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Do the Poor Get What They Deserve?
The tension between empathy and economics.
When we think of the well-being of others, we often fall into one of two camps.
One camp trusts the economic system to dole out resources to those who are willing to work hard. They think that if you haven’t “made it” it’s because you haven’t put in the effort. Some exceptions apply, of course.
The other camp is a little wary of the economic system. It, too, values hard work, but it’s concerned that some people who work hard still can’t seem to make ends meet. They think that if you haven’t “made it” it could be because of a fundamental unfairness baked into the structure of the economic system itself.
In the United States, you may not be surprised to hear that a Pew Research poll shows these camps are split along party lines. Regardless, most of us think that hard work has something to do with getting ahead. Unfortunately, while it seems like we all have the same capacity to “work hard”, this just isn’t the case.
In Seven and a Half Rules about the Brain, Lisa Feldman Barrett explains, tragically, how young brains are changed by poverty. It takes about 25 years for the human brain to finish developing, she says, and how this development occurs is impacted by experience.
