AOC: If Capitalism Is So Great, Why Does It Keep Getting Rid of Poor People?
I keep hearing the same defense of this economic system. “Look at the data,” they say. “Global extreme poverty has fallen. Millions have been lifted into the middle class. Capitalism works.”
Fine. Let’s take them at their word.
If the system is so successful, why does the number of poor people keep shrinking? Why, decade after decade, do fewer Americans live below the poverty line than the decade before? Why do the poorest countries, once they open their markets even a little, suddenly produce fewer destitute citizens?
A functioning system that claims to care about the working class should, at minimum, maintain a stable population of the impoverished. It should preserve the ranks of those who need the programs we fight for. Instead, capitalism keeps quietly converting the poor into people who can afford rent, groceries, and occasionally a used car. That is not sustainability. That is attrition.
We are told this is progress. I call it a design flaw. A healthy economy would not steadily reduce its most important political constituency. It would not turn yesterday’s food-insecure household into today’s slightly-less-insecure household that now frets about student loans instead of empty cupboards. That is not justice. That is mission creep.
Consider the long-term consequences. If this trend continues, we may one day face a future with insufficient numbers of people living in poverty to justify the scale of redistribution we know is necessary. The moral urgency evaporates when the moral subjects keep disappearing into higher income brackets. Capitalism, in its quiet efficiency, is eliminating the very problem it is supposed to create and maintain.
Some will claim this is a feature. I insist it is a bug. An economic model that repeatedly fails to keep enough people poor is not a model we should trust. We need systems that are more reliable at producing the conditions that require our intervention. Until then, every poverty statistic that improves should be treated with the skepticism it deserves.
If capitalism were truly great, the poor would still be here in greater numbers—visible, measurable, and available for the next round of hearings. The fact that they keep vanishing into slightly better circumstances is the most damning evidence yet.
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