[wilkskyes]

What are the poor legitimately at fault for then?

I'm tired of this implication that the poor can never be at fault for anything, because they are so poor. It is an overly simplified sympathy that doesn't always reflect reality.

[dang]

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19030031 and marked it off-topic.

[ergothus]

Nothing.

Sure, INDIVIDUALS are at fault for a variety of options, but if you're looking to blame the poor as a group for something, you're using the wrong criteria, since it's a status that has no direct mapping to choice.

[shard972]

So the rich, powerful and elite are also not responsible for anything either? Just individually?

That seems like quite the atomised society.

[ergothus]

> the rich, powerful and elite are also not responsible for anything either? Just individually?

The distinction is that money provides opportunities, poverty is the lack of them.

You can hold the wealthy responsible for what they do with their wealth, or what they don't do with their wealth. Because wealth is something they HAVE. The poor, on the other hand, don't HAVE anything, so you can't say they are using their lack of wealth foolishly, nor can you say they are failing to use their lack of wealth wisely.

[bunderbunder]

FWIW, you could argue that they are failing to handle their economic situation as well as they could.

But even that is fraught, since, in the current economic culture, consumers are pretty much constantly being preyed on, and actively encouraged to make questionable decisions. Consider, for example, the predatory mortgage practices on the part of the banking industry during the 2000s. Or predatory lending practices on the part of the student loan and private college industries. Or payday loan companies.

(There's arguably a double standard there - if it's a person with relatively little money swindling people out of relatively small amounts of money, it's con artistry. If it's a company with lots of money swindling people out of lots of money, caveat emptor.)

[taurath]

From that which is given much, much is expected.

[shard972]

Am I to believe that the poor all sowed the clothes on their backs from sheep that they raised themselves?

At some point even if that is true, they have some responsibility. Unless they were born on a desert island.

[rrcaptain]

No the rich and powerful have choices of how to act, while the poor have very little. Additionally, the rich and powerful are the ones who have structured the system in such a way that the proletariat have very little choice in the matter.

[bunderbunder]

The parent didn't say "the poor can never be at fault for anything", they listed a few legitimate examples of victim blaming.

There was the "everything the fault of the poor" bit in the first sentence, but that was obvious hyperbole.

[wilkskyes]

And I never said the poor are at fault for everything, but I'm being treated as such it seems.

What I want to know are examples of things that the poor are at fault for.

[bunderbunder]

Within the context of this conversation, the burden of figuring that out would fall more properly on you, since you're the one invoking the existence of things the poor are at fault for in order to challenge someone else.

I think, though, that, unless you're coming up with examples that specifically demonstrate that the things the parent poster listed weren't actually victim blaming, such an exercise would be tangential to the subject at hand.

[Latty]

I mean, if you think that's the case, feel free to give examples. The posts here are talking about specific cases, if you disagree with them, say so.

You haven't really said anything here, just vaguly created a strawman that people are arguing "the poor can never do wrong", which was never the claim.

[wilkskyes]

I asked a question, I don't think I need to provide some counter argument with it.

If I must argue something, I'd say the housing crisis example wasn't so simple as it was presented. Some people knew exactly what they were doing, albeit it turned out badly for them, but they had so little to lose they took the risk anyway and just bankrupted out. But I'm not at all interested in talking about this, my original question still stands.

[roddds]

Your question was clearly a rhetorical question that contained the statement "the poor are never faulted for anything", which is basically the same as the next paragraph in your original comment. That's how everyone read it and that's what people are responding to. Your "I asked a question" is disingenuous at best and dishonest at worst, because it's basically saying "I was just asking questions! I didn't state anything and I hold no positions, which makes me invulnerable to criticism!".

[wilkskyes]

It wasn't rhetorical and I really would have been interested in the OP's answer. Had they answered truthfully, it would have helped expanded my understanding of how some people think.

Instead I've been assaulted and my eyes blackened all for what, because I asked a question that if answered may weaken the credibility of the op's original post?

[askafriend]

I think you need to take a step back and truly reflect to take in some of the feedback people have given you here. Egos tend to expand to protect themselves, only to a person's detriment.

Your question was not well asked. At all. It carried a ton of baggage with it, made several assumptions, and generalized a whole class of people in society and you seem to be extremely oblivious to it.

This isn't meant as an insult. I'm being harsh because this is a moment for you to learn. To get better. To take in the feedback instead of playing the victim card to protect your ego.

I hate extreme examples, but I'll use one here to make a simple point. How well do you think walking into a bar and asking the following would go over: "Hey fellas, how bad are Nazis really? And are Jewish people really that great anyway?"

And then when people give you their passionate thoughts, you just respond with "Woah woah woah, I'm just asking simple questions to expand my understanding".

That's similar to what's going on here.

[wilkskyes]

If I could go back, knowing what I know now, I don't think I would have asked the question. I was a fool to think I could get any sort of simple response.

[maxxxxx]

There is no excuse for exploiting people no matter if they are poor or something else. Ever.

[rsynnott]

The poor do not, as a group, usually have much power in society, so it’s hard for them to be at fault for much.

[undecisive]

I'm going to take your statements at face value as a genuine skeptics-driven desire for further exploration.

As someone who was once "just a poor boy, from a poor family" (to quote the bards) I've seen both sides of the coin.

My mother was a clever woman - as a child, too clever for the schools she went to, constantly picking fights with the teachers. As she tells it, she would usually win (at least on an intellectual level) but invariably - nobody likes a smart-arse - she would get expelled.

So one might argue that some of the poor can be at fault for not keeping their heads down and working within the system. An instinct to rebel against the flow is bad.

In my early childhood, she was a factory worker, then she became a care assistant. Neither pays very well, but she worked nights (which pays marginally more for a significantly worse quality of life).

Of course, myself and my brother were a massive drain on her finances. She ended up as a single mother early on due to a manipulative relationship.

So one might argue that some of the poor can be at fault for having children, trusting people, trusting the wrong people, or being human beings with human families. Being human is bad.

At one point, she tried door-to-door vacuum cleaner sales. She sucked (joke intended). She couldn't bring herself to lie to people about how a vacuum could change their lives, even if it was a pretty powerful vac.

So one might argue that some of the poor can be at fault refusing to become morally corrupt to earn a liveable paycheck.

When she became a care assistant - again, night shifts, and again, reasonably low-paid work. She tried to become a car mechanic - she had the physical strength to do the task, but her patchy education meant she couldn't handle the algebra. She could multiply any two numbers in the blink of an eye, but as soon as you replace one of the numbers with letters, her eyes would glaze over and she would yearn to discuss the weather.

But to her credit, throughout her life she never once took out a credit card (that I'm aware of). She treated credit as akin to the devil. Many many others did fall in the credit trap, because society tells you that's the way to cope, that it's better than failing to pay your bills on time, and the credit checks were nowhere near as stringent. (though, equally, there was no such thing as a pay-day loan).

So one might argue that some of the poor can be at fault for working within the system. An instinct to rebel against the flow is good.

Now, she has MS. She can't see, walk, or even stand most days. The government gives her an ungenerous stipend which is enough for her, as she spent our whole childhood skipping meals to meet bills anyway, and she throws up if she has to move after eating. Of course, they still sometimes try to claim that she could work because she can move her index finger (because those jobs exist) or because on a really good day she can distinguish between two dissimilar faces.

So one might argue that some of the poor can be at fault for being poor while other poor people are becoming morally corrupt to earn a liveable paycheck.

Now go through this and identify all the places that a non-poor person actively worked to keep the poor person down:

- The school teacher who would rather expel a kid than have a genuine conversation

- The factory bosses who pay their employees peanuts so they can charge their customers pennies less

- The care homes that charge each patient more than 3000/week, yet even with more than 4 patients per carer, budget for less than 1000/carer-week (that's idealized, 1 person for 24 hours, 7 days a week)

- The person who felt they "owned" her because they were the major breadwinner

- The salespeople who create ads for credit cards or pay-day loans that will never be repaid, and the salespeople who sign users up (or these days, the developers who build the systems to sign people up)

- The government-funded nurses who have a quota of "spongers" - a monthly number of people that they have to declare as fit for work, even if they're not, even if any appeal would reject the declaration without a second look, even if the disabled person has no money left, even if it will break the person's spirit, even if it might drive them deeper into credit, into depression, into suicide, into starvation.

I could go on. And, arguably, it's not the morally corrupt non-poor person who is at fault - if they don't do their morally-corrupt job, then they become poor. But there's never anyone up the chain of command who has any moral responsibility.

It's the poor person's fault. You know. For being poor.

[saagarjha]

What should they be at fault for?