Raoul Vaneigem Quotes

As society advances the standard of poverty rises.

Extreme poverty threatens people's right to life itself and makes impossible the enjoyment of the rights and freedoms essential to a humane way of life.

It is absolute poverty that you could end, but I think relative poverty is a whole other issue.

Aspiration, it seems, is in danger of becoming the preserve of the wealthy.

The family wage has been eroded by the same developments that have promoted consumerism as a way of life.

My parents didn't have the opportunities that my wife and I have now, from a quality of life standpoint.

My deal is have a flat, simple tax. And - Americans want - Americans I hope - aspire to be - be wealthy. I hope they aspire to have a better quality of life. And we have this class warfare that's going on now. And I don't agree with that. I'm interested in people getting to work.

It would be nice if the poor were to get even half of the money that is spent in studying them.

I've been working on issues of poverty for more than 20 years, and so it's ironic that the problem that and question that I most grapple with is how you actually define poverty. What does it mean?

The poorer is a family, the greater is the proportion of the total outgo which must be used for food... The proportion of the outgo used for food, other things being equal, is the best measure of the material standard of living of a population.

It isn't the rich people's fault that poor people are poor. Poor people who get an education and work hard in this country will stop being poor. That should be the goal for all poor people everywhere.

The subsistence level is only a conventional idea, and conventions change.

When I get out across the country and listen to people, the resentment that I see and the frustration that I see is that we have a generation of people who are fairly convinced that their kids are not going to have a better quality of life or a better future than they will.

Those born into poverty or on the margins of society require our extra support to realize their dreams.

No society can surely be flourishing and happy, of which the far greater part of the members are poor and miserable.

I've never been anywhere in my life like it and I only really noticed it when I returned to Los Angeles and then Berlin. Everybody is much better off in these places, there is not poverty like in Cuba, but everybody complains about things.

Better educated than wealthy

If you are poor today, you will always be poor. Only the rich now acquire riches.

The competition of the poor takes away from the reward of the rich.

Most Americans seem to be stuck in the economic strata to which they were born.

A simple way to forecast the future is to look at what rich people have today; middle-income people will have something equivalent in 10 years, and poor people will have something equivalent in an additional decade.

In the developed world, income inequality within the country is the most important determinant of health standards and life expectancy.

… perceptions of poverty have gone up because there’s been rising inequality.

Poverty is not just about income: it's about aspiration. It's not just about giving people a couple of extra pounds a week, welcome though that is.

The problem of the minimum dwelling is that of establishing the elementary minimum of space, air, light, and heat required by man in order that he be able to fully develop his life functions without experiencing limitations due to his dwelling, i.e. a minimum modus vivendi in place of a modus non moriendi.