The 3 Keys To Ending Poverty
Unsurprisingly, the keys that unlock systemic poverty are the same keys that unlock fair play, prosperity, and sustainability.
Just as in nature, where transformation is often invisible, social enlightenment grew through humanity’s long process of effort, struggle, and growth towards the sun. Sometimes it’s looked like 1 step forward and 2 steps back. Other times, and for many generations, the light all but disappeared.
But underground, progress has been steady.
Each effort has contributed to our movement towards our oft stated vision of freedom and equal opportunity for all.
Social Readiness has arrived through converging factors:
There’s the current very visible escalation of poverty and the problems associated with poverty.
Second there’s growing upswelling of awareness of poverty and the increasing downward economic pressures on the middle-class.
There’s the shifting worldwide demographics to more people who have direct experience of the struggle to survive and care deeply about social repair.
There’s willingness and commitment across the full spectrum of business to shift course and adopt socially responsible practices.
Our generation benefits from hundreds of years of sacrifice by literally thousands of activist leaders and their communities across the world, from Harriet Tubman to MLK, from Susan B. Anthony to Cesar Chavez.
The tipping point for poverty has already passed. As we have become a more enlightened society the center of power has shifted towards willingness to change for the better – and for willingness to change to become real change the next 2 keys are essential.
Key 1: Social Readiness
Key 2: A Driving Force that Doesn’t Quit & Enlightened Self-Interest
From the cover description of the 2018 book Radical Markets by Eric Posner and Eric Weyl.
“Revolutionary ideas on how to use markets to bring about fairness and prosperity for all.”
In other words, we, and the companies we work for, will take the necessary steps to end poverty because we and they benefit from taking them. That’s what the above quote is referring to when is says “use markets”, which could simply be replaced with “self-interest” as written below.
“Revolutionary ideas on how to use self-interest to bring about fairness and prosperity for all.”
Self-Interest is the original motivation. It’s the most reliable driving force” because it is already a key motivator, it’s self-sustaining and over the long term it’s indomitable. Every day, more of us are realizing that doing nothing about the growing number of Americans trapped in poverty is unsustainable for all of us. Take the workplace. The fact that better working conditions lead to more productivity, higher profitability and overall sustainability for the companies that nurture such working environments has been supported in study after study. So much so, that many employers today understand that creating the most supportive environment and conditions for their employees leads to robustly positive long-term outcomes for their companies – including their stakeholders and the surrounding communities.
Enlightened Self-Interest
For this reason these employers now engage in more transparent and inclusive platforms, such as the iPeerion’s Level up apps, from what we term “enlightened self-interest”, willingly giving more; more say, better opportunities, access to ownership and better conditions to their workers and the communities that support their success.
Conversely, they will quickly disengage from platforms that diminish their workplace culture, including any privacy intrusions (for example selling personal data), unfriendly interfaces and unfair or discriminatory practices.
In summary, the first 2 keys for ending poverty are Social Readiness and a Driving Force that Doesn’t Quit.
As we’ve illustrated in the above story, this driving force emerges as the “willingness to create fair and equitable conditions not just because it’s the right thing to do but (also) because it is based on enlightened self-interest” - which, in effect is the reverse of our slave labor and industrial labor history, which was “the willingness to create unfair conditions, based on economic self-interest”.
Key 3: Empowering, Effective and Accessible Tools
As we will discuss in more depth, poverty has always been a system that captures groups of people and blocks the exits. The role of the third key is to unblock the exits.
The 3rd key – the tools to end poverty must be:
Empowering: Do-it-yourself tools that enable progress towards goals, like home ownership or a better job situation fosters self-reliance.
Effective: The Apps must get to solutions quickly without complexity or requirements that are not within reach for low-income workers.
Accessible: The Apps must be available, free, user-friendly, and private.
Progressive: The benefits attained through the Level UP Apps are cumulative, and step-by-step can help people move from poverty to an expanding life for themselves and their families.
