Trillions of dollars have been expended by governments and organizations in the last century to eradicate poverty. Yet for all of the well-intentioned work, a great deal of it has been unsuccessful and wasted. Why? Because it inadvertently created dependency instead of ability.

You see, Eubank, like many members of the church see poverty as a personal failing. They buy into the capitalist myth that the only thing you need to get out of poverty is to work hard.

To them, poverty isn’t structural. They don’t see that poverty exists because the system is designed for it to exist. It is impossible in capitalism—where the means of production is privately owned by a relatively small group of people—for there to be rich people without their being poor people.

Rich people become rich because they take money from the poor. Property owners charge renters more than the rental unit is worth, then pocket the difference. Business owners pay employees less than what they charge customers, then pocket the difference. And so on.

And every time the rich take money from the poor, it hinders the social mobility of the poor. Every $100 in profit the landlord makes each month is $100 each month the renter can’t save, can’t invest, can’t use to get out of debt. Every 20% markup the business owner charges on the retail price of the product their employees create is 20% less in wages the employees see every month, 20% they can’t save. can’t invest, can’t use to get out of debt.

On the idea that the reason why anti-poverty programmes of governments and nonprofits over the last 100 years hasn’t worked, Eubank is wrong. It’s not because we’ve created dependency. It’s because every programme has been a bandaid solution, none of which address the actual cause of poverty: the rich.

Ironically, Eubank quotes a scripture in her article that touches on this very solution: D&C 104:14–16.

I, the Lord, stretched out the heavens, and built the earth, my very handiwork; and all things therein are mine. And it is my purpose to provide for my saints, for all things are mine. But it must needs be done in mine own way; and behold this is the way that I, the Lord, have decreed to provide for my saints, that the poor shall be exalted, in that the rich are made low.

Right there at the end. The poor will only be exalted when the rich are made low. If you truly want a zion people, where all have everything in common (4 Ne. 1:3, Acts 4:32), we must do away with the rich. The law of consecration, the eradication of poverty, even Zion itself will never be achieved as long as wealthy inequality exists.

Zion will never occur under capitalism. Jesus said so.

If you own a company and make your billions on profits from that company, it’s because you didn’t pay your workers enough. Profit is the difference between what you charge your customers and what you pay your employees (plus additional operating expenses).

If you have profit, it’s because you charged your customers more for your product than you paid your employees to produce that product. You consider your product to have more value than what you’re willing to pay your employees to produce that product. That’s stealing.

If you make your billions on real estate, it’s because you’re charging your tenants too much. The only way you can make money on real estate is charging your tenants more than the residence is worth. You charge them more than you pay in mortgage, interest, taxes, and cost of maintenance and pocket the difference. That’s stealing.

There are few examples of people being rich that don’t involve those two scenarios. Inheritance even involves these scenarios because it requires that the bequeather had taken advantage of these scenarios. Investing involves these scenarios because it requires that the investor had taken advantage of these scenarios to invest in the so called high interest market.

There’s no point in having money that you can’t ever spend in your lifetime. Especially when others can’t afford to eat or to live in a house.

Every once in a while, I’ll come across someone like this, particularly since we live in midtown. I don’t often think much about it; I’ve seen homeless/poor people a lot in my life. After all, there’s not a lot I can do to help them all.
Anyhow, this time, I noticed something I hadn’t seen on anyone else I had come across in similar situations.

He wore cap with the words “Native Pride”.

It made me wonder. What made him proud? Certainly, his economic situation didn’t seem like a source of pride. I know it’s a cultural thing for aboriginal persons in Canada to avoid eye contact when meeting someone of authority (not that I am any sort of authority). I wonder, however, if having his eyes averted to the ground the entire time we encountered each other in the crosswalk was more than culture.

The entire experience made me wish I could do something. Something to encourage real cultural pride. Something to help my own people. Sometimes I feel a kinship with my aboriginal brothers and sisters. At times like this, however, I can really feel the separation generations of European genetic dilution has caused.