Quora Answer: Do You Think Every Country is Responsible for Providing for the Needs of the Poor?

The following is my answer to a Quora question: “Do you think every country is responsible for providing for the needs of the poor?” 

The citizens of a nation are a resource.  Utilised well, they contribute to the development of the nation, and its economic growth.  For that to work, people need to be enfranchised, and have the possibility of social mobility.  This is what motivates them to work and contribute to society.  To get the best of people, they need to be equipped to contribute.  This means funding healthcare and education, and subsiding it for the lower social strata. 

The poor who are disenfranchised do not contribute to society.  They are a wasted resource.  People who have no hope of bettering their lives will become a drain on the state.  They contribute to crime, they become a source of disease, they are a cost.  If they are homeless, they are invisible to the system.  When there are enough young people who are disenfranchised from the system, they become a threat.  This can be as mundane as petty crime, to organised crime, all the way to insurgency. 

It is not just a responsibility for a state to take care of the needs of the poor, it is practical nation building and economics.  Contrary to how some may characterise it, social welfare and a social safety net is not charity and handouts; it is investing in people as a human resource because every person has a potential to contribute to the greater whole.