I’m not sure what the solution is to poverty. It isn’t a lack of resources, because there is enough food to meet everyone’s needs, but it never seems to be distributed to the poor.

War is often the real culprit in poverty, because it drives people off of their land, armies often steal food, burn farms, and kill livestock, and drive farm families into refugee camps where they can’t grow food for themselves or others. Then the armies make sure that food doesn’t reach the refugees.

There is poverty in countries like Canada, but it is often RELATIVE poverty. They often still have a place to live, food, water, access to health care, but they don’t have any money for a car, nicer clothes, etc.

A lot of people in Canada who live below the poverty line would still be considered fortunate by a lot of people in, say, India.

My husband and I likely do have a thousand times more money than a lot of people in the world. I’m not willing to give up my money to equalise things. I could give some of it, but how does one decide how much I should give?

Isn’t that what taxes is? A fairly large chunk of our income goes towards paying for roads, schools, hospitals and so on, that people who live below the poverty line (and don’t pay taxes) may use.

Communism tries to answer such questions, but people just aren’t good enough to make real communism work. Real communism (each according to his needs and abilities, and public ownership of property) would require that people would still strive to be things like doctors, but without getting more pay than say, a farmer or a laboror. It would also mean that people really worked to their full potential, and as hard as they normally would, with only the valorous belief that they were helping the common good.

There would have to be no exploitation of public property by individuals (for example, one farmer grazing a thousand cattle on a public pasture and driving away the other farmers), and so on.