What if the problem of poverty is that it’s profitable to other people?
The headline here is a bit odd - it seems self-evident.<p>If we define the poor as a group which relies on regular labour to survive, and the wealthy as a group who does not, then many income sources of the wealthy dry up if the poor cease to exist.<p>One fairly obvious example is renting. The existence of a rental market is not undesirable. People will always want to live in a place temporarily, as a trial, as a holiday, as a stepping stone. But I&#x27;d imagine a huge majority of the rental market exists solely because the tenants either cannot afford, or have too little financial security to risk a mortgage.<p>More broadly, the cost of labour is reduced by the existence of poverty. The minimum wage is an attempt to alleviate this - in a world without poverty, a minimum wage would be unnecessary.<p>The question is whether we can do better. Axiomatically wealth inequality is good for those on top, at least in a direct sense.