Helping the Poor, Collectively

Poverty is much bigger than any single individual can handle. No single person can eradicate it from history, and few individual can manage to rise above it without a helping hand, from friends, from government, from a good Samaritan.

Nothing is too big for the collective will of a united people. Not poverty, not space, not the ocean, not global warming.

What do we need, collectively, to bring utopia closer to reality?

We need to first of all, care. Until each member of utopia care about the well-being of each and every other member of utopia. There won't be an utopia.

Second of all, channel that care and attention in appropriate and sustainable actions. Some have said that the road to hell is paved with good intentions. A famous quote attributed to Ben Franklin, "Well done is better than well said." No matter what we say, and how we feel, it means nothing unless we act on it with the best of our technology, the best of our managerial organizational abilities, and the best of our wealth.

And finally, it is not enough to give poverty lip-service, or even catchy media slogans to attract attention. Although it is a good beginning, and deservedly receive all the praise in the media, it is but the beginning of the beginning. What is desperately needed to continue to pay attention to this universal and eternal social problem is to insitutionalizing rituals and cultural values that make poverty a collective responsibility, rather than something left to the whim and fancies of politicians during election campaigns, or rich philantropists during their time of personal crisis.

The medieval Jews, without a country and in Diaspora, at the mercy of the hospitality of their hosts, have collectively institutionaized this responsibility for their own poor, so that no poor Jewish person would be a burden to their respective host society. The same should be done in all society, especially utopia.

What the Good Samaritan did individually, in three steps of first aid, security, and sustained care, society must collectively provide to the poor through government agencies (such as food banks, homeless shelters), non-profit organizations (low cost housing, job share, workfare), and educational initiatives (low cost education, mentoring programs, and continous development).

To fulfill these responsibilities require financial resources. A government of the people, by the people, for the people must, therefore, first and foremost, be responsible in its financial balance sheet. In today's economic environment, it would be folly to run a budget deficit.

Only with a strong financial foundation can the social responsibilities of utopia be built.