What is poverty?

[Green Aura]

The way it would work is that if someone had a skill e.g. a roofer he could repair his neighbour's roof but instead of paying him money they would repay him in hours. For example if it took him 5 hours to fix the roof they would owe him 5 hours of baby sitting or gardening or something.

Isn't that how LETS schemes work - that is if any still exist. The last I heard of them was that the Government was trying to work out how to tax them!

[mrsflibble]

tea, i love your answer.

[battybird]

That sounds like a great idea...bartering skills really!
I like the "time rich" idea but would preface it with "love, people and" to it. Sounds soppy but there are many cash rich who are lonely and having time is no fun without love to share it. We dont always spare enough time for people in our busy lives ...that is one thing that people in "poverty"often have. I have sometimes been suprised in Asia by the way people who seem to have nothing will share what th y have with others. My son lived in Thailand and was in dire straits financially when he lost his job (the owner of the bar bulldozed it overnight having sold the land!!). A neighbour (not well off by any means!!)brought them food every day while they were sorting themselves out. The "debt" was then "repaid"when my son let a girl with mental health problems (and a baby!!) sleep in their one room accomodation as she had nowhere to go. Sometimes it seems that those in " cash poverty" find what is important! I know this is often not the case but even if it happens sometimes I feel better about the human race!

[Thomzo]

I think the saddest thing is when we project our values onto other civilisations and then try to reduce their 'poverty' by forcing our money driven culture on them. I mean the people who live in remote areas of Africa or South America. They live off the land - or did until the West tried to 'help' them by providing houses and education which just leaves them stuck in one place when they should be moving on or lusting after things that they never needed or wanted before we forced them upon these people. Of course, we are the ones forcing nomads into smaller and smaller territories, using up their water supplies or farming their lands and forcing them to change the way of life they have enjoyed for millenia. I wonder who is really richer?

Zoe

P.s I don't qualify as in poverty by any measure but I still have second hand furniture (one day it'll be antique), a second hand TV, don't have a Wii, have an car that's just done 100,000 miles. I choose to live that way.

[ajs88]

Stonehead your account is very sobering

To me poverty is being cold, hungry and trapped, these things are due to circumstances rather then a lack of money

[Susie]

P.s I don't qualify as in poverty by any measure but I still have second hand furniture (one day it'll be antique)

It's vintage!

We seem to have a LETS scheme in Cambridge - http://www.camlets.org - but I'm not sure from the website if it's still functioning (it hasn't been updated for a while). It actually looks ok, perhaps I should contact them (although I'm not sure I've got any skills I could offer! - although someone is offering hamster taming so I think non-traditional skills are welcome as well. Perhaps that's like lion taming but smaller).

[Shirleymouse]

I think it is the same as a LETS scheme yes. I love the idea but can't think when I'd have the time to put in the hours if that makes sense!

Do hamsters really need taming???

[Susie]

I would have thought even if a hamster was quite uncontrollable, they are quite small and normally in a cage so the effects would be limited, but I've never had to deal with a wild hamster. It may be a terrible experience

[123sologne]

Stonehead your account is very sobering

To me poverty is being cold, hungry and trapped, these things are due to circumstances rather then a lack of money

I pretty much agree with you as for me poverty means starving, not having any clothes to warm up, not having a roof to protect oneself against the elements and being in danger of dying because of it. None of this really needs to be bought: Our far away ancestors were not poor, they hunted for food, went foraging; they used the skin of the animals they killed to make some clothe to keep warm and they lived in caves. And they had no money as it did not exist then. Many tribes today still try to live this way and they are not poor as long as they can find something to eat, use what is around them to make some clothe and build a roof to protect themselves against cold, rain or wind. A lot of us here are actually inspiring to their way of life I think, the major problem we face is that we live in a society full of rules and we cannot just go hunting for our food but we can forage, we can kind of make our own clothe, but we need to buy the fabric, etc... At the same time we need some rules to protect our environment to avoid total plunder. But do we really need money? Maybe that is the question...
But still, we are getting poorer in our rich society in one area: Imagination. Most kids today, if not given a ready made toy will simply do nothing and complain that they are bored. Big time lack of imagination, I must say...

[oldjerry]

This is a really interesting thread. It's always seemed to me that how much you earn/own in matierial terms,has less relevance than the degree of control you have over your life.Obviously in abject poverty you have no control whatsoever,but many people who earn /own considerable amounts fall into the same situation.I realise that for a bloke brought up to live off the land and to have a healthy distrust of any sort of authority, anti-statism comes pretty easy,but it's easier to be content with what you have when YOU'VE decided what you want rather than someone else tell you what you need.

[boboff]

Kids today!

You see I don't agree at all, my kids and kids of friends will always gravitate to sticks, stones, mud, water etc if they can, in this PC world boys will always build a gun out of lego, toilet rolls, boxes etc. There is even a posh name for it and all childrens centres have these "boxes" with bits and bobs for kids to play with.

We shouldn't forget that kids today are the same as they have always been, teenagers though, well they are the same as they have always been, a pain in the bottom.

Even that is said with a tongue in cheek, most teens I come in contact with are polite, work hard at school, and respect people to an extent that they are given the respect of space and non judgement, who are we to question the "imagination" required to play online virtual reality games, to find your way round new "apps" or survive a weekend at a rain soaked pop festival. It may well be different, but it is in no way a lesser skill than the "imaginagion" we used to grow up.

[grahamhobbs]

There have been a number of very good contributions to this thread, especially around control of ones life and opportunities. One thing I think we've missed out is equality. The happiest societies are the more equal ones. If everyone around is in the same boat, people are happier. When you are sat on your sofa watching widescreen telly all day and that is all you've got and will ever get, whilst others around you 'earn' more in a year (some in a month) than you'll get in a life time, you are going to feel poor (and resentful, even if the sofa and telly was 'given' to you by the state). And frankly if the only opportunity in life you get, is to sit on a sofa in front of a telly, then to me that is poverty.

[Rosendula]

I was taught at school that there are two types of poverty: 'absolute poverty', as in not having food, shelter, warmth, etc., and 'relative poverty', as in having less than the average person in a given culture. I am lucky that I have always had shelter, but there have been occasions when I have not had enough food, and have been very, very cold, even inside my 'shelter'. At that time I had (just a little) more money than I have now, yet these days, with less money, I have enough food, and enough clothes to keep me warm. So why, when I had more money was I living without the basic essentials? The answer is 'education'. I didn't have a garden, and although I knew about allotments I didn't try to get one because I didn't have the knowledge (I knew how to grow things having worked on a market garden, but I didn't know how to get an allotment, and didn't realise how much better off I would be food-wise. Plus, I couldn't afford to buy the tools - long before the internet and Freecycle). These days, like I say, I have less money, but I am happy and healthy. Since becoming Ish, I feel that poverty has slipped away from me. Yet if I were to fill in some government questionairre I'm pretty sure they would have me down as destitute.

Thank you for starting this interesting discussion, Milims. And I, too, love Stonehead's answer. I really does put things back into perspective.

[123sologne]

I love your answer Rosendula. Self sufficiency should be on the curriculum at school but that would not please neither the manufacturers/retailers which need us to spend money or the government which needs the taxes they get out of everything we buy...

[Jandra]

It is an interesting discussion, but I think that most people (ish-forum not being 'most people') compare their standard of living to their neighbours and what they see around them and 'class' themselves in the poverty-scale accordingly.

A slum inhabitant placed in an English middle class estate would definitely feel poor, whereas he may not feel that way at all in the slums.

Anyway, that's what I think: poverty is the fact (or the feeling) of having significantly less than the people around you.

Jandra