The same mechanism is at work in many American Indian communities.
The problem is exacerbated by ongoing evaporative cooling: people (mostly young) with energy, talent, motivation all leave. What’s left behind in the community is usually not pretty.
The problem is exacerbated by ongoing evaporative cooling: people (mostly young) with energy, talent, motivation all leave. What’s left behind in the community is usually not pretty.
It may not be pretty, but that’s most likely because they either don’t have any money, or can only get it under onerous conditions (‘welfare’). If you just pay everyone the same amount, it doesn’t take much to improve these folks’ living standards until they’re at least tolerable. (Since their local area is so cheap.) And once you have some money flowing in the area, local job opportunities would also spring up. (This is basically the principle GiveDirectly relies on, although they apply it to some of the poorest people in the world, as opposed to Roma or Native Americans.)
Money is a part of the problem, or maybe the origin of the whole problem, but at some moment there is a culture that perpetuates itself, and from that point giving more money does not help.
For example, in a group of poor people it makes sense to reduce the concept of private property. To make a mutual treaty of “if someone from our group is starving, and others have food or money, they are obliged to share”. At some moment this treaty benefits everyone, so it becomes a part of the culture. But in a long term… as soon as the first job opportunity appears, you would have to be an idiot to take it. It means more work and less free time for you, while your wage is shared with everyone. But you can’t go against the whole culture. Except if you leave the group. This is a reason why the motivated people leave; they simply cannot live the new lifestyle within the old group.
Okay, this is too complicated topic to be discussed as a sidenote in a “stupid questions thread”. Just wanted to say that “a poor community surrounded by rich communities” is a different dynamics than “a poor community surrounded by poor communities”. The difference is the easiness of just going away for all motivated people.
To make a mutual treaty of “if someone from our group is starving, and others have food or money, they are obliged to share”. …
Interesting point. Still, it would be interesting to see whether UBI can affect this dynamic. After all, the whole point of UBI is to provide social insurance (i.e. make sure that nobody is starving, at least in a literal sense) more effectively than any arrangement within the poor group.
make sure that nobody is starving, at least in a literal sense
The point is, that it’s already done without an UBI, by a much lesser scarcity than in previous generations, augmented by a very meager but existing aid system, that nobody is starving in the literal sense, and this allows them to choose a less responsible lifestyle. And it is very hard for those who try to break out of this lifestyle, they have to literally flee their peers. I know of Gypsies who did successfully try to break out and become medics or engineers, and they (especially, but not exclusively, girls) were bullied by their own families: “how dare you think you are better than us!”
The same mechanism is at work in many American Indian communities.
The problem is exacerbated by ongoing evaporative cooling: people (mostly young) with energy, talent, motivation all leave. What’s left behind in the community is usually not pretty.
It may not be pretty, but that’s most likely because they either don’t have any money, or can only get it under onerous conditions (‘welfare’). If you just pay everyone the same amount, it doesn’t take much to improve these folks’ living standards until they’re at least tolerable. (Since their local area is so cheap.) And once you have some money flowing in the area, local job opportunities would also spring up. (This is basically the principle GiveDirectly relies on, although they apply it to some of the poorest people in the world, as opposed to Roma or Native Americans.)
Money is a part of the problem, or maybe the origin of the whole problem, but at some moment there is a culture that perpetuates itself, and from that point giving more money does not help.
For example, in a group of poor people it makes sense to reduce the concept of private property. To make a mutual treaty of “if someone from our group is starving, and others have food or money, they are obliged to share”. At some moment this treaty benefits everyone, so it becomes a part of the culture. But in a long term… as soon as the first job opportunity appears, you would have to be an idiot to take it. It means more work and less free time for you, while your wage is shared with everyone. But you can’t go against the whole culture. Except if you leave the group. This is a reason why the motivated people leave; they simply cannot live the new lifestyle within the old group.
Okay, this is too complicated topic to be discussed as a sidenote in a “stupid questions thread”. Just wanted to say that “a poor community surrounded by rich communities” is a different dynamics than “a poor community surrounded by poor communities”. The difference is the easiness of just going away for all motivated people.
Interesting point. Still, it would be interesting to see whether UBI can affect this dynamic. After all, the whole point of UBI is to provide social insurance (i.e. make sure that nobody is starving, at least in a literal sense) more effectively than any arrangement within the poor group.
The point is, that it’s already done without an UBI, by a much lesser scarcity than in previous generations, augmented by a very meager but existing aid system, that nobody is starving in the literal sense, and this allows them to choose a less responsible lifestyle. And it is very hard for those who try to break out of this lifestyle, they have to literally flee their peers. I know of Gypsies who did successfully try to break out and become medics or engineers, and they (especially, but not exclusively, girls) were bullied by their own families: “how dare you think you are better than us!”