US to request that UK release emergency oil reserves

[fifthcolumn]

I think what most of the "poor and happy" are missing is that the "poor and happy" aren't.

Are you actually poor if you own your own land and can feed yourself?

Ask another question: how much money does it cost to have enough land in a developed country that you can be self sufficient?

Would you call having that amount of capital asset *poor*?

I think not.

The argument is false.

The real poor today are those who own nothing and have to work their arses off all day long in a shitty job just to make ends meet.

I *seriously* doubt you can find *anyone* who meets that definition and is "happy".

[extractorfan]

I *seriously* doubt you can find *anyone* who meets that definition and is "happy".

I definitely met a happy person in a shit job the other day.

Might have been a bit slow or something.

[DominicJ]

I *seriously* doubt you can find *anyone* who meets that definition and is "happy".

I remember chatting to someone who was campaigning in a overspill housing, he was describing a warm sunny day, and men in their 30's were riding around on bikes, with beer and water pistols, having a great time.
He had leaflets on the Northern Rock crisis.


No jobs, no education, no prospect of either, but outwardly quite happy, at least whilst the sun shines and they have benefit/crime money for beer and drugs.

[Little John]

I think what most of the "poor and happy" are missing is that the "poor and happy" aren't.

Are you actually poor if you own your own land and can feed yourself?

Ask another question: how much money does it cost to have enough land in a developed country that you can be self sufficient?

Would you call having that amount of capital asset *poor*?

I think not.

The argument is false.

The real poor today are those who own nothing and have to work their arses off all day long in a shitty job just to make ends meet.

I *seriously* doubt you can find *anyone* who meets that definition and is "happy".

Exactly.

It's funny how people who are poor and are also dispossessed from the primary means of production (which essentially means the same thing. If you have direct access to/control of the primary means of production your are, by definition, not poor) tend to have higher levels of crime, higher levels of self harm in all of its forms and higher levels of suicide.

Oh, yeah, they're obviously f*cking ecstatic....

[Ludwig]

It's funny how people who are poor and are also dispossessed from the primary means of production (which essentially means the same thing. If you have direct access to/control of the primary means of production your are, by definition, not poor) tend to have higher levels of crime, higher levels of self harm in all of its forms and higher levels of suicide.

Oh, yeah, they're obviously f*cking ecstatic....

True, but I don't think their unhappiness can always be explained solely by poverty. Many poor people in Africa have a lower standard of living than people on sink estates in the UK, but are happier because their society is stable, and they live in nicer environments.

I know someone who went to Eton and hated every minute of it. His problem wasn't poverty, it was being in an unsupportive environment surrounded by twats. The same might be said for many people of the people you describe.

I'm not generalising, just restating the oft-quoted observation that above a certain minimum standard of living, more money does not mean greater happiness.

[Little John]

It's funny how people who are poor and are also dispossessed from the primary means of production (which essentially means the same thing. If you have direct access to/control of the primary means of production your are, by definition, not poor) tend to have higher levels of crime, higher levels of self harm in all of its forms and higher levels of suicide.

Oh, yeah, they're obviously f*cking ecstatic....

True, but I don't think their unhappiness can always be explained solely by poverty. Many poor people in Africa have a lower standard of living than people on sink estates in the UK, but are happier because their society is stable, and they live in nicer environments.

I'm not generalising, just restating the oft-quoted observation that above a certain minimum standard of living, more money does not mean greater happiness.

Define what you mean by a "minimum standard of living" please Ludwig.

Or, perhaps, more precisely, define what you mean by "wealth".

[RenewableCandy]

When I was a lot younger and people were talking about poverty I used to say "d'you mean 'self-sufficient farmer' poverty, or 'cat's-piss-and-prostitution' poverty?".

[Ludwig]

Define what you mean by a "minimum standard of living" please Ludwig.

Oh FFS Steve, do you have to be so anal? I mean "having enough"; I mean not having to worry about how to meet your outgoings, and ideally having a bit extra for occasional treats.

That on its own does not secure happiness, because it's purely a negative definition. Strong emotional bonds, and something interesting to do with your time, are of course important as well.

There's quite a good book by Jonathan Haidt called The Happiness Hypothesis which deals with this subject. I don't buy all his claims mind you (at one point he insists that prostitutes and paraplegics are as happy as anybody else).

[Little John]

When I was a lot younger and people were talking about poverty I used to say "d'you mean 'self-sufficient farmer' poverty, or 'cat's-piss-and-prostitution' poverty?".

That's the point. As far as I can see, a person who has more than enough acreage to feed and clothe his family with a bit of surplus to cover the lean seasons, even though his pockets are empty of money, is vastly wealthier than someone who is earning 2k a month, is paying rent, or a massive mortgage, has a car and a few electronic conveniences/gizmos and maybe even goes on holiday to sunny Spain once a year.

The person described above is basically a couple of pay-checks away from the gutter and I would argue that he/she is typical of your average Brit. The person who owns that acreage is a lot further away from it than that.

If anyone here thinks the above is bollocks, just ask yourself exactly how much it would cost you to get yourself sufficient acreage in the UK (along with the attendant planning permission) to live the kind of life of that farmer.

More than most people will earn in a lifetime, is the answer.

[Little John]

Define what you mean by a "minimum standard of living" please Ludwig.

Oh FFS Steve, do you have to be so anal? I mean "having enough"; I mean not having to worry about how to meet your outgoings, and ideally having a bit extra for occasional treats.

I have found that the more money I earned, the more I spent on inessentials as compensation for the basic emptiness of my existence.

I'm not being anal. Your definition is crucial. Please see my post, immediately above.

[Ludwig]

All I was saying, Steve, was that there are more factors at work on sink estates to make people miserable, than simple poverty. I made it quite clear that poverty is a factor.

I don't think "owning the means of production" has been a big factor in being happy, for most people in recent history. It's pure abstraction. Of course WTSHTF you may be very glad you own your means of production - though on the other hand, you may well end up a target for others. Literally thousands of farmers have been murdered in South Africa since apartheid was dismantled.

[RenewableCandy]

The thing is, quite often the said farmer doesn't "own" that land in the conventional sense of the word. The culture in which they live entitles them to it.

Until or unless some b***ard comes along and land-grabs it, using the lack of written title-deeds as an "excuse".

However, even in the absence of land-grabs the farmer has risks all of his/her own: failing rains being the most "popular" at the moment (it's also quite a lot of work, depending on the type of farm). So the question is, which happens more often: failing rains or the P45?

[Little John]

All I was saying, Steve, was that there are more factors at work on sink estates to make people miserable, than simple poverty. I made it quite clear that poverty is a factor.

I am not saying that money (or lack of it) is the critical measure of poverty (though, for reasons outlined later, it can serve as a useful proxy measure). I am saying that a lack of control over one's present and future cirumstances is.

If you are living in conditions where you have access to raw materials such that you can always control your circumstances (such as a self sufficient farmer. Or, even a hunter gather, in principle. In practice, of course, they can no longer exist since their land has been stolen), it doesn't matter whether or not you have money because you don't need it.

However, in the highly urbanised West, where everything that wasn't nailed down was appropriated by men with swords long ago (and later men with guns), the only way you can excercise any control over your environment is via the medium of money. Therefore, money, in the industrialised West becomes the proxy for a capacity to control one's environment. If you are monetarily poor in the Uk, you have to rely on systems that are outside fo your control. It is this lack of control that is the true measure of povety and all of the attendant psychological and social problems that come with it

That's why those sink estates have the probems they do.

It's also why any observation that a "poor" farmer being happier than a person on a monetary income much higher than the farmer is evidence that poverty is not linked to happiness, is a false observation because it is missing the point about what poverty really is.

[Little John]

The thing is, quite often the said farmer doesn't "own" that land in the conventional sense of the word. The culture in which they live entitles them to it.

Until or unless some b***ard comes along and land-grabs it, using the lack of written title-deeds as an "excuse".

However, even in the absence of land-grabs the farmer has risks all of his/her own: failing rains being the most "popular" at the moment (it's also quite a lot of work, depending on the type of farm). So the question is, which happens more often: failing rains or the P45?

Unfortunately, because all of the best land was appropriated by men with guns long ago, for the average subsistence farmer the rains don't fall anywhere near often enough. But that is a second order issue (a very important second order issue, of course) in terms of the principle point I am tyrying to make

[JavaScriptDonkey]

The 'enlightenment' is just the realisation that other people have access to so much more than you ever dreamed existed.

YM "advertising" HTH



I love the way on the internet two people can more or less agree and still fight about it.

No.

I mean clean water and access to Western medicines.