I have been writing of how the changes in our society, high unemployment of poor, making it more difficult to vote, raising taxes of the poor, taking away public transportation, cutting back on food stamps and health care, building thrift stores for rich rather than poor are making it harder and harder to be poor. It occurred to me that the phrase, ‘harder to be poor’ might be misunderstood. A better one might be that our individualistic society is making it easier to be poor.

Peter Maurin and other Catholic Workers have talked about how we cannot change another person but we can make “it easier to be good” by changes in the environment in which we all live. We Catholics believe that the government, on all levels, exists for the ‘common good’. We believe in the principle of subsidiarity that “holds that social problems should be dealt with at the most immediate (or local) level consistent with their solution”. Thus the government does not exist for individuals, like lowing taxes, but for the community, doing what is best for all and cannot be taken care of by individuals alone. The common good means making it easier for all to be good.

Lots of our social problems, like violence, poverty, poor education stem from the widening disparity between the poor and rich. When a smaller and smaller percentage of people have a greater and greater amount of wealth there will be problems as we see all around us.

In a garden if we put 98% of our resources into 2% of the garden and let the other 98% of garden go to waste and to weed, eventually there will be problems. As with nature, it is with society. By making it easier to be poor we are creating problems for all of society. If the purpose of government is for the ‘common good’ we must seek a government that is lessening not widening the gap between the small percent of rich and the rest of society. By making it easier to be poor we are creating an environment where it is harder to be good.

Comments

Please send any comments on this post to . Let us know which day’s post your comments pertain to. If the comments are appropriate we will post them here for you.