Luck, Effort, Welfare and Alturism

[Depreciating Asset]

Reading a book and I came across this passage:

"In societies where many people think that the role of bad luck is much less important than that of personal effort and risk-taking in determining economic performances, a lot of resistance will be put up against welfare state institutions. Conversely, in societies where the opposite view prevails, the predicament of the poor will arise much more sympathy and welfare transfers will be considered necessary to mitigate inequalities."

Institutions, Social Norms and Economic Development (Fundamentals of Development Economics)
by Jean-Philippe Platteau

Do you think most people who are poor in America are poor mostly because of a lack of effort or mostly because of bad luck? Which factor is more important in determining whether someone is poor - effort or luck?

I wonder if the quote is true and all the liberals will answer one way and all the conservatives/libertarians the other way.

 

[Domingo Halliburton]

guess i'm lucky.

if we raise minimum wage, wic, other social nets, these articles will just continue about how we don't help brenda.

 

[acri1]

Well, "luck" and "effort" are vague concepts and and hard to measure.

But the biggest known factor in determining your socioeconomic status is that of your parents. People born to poor parents are very likely to be poor as adults, people born to middle-class parents are very likely to be middle-class as adults, etc. So if "luck" refers to your parents' socioeconomic status, it's probably more important than anything.

As far as resistance to the welfare state, I think a lot of the resistance to it in the U.S. is due to racial tension. The real reason many white people are so stridently against welfare is that they feel that the bulk of the benefits will go to blacks/minorities/immigrants (who they feel are lazy and undeserving). So it's just seen as a tax on white people to give money to black people, basically. That's why you have all this "welfare queen" rhetoric on the right.

Countries that are more racially homogenous tend to have more generous welfare states for this reason.