Poverty effects every country in the world. Some countries deal with poverty more than others, but it is a problem in some form or another everywhere, the question becomes is it inevitable? The CM country Chapan, otherwise known as the students from Shawnee Mission North High School in Overland Park, Kansas, took on this question as a class and came up with some answers based on experience within the Civic Mirror. The citizens of Chapan began with a question posed by Instructor Kayte Cormack,
“We’ve talked a lot recently about poverty and impoverished nations and people. Are economic imbalances that occur between citizens something people just have to accept, or could and should they be minimized? “
Citizen Michael began by discussing not only experience, but his understanding of one political philosophy he knew well,
“Both definitely. We should try to minimize it and maybe even get rid of it entirely. But i guess theres a problem with that too because Karl Marx wanted to get rid of the class system (close to/exactly the same as “economic imbalances“). what started out as a good idea from Karl Marx went sour because it was way to easy for smart/powerful people to take over. I think we should make the standard living in all countries a lot better. I don’t have a proposal for how to do this but thats where we should start. Much past just raising the standard of living would just be making a socialist society. People should learn to accept differences of economic status as part of the world.”
Arriving at the same conclusion, albeit by different means, Citizen Nate shares his opinion,
“I believe that the economic imbalances between citizens should be minimized at all cost. People should not have to live in an economy where such imbalances occur, because they can cause discontentment among the populace. Imbalances in the economy will be hard to correct, however, I believe that if we all work together than we will be able to stabilize the economy. i realize that even if you stabilize the economy there will be some people who squandor what they have, thes toe people are the only ones who should have to learn to live with economic imbalances.”
Meanwhile the Government of Chapan, most likely the President, shares a more politically conservative viewpoint,
“i think some people are placed in a situation, where in order to be out of poverty, you would have to rob a bank or hold someone ransom, but since those are illegal i would come to the conclusion that depending on your situation.
But in a place like America i think we do see some people who rely more on the check coming in the mail from the Government then, they, themselves actually working to get meals on the table.
there are both people in poverty who work constantly to earn a dollar a day, they just have to accept they are in poverty and always will be. although they dont.
and there are others who take care of their 20 bebe kids and earn a check in the mail. could this poverty they are in be minimized. yes. but they would rather accept the poverty and accept the check.”
While Representative Saran shares a less idealistic view,
” I think that economic imbalance is something that should be accepted by people. The reason I think that is because, no matter how hard the government tries to make the gap between rich and poor smaller there always seems to be a problem. The fact of the matter is that there will always be a difference. Some people make more money then others, that’s the way it is now and that’s the way its always been. If this was to be minimized there will be a lot of conflict. Therefore to avoid all that, the richer people should just accept it. Take taxes for example, there is no way that rich people can get the same amount of taxes as the poor people. The reason for that is if you don’t make a ton of money you can’t pay a ton of taxes. With that said I believe that economic imbalances should be accepted unless someone comes up with a better way to approach the problem.”
Can a society fix poverty? Does society want to fix poverty? These questions are quintessential when it comes to deciding how a society should be governed and what kinds of laws should be passed. It is obvious that the citizens of Chapan have very strong opinions on this subject, but how will they use these points of view to better the lives of their citizens?
