold at March 28, 2017 8:03 PM MDT
"War on poverty" sounds like the despairing cry of a politician anxious to be elected and appealing to the poor to boost his votes. In reality it's never going to happen. It's not far from Trump's specious and self-serving campaign slogan of "Make America great again."
W.S.Gilbert proposed a parallel idea in The Gondoliers. It didn't work there, either.
There lived a King, as I've been told, In the wonder-working days of old...
He wished all men as rich as he (And he was rich as rich could be), So to the top of every tree Promoted everybody.
But when he'd done all that he realised that:
When every one is somebody, Then no one's anybody!
This post was edited by Benedict Arnold at March 29, 2017 12:15 AM MDT
If there was a cure it would have cured by now. Sadly, rich become richer and poor become poorer, day by day, there is a widening gap between haves vs. the have-mores. Rich people carry on clasping extreme salaries, the poverty rate remains simultaneously impacted...we need a revolution...!
Roughly 13-14% of the population (45 million or so Americans) who live below the poverty line... That poverty. The war on poverty- ongoing efforts to reduce/ eliminate poverty, originally coined/ spearheaded by LBJ, as Glis mentioned.
Benedict Arnold 