Given that almost 2 billion people worldwide live below the poverty line, I’m happy to unite with bloggers around the world today to address this serious issue. Each of the candidates have dealt with this pressing topic in their own way – John McCain’s plan is conspicuously unarticulated while Barack Obama intends to expand access to jobs, raise the minimum wage, and increase access to affordable housing.
If the world economic crisis illustrates anything – global is local – which doesn’t even account for the nearly 40 million Americans who struggle to make ends meet everyday. Don’t you think it’s time to put something on paper, Senator McCain?
Interestingly enough, as the world economy teeters off-balance, Marxian ideology is again coming back in vogue in some regions of the world. Dismayed that unfettered capitalism has failed to solve all of our problems, some intellectuals have begun to seek comfort in Marx’s premise that capitalism would ultimately self-destruct in favor of communism. While most of us can agree that a classless isn’t the answer, at the very least we need to ensure that there are safeguards in place to protect the least fortunate among us.
What can you do today to combat poverty?
Photo credit: J K Velu
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Great blog Liz! I did want to comment on your reference to the ‘revival’ of Marxist ideology, however. First, I don’t know which regions of the world you were referring to, but I am willing to risk they are regions that did not historically experience communism. Second, communism was hardly a classless society of the proletariat – although it was quite a simple setup: there was the oppressed and the oppressors. Indeed, as you said, intelligent people understand that everyone benefits from combating poverty. But what many ‘intellectuals’ fail to admit is that the most precious possession for even the poorest human being is his dignity, his freedom – that, I’m afraid, has yet to be fully realized in any socialist or communist society.