Where does poverty come from?
And how do we get rid of it?
In the beginning, there was no poverty because everyone had free access to the land.
Gathering plants and hunting animals was the only way of making a living that people had
until 10,000 years ago.
The land was the means of making a living.
And no one could stop anyone from getting to it.
We lived in groups of no more than 150 people.
Life wasn't perfect.
There was violence and even genocide.
But on balance, we had not yet caught the flu.
That would come with a new way of making a living: agriculture!
For a while there was still no poverty.
Same reason!
Everyone had free access to the means of making a living.
Which was still the land.
But now not just any land would do.
Now you needed access to the specific land where you had planted your crops.
Some jerks got together and said, "This land where you planted your crops...
It's ours now."
They had ceased control of the means of making a living.
They said, "We have a great idea.
You keep farming this land, and we'll take the crops.
In return, we'll let you live... on the scraps."
And so here we have the answer to where poverty comes from.
It came from people losing access to the means of making a living.
It's the same today.
But today our way of making a living is capitalism.
In capitalism the means of making a living is capital.
We don't make our living simply by farming anymore.
We build things in factories and cook things in restaurants and make apps in tech companies,
and of course we still do farm, mostly on huge farms with giant machines and all of
that stuff is capital.
But it's the same fundamental process as back when our way of making a living was farming.
Back then we used the land to make our living.
Today we use capital to make our living.
So the answer to our next question "how do we get rid of poverty" is now obvious.
Make more capital!
But where does capital come from?
The answer is of course...
Matt Damon! (angelic music) Matt Damon makes wells for African children and can come develop
your economy too, but if Matt's not available, then let's go with the less sexy, but massively
scalable alternative...
Long Term Bank Loans!
Borrowing capital in massive quantities is the real way that countries not only provided
clean water to their people but also built up their means of making a living and became
prosperous.
Bank loans give entrepreneurs the capital they need to invent things, start businesses,
build factories, and give governments the capital they need to make water and health
systems, roads and bridges and other odds and ends, like the internet.
Countries that have been pulling their people out of poverty all have one thing in common... special
banks whose job it was to make those kinds of long term loans. Loans specifically for the purpose
of building up their country's means of making a living.
Germany had non-profit banks, China had state-owned banks, Japan had private, for-profit banks
that were created to make long-term investments in industry.
America had all of these kinds of banks over the years, but in a fit of stupidity last century,
we got rid of nearly all of them, which is why Americans have been falling back into
poverty.
Now, it's true...
there are other ways, besides special long-term banks, to build up your country's means of
making a living.
But they are unpleasant.
I know that long-term banking wasn't the sexiest solution to poverty that you were hoping for,
but it is straightforward and simple and there's nothing stopping any country, especially rich
countries like the US, from creating banks tasked with the job of building up their means
of making a living.
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