Why We Never Solve the Poverty Problem

In politics, simplicity is elegance - and frustratingly rare.

First of all, let me say that I understand poverty will always exist in some form or another because we live in an imperfect world.

One of the misplaced keys to politics is, I believe, a sense of the tragic. We need to realise that we can't bring the kingdom of heaven to earth. There will never be a utopia (after all utopia really means 'no place').

With that in mind, we need to take the world as we find it, and try to ameliorate the suffering that seems to be part of the human experience. We should do this not only because it increases human happiness, but because it is how save our own souls - by treating our fellow humans as neighbours.

So what big ideas can we use to try to alleviate poverty?

I want to throw out something radically simple.

Why don't we just give the poor money?

Don't get me wrong - in an ideal world I would love everybody to own their own house or piece of land, run their own business or perform a professional or trade service. But I don't know how we create that world. I don't think anyone does. We need to focus on what we can do. And I think we could just give the poor money.

Think of how much tax revenue governments collect. Now think of the last time you renewed your car licence, went to Home Affairs, or surveyed all our government schools and state hospitals. Were you satisfied with the return on the taxes you pay?

I think we have over-thought the poverty problem.

We think that we should solve poverty by empowering the government to build houses and to run schools and hospitals to provide service for those who can't afford to pay for those things privately.

We want the government to be this big daddy figure, looking after everyone.

But it can't really do this job very well, because the government is not a person but an inhuman bureaucracy.

So how about we just trim the budget radically, and hand the poor a monthly living wage? Let them decide how to spend the money. Consider it a kind of negative income tax. I know I never begrudge the government taxing me to help the poor - but I do get mad when the money is hardly spent on anything worthwhile - think of the health system in the Eastern Cape for example.

Obviously there are tons of details to be worked out in such a policy, but I think the principle is something that should be seriously considered.

Let's empower people directly, and make corruption and bad governance less of a factor in how we level the playing fields of the economy.