The argument has never been that it is impossible to rise from poverty. The argument is that it is demonstrably massively unlikely.
So the question then, as I see it, is "how do we make it more likely?" I mean, if I can overcome all sorts of obstacles that are frequently cited as reasons people remain in poverty, and I am not anybody particularly special, then why shouldn't anybody else be able to? What separates a kid like me from my elementary school class-mates who are still living in poverty? And that's not exactly a rhetorical question, but it's one that I honestly don't know the answer to. The only obvious thing I can come up with is some degree of intrinsic motivation, some drive or pull that I felt, that compelled me to make the sacrifices to improve my life. But even if that were true, I'm not sure how you'd explain that.
Well, I came from a fairly modest background in rural Scotland (mind you, not what anyone would call "poor") and one thing that has always been very obvious to me is that my motivation was not intrinsic - my parents, siblings (all of who have done pretty well), teachers and school friends were very positive and encouraging.
Looking back on it I find it remarkable at how positive my school friends were towards me having an obvious route out of the community through academic success - they had hard lives of working in deep-sea fishing, offshore oil or farming to look forward to. I never encountered any resentment or bitterness - people seemed genuinely pleased that I was going to go to university.
However, it was relatively late in life (30s) that I actually realised that this kind of supportive background is not the norm and many people, especially from modest backgrounds, face actual hostility and discouragement from when they try to "get out of their box". As my wife, who although she is now a succesful lawyer, came from a background where academic success was not encouraged has commented to me - success was easy for me because it was expected of me from an early age.
Sadly, for many people nobody expects them to succeed and so therefore they don't. For me this is one of the real tragedies of our society.
Based on your story it seems you were lucky enough to have a stable family who gave you what support they could to pursue independent study/tinkering outside of school.
I am in the UK so it may be somewhat different here but I certainly know people with similar stories to yours over here.
However there are plenty of families over here who live in poverty where either both parents are unemployed , or dad is a drug dealer and mum is a prostitute. In many of these cases the children are simply not encouraged to learn anything, never provided with books (the parents might not even be able to read themselves).
There is often a bias in these communities against anybody who is seen to be working hard to learn anything educational and this is carried into school.
Based on your story it seems you were lucky enough to have a stable family who gave you what support they could to pursue independent study/tinkering outside of school.
Semi-stable might be a better term. My parents divorced when I was 16, and through most of my childhood my dad wasn't around through big chunks of it, because a lot of the jobs he took (in between attempts at entrepreneurial initiatives) involved working "on the road" a lot (mainly dredge-boats). But yeah, we were poor, but mostly not so poor that we couldn't afford food (although we had stints on foodstamps and what not, to be honest), and we did have enough money at times, that yeah, I managed to accumulate a decent little home library through yard-sales, library book sales, etc., and I had a little toolset, a soldering iron, and the ocassional trip to Radio Shack to acquire components (along with whatever components I could scavenge from old discarded TVs acquired from around the neighborhood, etc).
However there are plenty of families over here who live in poverty where either both parents are unemployed , or dad is a drug dealer and mum is a prostitute.
Yeah, thankfully my own situation wasn't quite that bad.
In many of these cases the children are simply not encouraged to learn anything, never provided with books (the parents might not even be able to read themselves).
Luckily for me, my mom was (and is) an avid reader and she read to me a lot as a kid, so I could already read when I started kindergarten, and I was always reading books from a few grade levels ahead of my grade. I remember once, in elementary school, trying to check out a book that was reserved for a grade higher than my own grade, and they wouldn't let me, and I raised such a fuss that my mom eventually came down to the school, talked to the school officials and got me permission to check out higher grade books. So yeah, in that regard, I had some positive things on my side.
> So the question then, as I see it, is "how do we make it more likely?"
We'd have to change the structure of society. Its a class structure, and there's only so much room at the top. The wealth of the upper class comes from extracting rents from the lower class. This happens on a global scale (core countries exploiting the periphery) as well as a local scale (landlords with good credit collect more in rent than they pay on the mortgage).
If this were true, then when the colonists from "core" countries left a colonized area, then that area should have seen an increase in wealth because those rent monies would have remained in the colony. The history of numerous areas, such as Haiti, Kinshasa, and Zimbabwe say that this did not happen.
The wealth of the upper class comes from courage, determination, intelligence, organization, and productive use of time.
Furthermore, following your rule, Mark Zuckerberg, who is formerly a long time renter, should be less rich than his former landlords.
Actually, in most cases, former colonists immediately stuck the decolonized nation with massive debts conjured up for the "theft" of the national assets. That's why Haiti is still poor: they've been in debt to France for the "theft" of "French" assets in colonial Haiti ever since their revolution.
Free of their French "landlords" the Haitian "renters" should have seen increasing prosperity since they were sitting on one of the most agriculturally productive (in terms of sale price for crops grown, not total amount of all products grown) regions of the New World. So, what went wrong?
So, the core(rich) countries include South Korea, Japan, Western Europe, and the United States. What exactly is the periphery? I don't think that there exists the geographic bias you imply.
Sometimes it's not just a matter of being intrinsically motivated, and no matter what you sacrifice, you never seem to have enough.
"Many young people, who have the ability to attend post secondary institutions, will not get that opportunity because of limited family financial resources." - http://rotarycs.org/local.aspx
This is my anecdotal story.
Not only did I fit into that category, I was also not initially intrinsically motivated. But the good people at the Rotary Club accessed my high risk of dropping out and gave me a "Stay in School" scholarship.
Having people believe in me and put $5000 on it - well, I can't say enough good things about them. I believe I would have given up on school in grade 7 (and I still missed a large chunk of it (long story)), but instead here I am with a BSc in Computer Science with "Great Distinction" instead. I imagine I would still be a min-wage Courtesy Clerk at the local IGA if I hadn't been given this opportunity.
Part of the trouble is that only 3 of these scholarships were given out when there were plenty of other kids who could have used them too. Not necessarily hand outs, but a hand up. These scholarships come with mentoring and support to develop motivation in the student to not only stay in school, but to do well at it.
It's not that I think they owe me a scholarship and mentoring, but just that it's not really my fault I was born in to a situation where I would have otherwise had virtually no idea and no means of escaping. I suppose maybe I could have tried worked for it all by myself and for myself (and I did pay for the rest of my schooling myself), but I can't imagine how I would have known to without intervention and I'm not sure I wouldn't have worked myself to death before getting anywhere.
I wish I had more profound and coherent things to say about this, but it's a subject that is pretty close to home and I could start rambling pretty quick.
Take a look at Harlem Children's Zone for one model that seems to be helping break the cycle for some. If that can be grown/cloned a couple of orders of magnitude, there may be hope for the country.
