Freedom, Society, and State - Ludwig von Mises Institute

a I' ," Cha r I es Murray has noted, "are di fferent at di fferent
economi c levels."(42) But the dilemma created
by the recogni t ion of this fact, i.e., are people poor
because they live in the present or do they live in the
present because they are poor, is only apparent. There
is no doubt some truth to both, although it is seldom,
if ever, the case that they have no choice. Nevertheless,
why people adopt the lifestyle they do is
one que s t ion; the con seq u e nees t hat res u 1 t r r om t hat
choice is quite another. And there can be little doubt
that "living in the present" impedes, if not precludes,
economic advance.
Wh i 1erea d i I Y a c k now led ging t hat therear e rna n y
rea s· 0 nsf 0 r po v e r t y, i tis, says Ba n fie I d, f 0 un d disproportionately
among those exhibiting the values of
the T1 lower c I ass men t a lit Y• " This po i ntis sign i f i ­
cant, believes the libertarian, because it has an important
bearing both on determining the number of those
who are actually poor and on the ability of government,
eve n ass urn i n g the bes t 0 fIn t en t ions, to dea I wit h the
problem. It is to these two issues that we now turn.
c. Poverty Statistics.
Approximately 12 percent of the popUlation of the
United States have, according to offical statistics,
incomes below the poverty line. The libertarian believes
that these statistiCS exaggerate the amount of
actual poverty. First, wealth is partially a function
of age. The wealthy, says Thomas Sowell, "are likely
to be elderly individuals who have finally paid off
the i r m0 r t gag e s, and wh 0 rna y we I I ha ve been amo n g the
statistical 'poor' when they were younger." Similarly,
the median age of blacks is nearly a decade less than
the median age of whites. When such factors as age and
education are controlled, the income differences bet
we e n b 1a c ksan d whit e s dis a ppear. This mean s , says
Sowell, that "the poor" do not really constitute a socioeconomic
class "in the usual sense of people stratified
in a certain way across their lifetimes." Rather,
those who are statistically poor are often simply those
in a temporary, and quite normal, part of their economic
life cycle.(43)
A second reason statistics inflate the incidence
of actual poverty is that living in the present the
lower class individual has an affinity for risk, action
and 1 mp u I s e be h a v i 0 r. G i ven t his a f fin i t y, rna ny wh 0
are class if J ed as poor have high risk and/or seasonal
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