The cruelty is still the point

The thing that enrages me most in arguments against aid to the lowest income brackets and for aid to the highest and to corporations, otherwise known as trickle down economics, is that just giving the poor money helps pretty much everyone.

If money isn't moving it really isn't helping the economy, and the rich mostly don't move money in ways that matter. The system is set up that money sort of filters upwards until it gets to a billionaire, and there it remains for all time. This means that whether we give a tax cut to the rich, or cash to the poor, the rich will still get the money eventually anyway.

The above isn't really revolutionary economic theory it's basically how capitalism should work in an ideal world. Money moves, providing a benefit to those it comes into contact with, the government gets tax revenue from the transactions it participates in, and more money is made, which then naturally raises the question: "Why do we do the opposite of that?".

As I have said a few times before, the cruelty is still the point.

You can make all kinds of arguments against funding the poor, you can say that no, trickle down economics totally works, you can say that those in power don't understand economics, you can say that people should be taught independence and not to rely on government aid, you can argue that the government shouldn't be in the business of aiding anyone at all. You'll find people who honestly believe all these things and more, but for nearly all of them and for nearly all of us you will find an often unspoken reason as well:

The poor deserve to suffer.

I mean it when I say all of us, yes, even you, even me. You need to admit it, just like you need to admit you're a bit racist and have privilege. Racism and classism are essentially the same thing if you dig down deep enough anyway, but for this discussion consider the people you know. Do you know someone who hasn't worked seriously in forever and indeed doesn't seem too interested in doing so ever again? Does this person spend a ton of time complaining about how poor they are and how no one helps them, then spends the small amount of money they do get on something frivolous? Sure you do, we all do. Perhaps that someone is unfairly maligned by you, maybe they are disabled in one way or another and unable to work, maybe something else is happening that you can't see. Maybe not, it doesn't actually matter because when I gave the description above someone probably came to your mind along with an emotional reaction.

Our economic policy is based on that image, and that reaction. That reaction of "God, they just keep taking. I don't want to be part of it anymore."

It would be a mistake to say I think you are wrong to think how you do. Lord knows there are toxic people at any income level and you may very well know one. The point is that reaction is applied to the poor as a matter of policy and we have all internalized it just a little bit.

When we as a nation speak up for policies that leave the poor behind while giving yet more money to the rich, we do so less because we worship the rich, although that is also true, but more because we don't want to help the undeserving. There are always poor people after all, no matter how much support goes to them it seems, people will always need support, after a certain point shouldn't there be no more poor people? Haven't we helped enough?

Rationally most of us know that is not true, that you can never help "enough", and there is no reason to stop caring for an entire class of people. But the idea speaks to us emotionally and so we look for reasons to support it, and look to ignore reasons on the opposite side.

We have a hard time sustaining kindness as a nation, especially when it is inconvenient in any way. Much easier to sustain cruelty. After all those suffering must deserve it right? Otherwise they wouldn't be suffering, thank god I am not one of them, I don't deserve to suffer like that.

I've had those thoughts before, I won't lie, and I am poor by any financial measure. I imagine you have too, we aren't saints and are results of society just the same.

This I think is in large part why billionaires never fix anything, they could be heroes, literally and figuratively, Elon Musk could become Batman, Jeff Bezos could buy the Amazon and protect it. Any number of the couple thousand or so billionaires in the world could do incalculable good for it and it wouldn't even cost them very much in the end, but they don't, because they in large part think everyone else who isn't on their level isn't worth it, is a scumbag that just keeps taking. And we reward them for it because they reinforce our own viewpoint as we reinforce theirs.

People say being kinds is easy, it's not really, I mean, it's easy once, it's easy to help someone with their bills once, to give a ride once, to give a round of stimulus checks once, the problem is it that people needing kindness don't go away after you've been kind once. They still need it and they'll need it tomorrow too.

But cruelty, well, cruelty is as easy as walking past someone, all you have to do is not look at what you step over. It couldn't be simpler, and if you can convince yourself that whatever you stepped over deserves to be there, well, cruelty is even rewarding, good on you for not wasting effort, time is money and all that. It even gets easier with time! If you've been cruel once then it's much easier to justify being so again. Do it enough and you won't even feel a thing when hundreds of thousands die on the streets, or in nursing homes, hospitals, or classrooms.

But we can't run a government like that, if we do then what is the point? If our policies are based on cruelty, on what is easy, then why does it exist at all? What is there to aspire to or protect about a system designed to predate upon the needy?

It's easy to be cruel, but right now we have to convince ourselves that the people we are cruel to deserve it, wouldn't it be easier to be cruel to something that actually does? We can use the energy saved to be kinder to each other instead.