Bewildering Respect

Starting rich is a safety net. Not all safety nets are viewed the same. 

A lot of Government safety nets come at the cost of respect. They are the opposite of a job interview. To get help, you must prove you need help. With a job, you know there are limited vacancies, so you are proud they chose you. To get help, you prove you cannot self-sustain. That is a belittling acknowledgment to make. 

When we look at other people’s problems, our advice is autobiographical. We look at their problem with our whole picture. With our capital, our knowledge, our skills, our experience, our way of seeing... but I am not you. You are not me. 

Watching a participation play where the actors take suggestions can leave the audience frustratedly correcting and recorrecting as no decision plays out as if they were acting. I even ended up as one of the characters, “let me have a turn”. Even then, you are just one of the participants and many decisions are team efforts. The decision you would make in that situation would not be the same, because you would not be you in that situation. 

I find seeing real poverty humbling because it strips away how much credit I give myself for my own personal merit. It strips away vast chunks of the justification for why I am as fortunate as I am. It leads to a re-evaluation of thorny ideas like white privilege, civilizing missions, and unintended consequences. 

It leads to bewildering respect for people in their worlds.

Where You Are

I lived in the UK for 12 years. When I arrived, I admit I was skeptical about the idea of poverty there. The UK is a rich country. There is a tendency for us to only care about the poverty we can see. 

South Africa is notable as the worst country in the world for inequality, and yet it is only as unequal as the world-as-a-whole (using Gini Coefficient as the measure). What is considered poverty in the UK is very different from South Africa. 

By the same token, my eyes would be opened by going to South Sudan. A friend of mine’s job was removing bombs there! 

I gained some appreciation of UK poverty when I was in the US, walking (probably unwisely) around areas of Chicago, and it definitely felt like poverty. It felt like Apartheid. 

Poverty is scarcity. When a single thing starts taking on your full attention. When you have to focus not on choice, in the context of all your decisions. The immediate becomes so important nothing else is relevant. Even a financially wealthy person can have time poverty, because they no longer have choice in their moments. 

It was an eye-opener to see tough, difficult to solve, poverty in rich countries. 

I went to a play in London where the actors paused and took suggestions from the audience, and re-acted. A theatrical version of the film, “I, Daniel Blake”. Where the wheels (illogically for those watching) fall off. “If only they had done [this]”. The punchline being that it is almost meaningless to suggest alternate paths to someone not in your situation. 

We don’t see the same. We can’t see the whole situation, and make decisions FROM where they are.

poverty

Difficult Questions

We do not all have the same skills and knowledge. We do not all have the same barriers to entry. We have different opportunities. We have different sources of funding. We are consuming resources unsustainably, yet the average global GDP is only about $11,500 per person. Can you live on $11,500 a year and still create space to save?

If you are earning more than that, can you reduce your consumption to that level? Yet, there is a whole swathe of the world’s population living in poverty. How do we raise people out of poverty, when we can’t all consume the amount that is being consumed by those who are consuming too much?

How do we incentivize if consuming more is not an option? How do you get someone out of bed in the morning, if you are asking them to have a worse day than yesterday? Every day?

These are difficult questions that require some fundamental reframing of how we make our decisions. 

Framing and Structure

Navigating Paperwork

Pushing paper is a core part of finding your way in the modern jungle. My friend Karabo wrote a guest post for my blog a few years ago where she talked about the advantages of coming from a family that valued education. The lessons learnt at the feet of gogos and uncles. Overheard conversations and helping hands. Another friend, Tom, is a Polish-British Soutie. Understanding “Rich Country Poverty” was one of the harder things for me to wrap my head around as a South African-British Soutie. Tom told me of how he volunteers to help people fill in forms. Having navigated (and navigating) my way through applying for bursaries, getting passports, fertility treatment, adoption processes, job interviews and all sorts of paper work… this makes sense. Often asking the same question repeatedly in a slightly different way, with confidence, is needed to maintain momentum. Karabo and Tom’s observations remind me of how important believing you deserve to take the steps, and getting guidance, is in a path dependant world.

A job application dated 1913

Human Voice

“Poverty is not a lack of character. It is a lack of cash,” points out Rutger Bregman. Two fundamental principles in stilling the waves of money anxiety are (1) Never be a Forced Seller, and (2) Never be a Forced Buyer. Avoid being put in a corner. Get yourself in a position where you can say yes, or no. Become a decision maker. Price is not value. It is a way of listening to supply and demand. Adding force or scarcity is a way of price swallowing value whole. The key source of force is basic living needs and unexpected emergencies. Things you cannot say no to, that stop you from building or breathing. To avoid force, you need to snap the hand-to-mouth connection of depending on your earning ability. Overcoming any debt traps, then building an emergency fund of cash. Gradually putting money to work, and building your lung capacity. The breath to say no. Price does not listen to those with no voice.

Spectrogram of the Human Voice

Wildly Constrained

“Rewilding is about letting nature take care of itself, enabling natural processes to shape land and sea, repair damaged ecosystems and restore degraded landscapes. Through rewilding, wildlife’s natural rhythms create wilder, more biodiverse habits” (rewildingeurope.com). Rewilding is David Attenborough’s call to arms in his witness statement, “A Life on our Planet”. He points out that “a species can only thrive when everything around it thrives too.” I don’t buy into Abundance culture. I can’t, having been born in Apartheid South Africa. The world has constraints. We have to solve the dual problem that we are consuming too much, and yet masses of us are living in poverty. In “Stubborn Attachments”, Tyler Cowen talks about Maximum Sustainable Growth. We need to grow our way out of poverty, while rethinking growth. Rethinking consumption. Rethinking how we impose ourselves on the world. And getting wilder.

Abundance in Constraint

The median (half have less) disposable income for UK households (2.4 people) is £29,400. After reading William MacAskill and Peter Singer who study Effective Altruism, I decided it was worth aiming to live off an income of less than £2,000 a month. Aiming for less seems very counterintuitive in a bigger-better-more world. If you believe in abundance, then it also seems unnecessary. Why self-impose constraint? I don’t believe resources are abundant, and grapple with conspicuous consumption in a world with structural apartheid. Poverty is still very real, and mostly apportioned by our compounded historic prejudices. Sustainability is also clearly a pressing issue. I am all for Maximum Sustainable Growth, but how we co-ordinate means we can’t think in isolation. 1s and 0s (digital pleasures) and walks are abundant. Big houses, cars, and plane trips clearly aren’t. I do believe in win-win growth. Someone rising up doesn’t have to be a threat, but how we count, what we count, and where/if we grow does need reflection. You can still lean into true abundance within empowering constraints.

Bit of a Wet

I was a bit of a wet as a kid. At the tail end of Apartheid, we still had Corporal Punishment (which ended with the birth of Democracy). There were two occasions when I almost got caned, but waterworks saved me from Mr Pike and Mr Ash (not making the names up). This was the same culture that had the 2003 Springboks naked in a foxhole while having ice-cold water poured over their heads. The complicated bit is the "my parents beat me and look how I turned out" justification given. Often people who had it hard become the hardest opponents of stopping it from being hard in the first place. Like people who have made it against the odds objecting the loudest to those in poverty being given "handouts". I am still a bit of a wet. I don't regard basic foundations of kindness and respect as handouts. I don't believe in fear as an incentive.

Caning stand from British Prison in Hong Kong

Powering Decision Makers

People without money aren’t infants. They don’t need decisions made for them. They need money. Money is the fundamental unit of decision making in a market-based economy. Democracy shouldn’t be about making decisions for other people unless it absolutely has to be. Adding conditions to how people make their basic choices costs money. You have to employ pseudo-parents to question real life adults. To strip them of their agency. People who aren’t in poverty tend to have big ideas about how people in poverty should make their choices. Either from a moral or “quality” perspective. All businesses boil down to problem solving for people with money. Good businesses have direct relationships with decision makers. If you want to solve the problem of poverty, create more decision makers. Then watch how the problems get solved. Spontaneously. From the bottom up.

detail from a drawing

by Leonardo da Vinci

Give Cash

The theory behind GiveDirectly.org is that people are best placed to make their own decisions. As Rutger Bregman puts it, “Poverty isn’t a lack of character, it is a lack of cash”. Unconditional Cash Transfers don’t have any criteria about who receives the money, or how it is spent. Cash gives people autonomy over their own lives. All business ideas start with identifying and articulating the problems of people with money, in a way the people with money recognise. Non-Monetary programs tend to impose the views of people with money, on what problems people without money have. The addition of a layer of bureaucracy (people who aren’t in poverty receiving salaries) and costs (of means testing and delivery) means lots of the money allocated to those struggling gets lost in translation. There is an ego cost of giving cash. It means you don’t get to use your wisdom and insight to solve the problems of others. It means you trust that they understand their worlds better than you do.

Solid Foundations

Consumption Inequality bothers me more than Income or Wealth Inequality. Scarcity is a reality. This highlights Conspicuous Consumption in a world where a Billion people still live on less than $2 a day. Most people live hand-to-mouth. For most people Income is a proxy for Consumption, and few have the ability to build Wealth. Some have the ability, but not the desire or discipline. You can live a debt-financed life where your consumption exceeds your high income, and still have negative wealth. Building sufficient Capital to finance your consumption detaches the power income and wealth have over you. It doesn’t mean you can do anything. It forges internal resolve and the ability to respond. Reduces anxiety. Gives perspective. If you have a secure base powering your endurance, and the resilience to adjust, you are in a fundamentally different place from constantly hunting for the next meal. I don’t think fear for survival is a motivator for the kind of creativity that inspires. We build from solid foundations.

Gapminder.org

Pop the Bubble

A Universal Basic Income is a periodic payment delivered to all on an individual basis without means test or work requirement. Without Capital, a Basic Income would need to be redistributory. It would be paid upfront to everybody, and then claimed back at the end of the period from those who conspicuously demonstrate their wealth (income, assets, consumption). It would not end inequality or remove incentives to work for more, but it cuts out the middleman and expenses in providing an absolute floor for financial poverty within a given community. Sometimes the best way to solve a problem is directly. With Capital, a UBI can be viewed as a dividend on common wealth. A UBI, like a share, becomes an inalienable slice of ownership in society. One path to this is National Governments. Another path is Community building. People coming together from the bottom up to voluntarily build the kind of Communities they are proud to be a part of. Ignore borders and bubbles. Build relationships. Build Community Wealth Funds. Empower yourself and others in a practical and tangible way. Move forward.

Support and Build

One way to finance an idea is to convince people it is important, and then get those people to fund it. Raise and spend. Another way is to build the Capital to finance it. The dilemma is most of the needs we raise funding for aren’t limited. This means building Capital for later, means not spending now. Even though there are things that need spending on now. Financial Poverty is just one example. There is mounting evidence that the best way to help people in Financial Poverty is directly. Give them cash. Pay as you go redistribution is a hand-to-mouth solution. Another way would be to build Community Wealth Funds that pay a Universal Basic Income as a dividend. That requires time. There is a middle ground. If some of the money raised is used to fund immediate needs, and the balance is used to build a sustainable solution. Eat some fruit. Plant some trees. Live in the present, but build for the future.

Support 1 person in extreme poverty by donating $1 a day

Firelighter

Money doesn’t create value. It releases it. One of the reasons I am a Universal Basic Income activist is that people trapped in Financial Poverty lack a catalyst. They have skills, knowledge, needs, and wants but this is all trapped because we speak with coins, pieces of paper, ones and zeroes. Pure-play Adam Smith Capitalism pushes decision making down from central committees to individuals making the choice to exchange. It is the “tacit knowledge” that is released when a price floats somewhere between the buyer and seller’s value… so that POP! – value is created in the swap. Money becomes a lubricant to get the whole process started. Then if some of that additional value is invested rather than consumed, the person can gradually be released from imprisoned potential to empowered engagement with the world.

Muted

Money is a coordination tool. A step forward from Barter, where you need a reciprocal ask/offer and offer/ask to match. It is not the last step. As we get better at understanding and matching our potential and our purposes. All businesses are about problem-solving. Identifying and articulating a need/want, and a willingness to swap money for that being met. It starts with a community of need/want. A market. One of the reasons I am passionate about Community Wealth Funds, and Universal Basic Income, is that it could create a catalyst for universal understanding of basic needs. Rather than centralising decisions about what people need. Listen. Empower from the bottom up. Use words. In a world where money is how we speak, the impoverished are forced into silence. Their potential and purpose muted.

Through the Noise

Trev:

You don't have to commit a crime to enjoy the right to remain silent. Two urges I am working hard on are my "Righteous Indignation" and my "Drama Instinct". I have always been relatively easy to get a rise out of.  Looking at the wrongs in the world makes my blood boil. A "Choose Me Lord" religious response to putting myself in the way of injustice. The kind of guy that would have made an easy recruit for the Crusaders or the Saracens depending on where I happened to be born.  That has always made me good value tease. My Drama Instinct is the same as most people's too. The less meaningful stuff on the edges that makes more noise, gets a disproportionate amount of my attention. The boring, ordinary, beautiful bits of life often get missed.

Saracens

Kev:
It does seem like that is a more general challenge than a Trev challenge... but not for everyone. There are a lot of people who just crack on with things without making much fuss about it. "A little less conversation, a little more action please" style organising and doing. Isn't that the point of a Liberal Democracy? You don't have to actually waste any time convincing people of anything. Unless you actually plan on committing a crime, you just need to get willing people, with the skills you need, and do the job. Part of the problem with "The People" getting power from Rulers is they then expect the Representatives to do a better job *for* them than the Rulers. The point is that they have the power. The point is to get the Rulers out of the way, and get on with it.

Sarah:
It depends where you are in the world. Not everyone, everywhere, enjoys these freedoms you are talking about. The fight is not over. Even in Rich countries, there is a surprising level of poverty. The poverty looks different. The social relations look different. It isn't as simple as saying "just crack on with it". You'll probably find that the people who believe that, and have the nature to do it, have can-do cultures and mentors and social networks. It is very easy from the outside to think of what you would do in someone else's situation. Except, if you were in their situation... you wouldn't be having the same thoughts. You may not even know what is on the menu.

Rebecca:
You are right about the differences between different places. I find that a useful way to open up the questions that are swallowing us. I was a car wash in the UK yesterday. It was run by about 20 presumably Eastern European people. They descended on the cars and the whole process took only a few minutes. It was incredible to watch. I kept wondering what the reaction to this scene would be in South Africa. In SA, there is a lot of "fake work". Because of the structural unemployment, a lot of people do jobs which basically just kill time. Since time is an easy unit to pay someone by, and the more time the job takes the more you get paid.

Paul:
That has caused tensions in and of itself. My experience is that immigrants, unlike some of the struggling local people, always work harder. They have a sense that no one owes them anything. They don't expect the state to provide for them as one of "The People" and so they graft. Most people don't want to leave their homes. They have to leave people behind. They go somewhere else in search of a better life, and with a sense of purpose. They are then outside their context. Whatever it was that was holding them back. That doesn't necessarily solve the issue for all the people still struggling. A lot of Eastern Europeans thought the opening up of Europe would lead to their countries becoming like the UK and Germany. Instead "The People" went there.

Peter:
This talk of Entitlement makes me feel very uncomfortable though. The most entitled people I meet are normally the wealthiest. They strongly believe that their success is through their own hard work, completely ignoring the massive investment they have normally had put into them. I have met so many people who talk about how they messed around at school. How they were naughty little scallywags. Then they went travelling or did something fun. Maybe picked up the odd bar job or whatever their English gave them access to. Then they suddenly decide to take life seriously, and doors open left, right, and centre. Even the ones who work hard from the start genuinely believe that their success is self-earned. Because they worked hard. As if people in poverty aren't working hard.

Norman:
The point seems to be that shouting about that Entitlement doesn't seem to make much of a difference? Does it actually change behaviours? These arguments are often among Champagne Socialists and Laissez-Faire Capitalists who both come from the same schools and whose lives don't actually reflect their convictions. It's just a public debate club. As it has become easier for anyone and everyone to have a voice, so the fringes have gained much more control of the conversation. They tend to detract from the people organising, building consensus, mediating, compromising, and all that other messy stuff that doesn't make for something that will get heaps of likes and retweets.

Amanda:
I would like to see more storytelling. Case studies in a "Humans of... " format where we start spreading real, practical, how-tos of options that people have. Bring these abstract debates down to the grassroots of how they affect real people's lives. Ideas and arguments are too big. We need to think smaller. Add back humanity into the conversation. I love Dollar Street from Gapminder. It shows real people's lives across the world. What they wear. Where they sleep. What they eat. How they eat. These are the real questions we should be asking. We get lost in all this ideological stuff. We need to be grounded in the realities of the stories of actual people. Not hand wavy The Peoples.

Mitch:
You are assuming people actually want a solution. I think most love the Drama. They are not actually looking for a solution. They love it when they find a troll as much as the troll loves finding them. I have seen really nice people I know in real life being complete gutter-dwellers online. Foaming at the mouth at people who probably think a lot like them. We love an enemy. Only a few years ago in the UK, everyone was moaning because of the sameness of politicians. You'll get the moaners, and you'll get the doers. The doers will have to drag the moaners along. That is just the way it is.

Trev:
Silence and action are powerful. I still think we need to engage in conversation. The destructive voices can't be allowed to grow like weeds. Equally, giving them a louder voice by over-reacting doesn't seem to be helpful either. I like the idea of a Daily Practice. Regularly being able to step back and ask what small actions are being taken? What is being built? What matters to us? What are the unintended consequences of our actions? It would be great if the conversation could shift to regularly improved questions. At the moment a lot of us seem to be coming at it aggressively with pre-packaged answers. More gaps. More silence. More questions. Less noise.

[Kev, Sarah, Rebecca, Paul, Peter, Norman, Amanda, Mitch are fictional]

Poker Money

I have never been in a proper physical fight. Some facing up, and posturing, but never in a full flung war. So I am not sure how I would respond. The closest I have come to battle is Rugby. 

As a 12-year-old tiny pipsqueak, I was fairly fearless and would take on the famously big Mario from Northwood. The bigger they are, the harder they fall. As a 13-year-old, I had moved from the scrum to the wing (sans speed) and was fairly easy to scare. The "13-year-old" eight-foot-guy from Glenwood with his kids cheering from his car, was welcome to run through me. My confidence returned a bit when my growth spurt kicked in, and I moved back to the side of the scrum. I was happy to get involved again.

Battles normally involved "looking someone in the eye" and a hard tackle, unless it was in a pile-up. Once, my team won a penalty because someone bit my nipple (through my jersey!) in front of the ref. Another time, this time at University, my nose was broken with a punch from the Police (not the cleanest Rugby players).

There is nothing abstract about facing up to someone you know can hurt you. For all the bravado, most Gents learn a fair amount about de-escalation because they know how much it hurts the next day.

Actual war, which I have been very lucky to avoid, used to be a similar face-to-face affair. Gradually, as it becomes a tech battle... guns replaced swords, bombs replace bullets, and people end up getting in their car and driving home for dinner after dropping a drone. Abstract.

This is a problem with the world of money as things get bigger. There is a disconnect between reality and financial decision making. We don't see things getting made. We don't see big parts of the world we are connected to.

"Poker Money" is an idea related to the famous song The Gambler - you never count your money, when you're sitting at the table. When playing Poker, you can't think of the chips as real money. It affects your decision. The best players in the world can be beaten by really rich (semi-competent) people who can raise the stakes to a point where the great player cares too much about an individual hand or game.

Even real money becomes Poker Money is a connected world. "The Law of One Price" is that the same thing should cost the same everywhere. This is a "Law" only in principle because it is not true in reality. Transaction costs and barriers mean we have to pay very much dependent on where we are.

This means that the price of a cup of coffee a day in the UK (say £2.50 for 30 days) would currently translate into about R1,300/month in South Africa. The Upper Bound Poverty Line (UBPL) in South Africa was moved from R992 a month (2015) to R1,138 (in 2017). In 2015, it was estimated 55% of South Africans lived below the UBPL. 

As a Soutie, that is crazy to wrap my head around. I am "sitting at the Poker Table", so I can't think of the Pounds I spend in Rands. The Afrikaans saying for doing that would involve "'n klein bietjie kots in my mond".

The challenge is getting the right balance between living life locally, and being in a global world. We are interdependent, but there are many obstacles, costs, barriers and local challenges that mean we aren't looking each other in the eyes. Our realities are detached from each other.

Poker Money is real money. Drones are real fights. The Global World is a Local World.

Just One Fifty

We have limited capacity. Limited time. Limited attention. Limited energy. The power of this is that we will make different mistakes. Mistakes are the foundation of resilience in an unpredictable world. With perfect knowledge of the future, doing what works again is sensible. With a complex, ambiguous, and uncertain world... small, regular, reversible mistakes are strength. 

Financial Empowerment (Ending Poverty) and Mental Health (Relationship Building) are my areas of focus. In 'Factfulness', Hans Rosling identifies five key threats we are wrestling with. Global Pandemic (the rampant spread of a disease in a connected world), World War (with weapons that could wipe us all out), Financial Meltdown (with the systems that keep us cooperating breaking down), Climate Change (where the resources and environment that sustain us breaks down), and Absolute Poverty (where Billions are excluded from the opportunities our ancestors built). These huge challenges facing 7.5 Billion people seem way to big to wrap our heads and hearts around.

It also means there are 7.5 Billion other heads and hearts facing the same challenges. The resilience, endurance, and creativity can come from everywhere. How do we narrow down and choose our own particular area of focus?

I am attempting to do that by joining others to build a Community of 150 People. 'Dunbar's Number' gives a (relatively arbitrary) number to the limit of our ability to develop stable social relationships. A group of people where you can know everyone, and know how everyone knows everyone. Where you can develop an understanding of the group's values, skills, and knowledge. An understanding of the group's story.

This should allow the ability to put names, faces, and stories to massive problems. Instead of 'X million people' don't have access to electricity, clean water, safety etc., it becomes a person. Mike doesn't have a bank account. Kerishnie doesn't know how to put a C.V. together. Thandiwe is old, and lonely. It also allows relationship building with people to be done in a sensitive, peer-to-peer, way.

We have a horrible history of 'Civilising Missions'. Where people with Saviour Complexes have attempted to spread their truth roughshod over established beliefs and strengths. Helping sensitively is hard. It is a minefield. Not to treating people as problems or projects. Regularly reflecting on the real intentions behind our actions. Unwinding our unknown prejudices.

I believe a group of 150 is sufficiently small for us to stretch ourselves. The 'Six Degrees of Separation' theory, is that all 7.5 Billion of us are connected by just 6 relationships. One knows Two, who knows Three, who knows Four, who knows Five, who knows Six, who knows Seven. That viral spread of knowledge lets what we learn benefit everybody. In a group of 150, we can try get the balance right between Local and Global. Stretching ourselves enough that we don't snap the 'Peer-to-Peer' connection. Enough common ground to see each other, enough different perspective to create a discomfort from which we can learn.

Those big risks we face are daunting. We need to break them down into bites. We need to look after ourselves, and each other. I believe that starts with Community Building. 7.5 Billion people is a lot of people to care for. How would the problem change if you focus on just One Fifty? How would you build that One Fifty?

Six Relationships

Price Tag

If you need something now, it doesn't matter if you know a place where you can get it cheap. It matters where you can get it now. It matters if you can get it. As a Soutie (someone with one foot in England and one foot in South Africa), one of the harder things to wrap my head and heart around is Relative Poverty. In terms of Global Poverty Criteria, virtually no one in the UK lives on less than £4 a day. That is about R72 a day. 80% of South Africans live on less than R3800 a month. That is roughly R125 a day. Those numbers aren't that helpful, because they only talk about the ins. They don't talk about the outs. About 20% of the people in the UK live in poverty with measures looking at ability to eat, heat a home, and have a roof over your head. At the quality of schooling. At the life opportunities.

Money is smoke and mirrors. You can earn a lot more in London than you can anywhere in South Africa. If you want to feel poor though... go to London. Even if you think you are reasonably well off. In Langa, an area of Cape Town where 72% of families of three live on less than R3,200, there is still an awesome buzz. There is a cricket field and hockey pitch that has generated National Sports stars. Not to downplay the poverty challenges. The resilience and energy in these places despite permanent Great Depression Level unemployment is in equal parts heart-wrenching and inspiring.

Communities have price tags. Friendships have price tags. It is why as things stretch, it becomes harder and harder to make friends across income lines. It is genuinely not unusual to spend £50 a head in the UK on a dinner with friends. To maintain friendships, it can be hard/impossible to be 'one of the crowd' if you don't. That is R900. For one meal. One meal. One. Except it isn't. I couldn't buy a meal for Rands in the UK. 

The problem is... I could send that money to South Africa. In a Global world where Capital, Goods, and Services can flow freely... it is the flow of people that is more tricky. People are ultra-local. We aren't ones and zeros that can be swapped between places in a line of banking code.

This is more an observation than an answer. I find it difficult living on two sides of a salty pond. Yet on both sides of the pond, that same inequality is on display. South Africa's is more in your face. As a country gets richer, they get more adept at hiding their difficulties. The difficulties don't disappear. Get "richer" doesn't matter much if part of the reward is an increased price tag. That is the problem with goals being based on numbers.

We need to get better at looking through the noise. At the dance between what comes in, and what goes out. 

Strand/Somerset-West and Nomzamo/Lwandle
Photo: Johnny Miller

Half and Half

Some questions are too hard to answer. Not answering is also not good enough. But we have to do something, because not doing something, is doing something. One of those hard questions is what to do about Poverty. Poverty is predominantly inherited. Privilege is also predominantly inherited. Where you are born, who your community is, the people you are likely to meet, and the natural skills and abilities you have.

Another hard question is to fix a challenge now, or fix it permanently later. 

The vast majority of us live hand-to-mouth. Even the wealthy. We don't have a savings culture. Safely less than 10% of us manage to retire one day having built financial security that allows us to maintain the lifestyle we had while working. Most people consume whatever they make, rather than building. Normally, because they need to. Normally, because creating a gap between the hand and the mouth is hard.

Survival is a Financing problem. Finance is basically 'how do we get the money to solve this problem?'. The problem of survival, up to this point, has been solved by 'pay people to do work'. This ties our survival to our ability to make money.

Another solution would be Capital. Capital can earn money. What I call an Engine. The wheels of a car have a job to do, but not one that creates Energy. They rely on the Engine. I believe the same is true of the challenges that face us. Money is Energy. Without it, we can't do much. But not everything worth doing is about Energy... that Energy needs to be transformed into something worthwhile. That Energy needs to take us somewhere. That is where the wheels come in. Financial Security powers wheels.

'Half and Half' is a possible do something to these hard questions. A Universal Basic Income could be financed on a build your own, and build another basis. Those who are privileged enough to have some financial security, say those consuming more than $32/day (the richest billion people on the planet), could build themselves and another person a UBI. If they put $8/day aside. Half could build a UBI Engine. Half could pay a UBI now. Half and Half. $4 could be invested to build a Community Wealth Fund. $4 could pay themselves and another person a UBI of $2/day. The poorest Billion people on the planet live on less than $2 a day.

It is possible, over a period of 15 years, to build a Community Wealth Fund that could permanently fund a UBI of $2 a day.  If we shift from a Consumer to a Custodian mindset. If you create a fund that puts the Capital to work. If the owners of the Fund consume less, on average, than the fund makes.

These are hard questions. Half and Half seems like a good answer to try.

Half for now, Half for later

Fund your own, Fund another

Build your own, Build another