Building a prosperous society is not as simple as flooding the community with cash. If it was a money problem, a government could easily mint as much money as it considers necessary and distribute to the poor communities, but it is not a money problem. This fundamentally reveals that poverty is not merely “absence” of money, and we must think about poverty differently. Poverty and scarcity is not a root problem in itself, it is more of a symptom that something more sinister is going on. The solution to poverty is not doling out money on the streets or giving hand-outs.
We need to realise that fostering a wealthy and prosperous society is not actually a function of how much money is in the system. It is not a money problem, it is a productivity problem. That is why governments do not print money arbitrary, because printing money does not increase the productivity of the people. When you print more money without an increase in productivity to match it, it leads to inflation and a worse hardship than the initial conditions. Wealth is created when productivity is increased, there is no other way. We must therefore understand that our real goal is to increase the productivity of the people.
The poverty and disenfranchisement in the society is due to unproductivity, which is enabled by illiteracy and injustice. None of this can be solved with money. An illiterate requires education, not money. Handing out money in a corrupt and unjust society does not induce better productivity because there is no enabling environment that encourages such. I do not think the bible teaches us to continuously hand out money, food or stuff to the poor and needy. Rather, the bible emphasises over and over again the need to fight oppression, enable justice and advises the foolish to seek knowledge and wisdom.
When we do that, people will be empowered to do their best work possible, productivity increases and poverty is eradicated. A prosperous society is a productive society, and a productive society is enabled by a just system and a critical mass of literate people.
