'I have shop-lifted to feed my family': Dr Liz Allen on the shame of poverty, and the life lessons it has taught her
www.abc.net.au
For Pay Day, demographer and social researcher Dr Liz Allen shares the shame that comes with living in poverty, the secrets of survival, and how this experience "grants perspective that can never be bought".

This bit resonated.

It makes me so terribly sad that in a society such as ours the wealthy keep creating new means to harm the less lucky.

That aside, Alan Kholer has also opined in the past that our economics policy is based on disdain.

I know many will read my financial experiences and see failure. I haven’t failed; I succeeded when the odds were totally stacked against me. I made good what life threw at me. I survived … with my values intact.

I can only agree.

  • naevaTheRat@lemmy.dbzer0.com
    11·
    5 months ago

    Do we agree that choices are not free? That the set of choices available to someone is determined by precededing moments, a chain of which extends back well beyond anything a person could be held not merely responsible for but indeed capable of having any influence over at all?

    • Ilandar@aussie.zone
      41·
      5 months ago

      You seem to be misunderstanding the point I am making. I am not arguing that the only thing that dictates wealth are the decisions of the individual. I am arguing that the decisions of the individual contribute to their wealth. Maybe you see the world from a determinist mindset, but I certainly don’t. There are always choices we can make about how we choose to live. Sometimes these require sacrifices, such as the choice to not have 7 children.

      • naevaTheRat@lemmy.dbzer0.com
        1·
        5 months ago

        But 7 children doesn’t influence your geographical location, the quality of your education, your skin colour, the quality of your parents’ education, your familial wealth, your health, the stability of your home life, your gender, your health, the job opportunities upon attaining your majority etc etc etc. It is negligible and largely downstream of the good luck required to be well off and does nothing to undermine wealth being all luck.

        • Ilandar@aussie.zone
          3·
          5 months ago

          But 7 children doesn’t influence your geographical location, the quality of your education, your skin colour, the quality of your parents’ education, your familial wealth, your health, the stability of your home life, your gender, your health, the job opportunities upon attaining your majority etc etc etc.

          I never said it did. Please refer to my previous reply:

          I am not arguing that the only thing that dictates wealth are the decisions of the individual.

          • naevaTheRat@lemmy.dbzer0.com
            1·
            5 months ago

            What determines what choices you want to make? What determines your ability to exercise agency? what determines your values?

            You’re looking at people who sit around a table, get dealt a hand of cards, have randomly assigned levels of skill and then after everyone has played their hands you’re trying to argue luck wasn’t what determined how people scored…

            • Ilandar@aussie.zone
              4·
              5 months ago

              Again, please refer to that same comment. I have already addressed the determinist view. If you think you have zero control over your life and everything was set in stone before you were even born, good for you. To me, that is a nihilistic, fatalistic and defeatist approach to life that will only further entrench any inherent disadvantage one suffers.

              • naevaTheRat@lemmy.dbzer0.com
                1·
                5 months ago

                ahhhhhhhhhh you’re so obtuse.

                The ability and desire for people to make certain choices, whether or not you think those choices are deterministic, is fucking determined before you even properly exist.

                you cannot play a 4 if don’t have one in hand no matter how much you might wish to. Accepting that is not coming down for or against determinism. Are you thick?

                • Ilandar@aussie.zone
                  42·
                  5 months ago

                  You’ve just made a determinist argument and then immediately claimed that this does not indicate you believe in determinism. I’m not sure I can help you here; some education and introspection is sorely needed on your part.

                  • naevaTheRat@lemmy.dbzer0.com
                    2·
                    5 months ago

                    🙄 There are positions between radical freedom and behaviourism.

                    If I break your legs you can’t choose to walk, whether or not you have a self causing free will.

                    I feel massive contempt for people who think themselves so clever that if they don’t see nuance in an argument it means the other party is wrong.