Making damn sure the poor stay poor

for reasons i cannot effectively articulate, jerome a paris over at daily kos often puts my nose out of joint, and so i usually make it a habit to NOT read his diaries... however, the title of this one caught my eye and i think it's well worth posting here...

The poor must remain poor

by Jerome a Paris [Subscribe]

Thu Aug 23, 2007 at 05:16:46 AM PDT

An excellent exchange between ThatBritGuy and someone in the Salon (the daily round up of international news and stories prepared by Fran over at the European Tribune) this morning, about the deal between Venezuela and London to provide subsidized transport to the poorer Londoners, and the outrage it generated:

Venezuela's president, Hugo Chavez, has struck a discounted fuel deal with London mayor Ken Livingstone in exchange for expertise on tourism and public transport in Caracas. The move will give up to a million Londoners living on benefits half-price fares on the city's buses.

But Livingstone's critics slammed the deal as "immoral", asking why one of the world's richest capitals should accept developing world subsidies.

Angie Bray, the London Assembly Conservative leader, said the mayor should have requested for financial help from the British treasury instead.

Which triggered this series of comments:

Right. 'Cause the tories are usually so happy to provide public funding for 'hand-outs to the poor'.

A blisteringly unappealing insight into the mind of the Right - not only do they not want to share their own wealth, they hate the idea of help for the poor, even when it's coming out of someone else's pocket.

Ah, but I am sure that they do see it as coming out of their own pocket. After all, the oil wealth which this program is based on has been wrongfully appropriated by an ugly, leftist government. It ought to go into the pockets of investors of oil majors

And there we have it all in a nutshell: neoliberalism is superior to all systems because it could afford to help its poor, and therefore does not need to actually do so. The potential it has, that unfulfilled promise, is, in itself, enough to make the system superior for all to all other modes of economic regulation. But of course, actually implementing that promise would weaken the magic wealth creation machine (mostly, it seems, because the poor would no longer be properly motivated to work hard) and should thus be avoided at all costs.

nothing like threatening the status quo of the super-rich power and money grabbers to elicit a strong response, eh...?

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