I am always struck by discussions around how to end poverty.
They seem to usually center around the wrong place.
To cure poverty one should maybe ask: What is the opposite of poverty?
The answer is: Wealth.
Then the question becomes: How does one create wealth?
– How are jobs created?
– What increases wages?
– And how does an economy grow?
I will stay out of the politics of it, but there are good answers to all of these questions in the economics literature.
Carlos Slim Helú, the Mexican telecommunications mogul and the only man in the world richer than Bill Gates, had a more nuanced view on not being charitable. “The only way to fight poverty is with employment,” he said according to a Wall Street Journal report. “Trillions of dollars have been given to charity in the last fifty years, and they don’t solve anything.”
-Paul Sullivan, The Thin Green Line (Amazon)