This is the chart of the latest United Nations Human Development Indicator:
The UK is ranked in the top 20, with this data:
Things are pretty crowded at the top.
The data is based on these variables:
Distribution is not considered, critically.
My point in posting this, however, is simple. If you are at the top of the pile, there is no excuse for poverty in your country. The resources to prevent it, by definition, exist. In that case, if it is prevalent, as it is in the UK, it is by choice, and not by accident or chance. And in that case, we could eliminate it.
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Plainly there are some comparable countries that have more poverty than the UK and some with less. Where the UK sits – somewhere between (to pick two examples) Norway and the USA – is a policy choice, or at least the result of policy choices.
But are there any countries where there is no poverty?
No
So the poor will always be with us, and we are talking about policies that increase or decrease poverty, not eradicating it entirely. Another angle on the same problem is inequality. And ultimately maintaining conditions that support wellbeing of the many, not the few.
By these metrics, the UK is doing badly, and worse than it has in the past.
If we do not aim to eradicate poverty, we fail.
What is wrong with trying when it is possible, and it is pleonexia that is preventing it?
“The poor will always be with us…”
The sentence is rarely finished off. I suggest “…because pleonexia is never addressed”.
Thank you.
Only just reading this ….
Thought I should reference the biblical line that ” the poor will always be with us”…. Which I remember being taught was much miscontextualised … Jesus’ claim in the new testament is a throwback to Deuteronomy.
According to google’s AI:
“A Mandate for Action, Not Indifference: By quoting Deuteronomy 15:11, Jesus was reminding his audience of their ongoing divine command to be generous and “open-handed” toward the poor. The preceding verses in Deuteronomy 15 even state that “there need be no poor people among you” if God’s commands for social justice are followed, indicating poverty is a result of societal disobedience, not divine will.”
Isn’t weird how the Bible is being used to justify all sorts of terrible things ??? …… Eerrrrr no: it has been for ever!
Thanks
… the Bible is being MiS-used to justify all sorts of terrible things
I agree: there is no excuse for poverty in the UK. Poverty is a political choice which is inexcusable and morally repugnant.
Interestingly there is a version of HDI adjusted for inequality.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_inequality-adjusted_Human_Development_Index.
I was surprised that the UK didn’t do a lot worse on this index.
The HDI says nothing about poverty!
“It does not reflect on inequalities, poverty, human security, empowerment, etc”
So nothing you’ve commented on about poverty follows from this survey!
I said it does not address distribution.
But you are totally wrong: I was discussing capacity to relieve poverty. You ignored that. I wonder why? Could it have been deliberate?
The report also says nothing about people who troll with multiple identities i.e. you.
The volume of rough sleeping, street begging, food bank use in the UK is incompatible with a civilised society.
My view is that we let poverty rip through society in order to create fear – every case is a warning to comply as well as offering some more twisted individuals validation of their own self worth.
But the overall message seems to be ‘See this? That could be you next, so behave yourself and make the most of it (because it really could be you next)’.
You may well be right.
I remember a professor at Uni explaining to a class that nobody needs to be homeless unless they are mentally ill. I’m wondering if poverty persists because people with influence don’t believe it exists.
And why did he claim that if those with mental illness?
He didn’t explain, he just said it. As I recall he had been wheeled in from another department to give us a different perspective to the usual empirical stuff we were fed on. No one paid much attention to him and when the imaginary bell rang there was an imaginary stampede for the door.
He was rich and influential, however, so I kind of thought what he was saying would have made sense to our elders and betters (said with due deference).
In Conservative thinking, it is the weak who are ill disciplined and generally immoral who do not thrive in society, the one category of people who might have an excuse for that is the mentally ill whilst for most it is a choice they make, so that may have been his thinking.
Somewhat more generously to him, he may have falsely reckoned that levels of support in modern society are such that anyone who didn’t manage to get some kind of roof over their head were mentally incapable of working with the system, that is clearly absolutely not the case, but I presume this was some years ago when homelessness was less obvious.
Yes a very astute summary although we are talking about the Thatcher years around 1987/88 when homelessness was becoming very apparent – among young people as well.
Call me left wing but I judge a society by how it treats it’s vulnerable. We used to have terrible pensioner poverty,but the triple lock has improved the state pension, whilst this group still sees themselves as the poorest.
Now with Universal Credit rates being so low and housing costs high and not fully covered by Housing Benefit, it is families and ultimately children who are experiencing real, not absolute poverty. Britain remains an essentially wealthy country, but with such inequality that it’s becoming very divided. As a civilised country there is absolutely no need for poverty. There is more than enough money within our country for all to have an adequate lifestyle. Sadly though it’s sitting in the investments and property of those who have more money than they know what to do with. No government seems brave enough to bring in fairer taxation and restore a sense of caring for those unable to care for themselves.
The following article should give pause for thought:-
https://www.independent.co.uk/bulletin/news/bari-weiss-cbs-news-cecot-prison-el-salvador-b2889089.html
Effectively a “kill-switch” has been operated by the establishment in the UK and put into effect for decades by the education system and the British main stream media which prevents its citizens from understanding how the country’s monetary system really works and obviously can be used to alleviate poverty. Essentially most citizens have been turned into “useful idiots” through the use of a “kill-switch”!
@ Dave Hollomby
As always context is helpful – “the poor will always be with you…(unfinished quote)” – in the context of a socially outraged embarrassed rich Pharisee and his guests complaining from their comfortable privilege, about someone they despised, a person showing Jesus heartfelt (and costly) gratitude because she knew he treated her differently from the way others did.
To use modern terminology, Simon the Pharisee and his guests were pwn’ed by Jesus very effectively.
Mark 14.3-9 & Luke 7.36-50 – there are several versions in the gospels and it seems to reflect more than one incident. It is impossible to extract from the story an argument that tackling poverty is unnecessary or futile – it states the opposite.
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Mark%2014.3-9&version=CEV
&
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=luke%207.36-50&version=CEV
I’m still working on pleonexia!
Thanks
No one in the UK need be in poverty. People who are poor, however, are invisible. They have no voice. Very soon, we will be burying them in paupers’ graves. And the more of us who become downtrodden, the less we will be heard. The media is either disinterested or told to be disinterested. “Not with a bang, but a whimper”.
When all the main media outlets are bought and owned by individuals who have great wealth, they cease to be impartial purveyors of “news”. The President of the U.S., the most powerful country in the world, is in a symbiotic relationship with such individuals. We now have a highly dangerous coming together of political and financial power, underpinned by immensely powerful big tech. Larry Ellison & son (and chums) own the news, TikTok – and Oracle, which funds Blair’s Institute and is deeply embedded in our public services. Musk/Twitter. Bezos/WaPo. Thiel/Palantir. Trump/Truth Social. Their message is not news as we know it.
The whole structure of the U.S. government is being dismantled. State officials in their thousands are being sacked and replaced with Trumpolytes, who have no qualifications for their appointments. Some 50 career diplomats have been recalled; to be replaced by more Trumpolytes. To take just one example: Witkoff is a real estate magnate, now responsible for negotiating the ceasefire in Ukraine and in Gaza. His assistant is Trump’s son in law.
I believe Trump’s National Security Strategy tells us all we need to know. If you stand back, it becomes clear that Trump is reviving the “Great Powers” doctrine. He will have the Western Hemisphere; Putin can have Russia and the Eastern Bloc, and Xi can have Asia. There will be a tacit understanding that they won’t interfere in each other’s sphere of influence. Europe and the UK – wedged in the middle – are an irritant but irrelevant, and Trump isn’t really bothered if Putin gets Ukraine and more.
Why is this happening? Because no one is preventing it. Because the takeover has been organised, slick and rapid. Because EU and UK politicians simply refuse to believe the evidence, preferring to believe things are still the same as they were pre-Trump.
Pleonexia very precise explanation to what has afflicted Britain since the empire. Did Blair have pleonexia?
Yes, I am sure he did.
There is no need for poverty anywhere in the world. There is more than enough of everything, except political will, for everyone to have what they need.
I think food banks are a sure sign that the country is failing to protect its citizens, which is the govs main task. We shouldn’t need them, especially when there is no shortage of food and other essentials. The shop shelves are groaning under the weight of all the products. They only appeared in 2010 alongside banking failure and austerity. They remind me of cold victorian charity and should be made redundant by increasing existing welfare payments which would enable people to get their supplies from supermarkets like everyone else. I know that nobody on this blog will ask me how we are going to pay for it.