Becoming more Blessed

Several years ago, I was invited to write an article for the HelpingHelp Innovation for Nonprofits blog. I chose to discuss the negative connections between poverty and charity, one of the many issues that inspired the essays collected in my book, The World I Imagine: A creative manual for ending poverty and building peace.


Conservatives are trying harder than ever before to eliminate government programs that help poor people. They claim it would be more acceptable if those services were managed by charities. That’s the reason I must explain one more time why both government and charities must take more effective approaches to the problem of poverty in our society. Here, then, is my article which was originally posted on March 17, 2010:


BECOMING MORE BLESSED

Most people know the quote from the Bible. It would be a "red letter" statement attributed to Jesus, except it’s in the book of Acts, chapter 20, verse 35: " . . . remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how he said, It is more blessed to give than to receive." (KJV)

You could say there’s an entire industry built around the concept of people being "more blessed." It’s called "charity," which is a synonym for "love." That’s good, of course, but what about the recipients? Are those who receive less "blessed" than those who give to others?

In a perfect world, people who receive would be able to return the favor, if not directly to those who give to them, at least to someone else in turn. Thus, society would be in balance. But that’s not how things are in the real world.

In fact, society almost guarantees an entire class of people are doomed to be among the less blessed. Billions of people spend their lives wanting for the basic goods and services we "blessed" people take for granted: nourishing food, clean water, safe and sheltering homes, and much more.

Does it have to be like that? Can something be done about it? If so, what?

Consider what happens in the event of an extraordinary catastrophe, such as a hurricane or an earthquake. The authorities declare an emergency, and public and private organizations are mobilized. This process allows millions of people to pitch in and help victims of the disaster.

In such cases, there are givers and receivers. But the situation, though dire, is usually temporary. The goal is to bring life back to normal for the receivers, so they can once again become givers in their turn. That’s how the social balance is maintained.

But what of the ultimate emergency: poverty? To those in the lowest economic strata, life is an eternal emergency. They are in constant need of help, not merely to make it through a day or a defined period of time, but for their entire lives. They are chronic receivers, the incurably less blessed.

My essays in The World I Imagine

detail a comprehensive plan for

ending poverty and war by

building a society in which

everyone enjoys some measure

of prosperity and peace.

Fortunately, many organizations help the more blessed give to those in need. They provide food, medical services, water, shelter--the basics. But as much as they help people survive, such bequests rarely offer long-term improvement for the people they help. Poverty is a virtual inferno that destroys everything in its path. For all their good intentions, these givers are like firefighters trying to stop a massive wildfire with small buckets of water.

The solution to this endless catastrophe must be to build a system that is, if not fireproof, at least fire-resistant. In the face of poverty, we must become proactive instead of merely reactive. There is an old saying: "Give a man a fish and he eats for a day; teach a man to fish and he eats for a lifetime." This is wise counsel.

But what if we sit with the man at the riverbank until he is adept at snagging the biggest fish, then declare him ready, stand up, take back our fishing poles, tackle, bait, all the tools he needs to catch more fish to feed his family and more--and carry these tools away with us? What good does that new education do for the man and his family then?

Education is only the first step. After that, people need jobs and tools so they can perform honest labor and earn enough to purchase the basic goods and services. Then they will be able to enjoy a dignified existence.
Charitable organizations work best when they offer this kind of parity between giving and receiving. Besides providing the basic goods and services, they can teach and provide recipients with the means to work and earn money. One of the best organizations of this kind is Heifer International.


Instead of simply feeding hungry people, the charity provides an animal, usually a cow or a goat, to a family that will breed it and return several animals as repayment for the loan. Then those animals are given to other families, and the blessings are spread far and wide. In the end, recipients end up with small herds that not only feed their own families but help bring prosperity to their villages.

Microloans are another tool that help poor people, especially women, raise themselves, their families, and their villages out of poverty. With a small amount of money, they learn to build successful businesses while they repay the loans at a small rate of interest.

Givers to these types of charities are helping to raise the status of the less blessed so that poor people can eventually become givers themselves. This is the best kind of giving. This is truly the way for each of us to become more blessed.

　
The World I Imagine: A creative manual for ending poverty and building peace and my historical mystery novel, Lion’s Pride, are available through your local bookstore. They are featured at Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble, and most online bookstores around the world. Both are available for Kindle readers.

Finding money: Social Security and the Economic Crisis

When people require extra money, both the reasons for the need and the method used to fill the coffers depends on the economic status of the individual.

Many in the middle classes live paycheck-to-paycheck. A missed payday, medical emergency, or car repair triggers a scramble for cash. People at this level might look for extra work, either overtime at their regular job or part-time at a second job. Many use credit cards, accumulating debt they might not be able to pay later.

In the depths of poverty, life is hand-to-mouth. People barely survive the negative gap between income and outgo and often lack money for food or rent. A few might find extra work, but many seek help from government agencies or charities.

In the rarefied air of the upper classes, need disappears and greed is the norm. Unusual expenses arise when Buffy demands a soiree to outshine the party hosted by her private-school rival, Missy, or Dexter IV expects a luxury vehicle when he attends Dexter III’s alma mater instead of the sports car he used during his prep-school years.

A few hundred thousands to cover these expenses is no problem. Dexter III just convinces his board of directors to boost his annual bonus. Then he gifts his trophy wife with a private Caribbean retreat for those long winter vacations.

When government finds itself short of ready cash for such essentials as military pay and seniors’ retirement, where does Congress look? To the Dexters who can spare a luxury or two and help the rest of us? Or to people at the middle and lower levels, where any unexpected expense could push them onto the road to ruin?

Most conservatives propose the latter. They make frequent reference to the sacrifices people must make, but they balk at any suggestion that the super-blessed be affected by any imagined “hardship.” Instead of raising taxes on the super-rich, they propose raising Social Security taxes and cutting retirement and medical benefits to the lower classes.

Social Security is a tax on the poor and middle class. The wealthy pay nothing more into that fund on earnings above $106,800.00, a pittance for people in the highest brackets. Social Security is a lifeline for the poor, but since benefits are based on previous earnings, the lifelong poor rarely enjoy a decent existence in retirement.

Since Social Security is paid by and most useful to people in the lower classes, the only people who should decide how to design and administer the service should be people who make less than $110,00.00 per year. The same goes for Medicare and Medicaid, which are vital to poor people and irrelevant to the wealthy.

Conservatives argue that concentrating wealth with the few ensures a strong economy, but this philosophy is upside-down. History shows that every era in which hard-working lower classes generate great wealth for the privileged leads to a period in which members of the poor and middle classes lose the benefits and capital they struggled to amass during boom times.

When wealth flows upward, people below suffer, and squeezing the common people eventually destroys the economy. That’s because companies depend less on investment than on income from the goods and services they produce. Without customers, a company will eventually fail and be forced to close its doors. Those customers are the millions of lower-class members who spend most of the money they earn or receive in various benefits to purchase products and services from the companies many of them also work for.

And that labor is another vital piece of the economic puzzle. Nobody generates a million dollars or more through their efforts alone. It takes the hard work of dozens of people just to provide the labor required to support the payment of a million dollars to anyone. If one million goes out to one person, then all the others in the equation must also receive a few thousand for their efforts. The highest earner directs the operation of lower-paid team members, many of whom could likely do their jobs without much direction in the first place.

The conclusion must be that we should worry less about the rich and begin to bolster the status of people in the lower and middle classes. Only then will we start to solve the serious economic problems now threatening the world economy.