There are a couple of anti poverty strategies that can be addressed here: 1. Use the Cuban bio, psycho, social approach to medicine where family doctors are assigned a neighbourhood and they are required to go out and visit everyone in that neighbourhood. If you have poverty by postal code, this is an important step, because you don't really know how people are living until you see them in their homes. In order for this to be not invasive, your doctors and public health need to be trained to be radically egalitarian so people do not feel judged and then refuse to open their doors. And medical teams need to be the same people, over and over, to establishment relationships of trust. Preferably, your medical teams would be people who come from poor neighbourhoods, who are medically trained as is the case in Cuba. 2. Women in poor neighbourhoods are already organizers. This is well documented in the US literature. Find those women and empower them to collectively identify problems and solutions with their neighbours. Poor people are poor due to lack of resources, not because they aren't smart enough to identify problems and solutions. You want to build collective capacity, not individual dependence on social workers. The one social worker to one family approach is seriously flawed - the social worker probably with the least understanding of poverty and the least lived experience, is the gatekeeper of the resources. Now everyone has to wait for them to understand poverty, in order for problems to be solved. And that's if they are motivated. Never put social workers in charge.
Americans would whine and cry if they had a government official assigned to them, even if it improved their situation. This is another reason China is kicking our butts.
During the War on Poverty in the sixties, the government actually paid poverty class women to organize collectively in their neighbourhoods to solve problems and the result was free medical clinics, welfare organizing, organizing to remove lead from the local water supply, and campaigns to improve local schooling and housing. Local Republicans and Reagan killed these initiatives.
Yes, those welfare programs were ended with Reagan's pledge to get government off the people's backs. Ha, Reagan did. Reagan and Republicans shut down those clinics even though it was proven that clinics kept poor people healthier and less costly, while sicker poor people cost more money.
Exactly. There is a fabulous book about the clinic organized by Black hotel workers in Las Vegas called Storming Caesars Palace: How Black Mothers Fought Their Own War on Poverty by historian Annelise Orleck.
There were some negative issues throughout the campaign, but overall, it had a huge impact on the lives of rural people in China, and I would say most people were happy with the campaign as a whole.
Question: china's new five year plan prioritizes tech innovation over raising the poor, common prosperity. how will this impact the standard of living of the working class and peasantry? (I asked Deep Seek, and it couldn't answer.)
I understand the five-year plan you mentioned, which prioritizes tech innovation. I recently came across another new plan released by the central government, covering the period from 2026 to 2030 , an urban renewal plan. The purpose of this plan is to target major housing upgrades and infrastructure renovation, shifting the focus from expansion-driven growth to city upgrading.
Specifically, the plan aims to renovate approximately 500,000 rundown urban homes, upgrade 115,000 old residential communities, and revamp 4,000 urban villages. It also includes upgrading and renovating existing infrastructure such as pipelines and related systems.
I think this answers your question. The government will always have new plans in motion, and both plans can actually complement each other at this point.
I hope both plans complement each other, and tech will be used to benefit workers and peasants. China is giving social benefits to Hukou migrants which will hopefully mainstream them in the urban economies. China needs a plan for the poor to benefit from things like ai and biotech. In the U.S., tech benefits the capitalist and professional managerial classes, the top 10%, and crushes the working class.
There are a couple of anti poverty strategies that can be addressed here: 1. Use the Cuban bio, psycho, social approach to medicine where family doctors are assigned a neighbourhood and they are required to go out and visit everyone in that neighbourhood. If you have poverty by postal code, this is an important step, because you don't really know how people are living until you see them in their homes. In order for this to be not invasive, your doctors and public health need to be trained to be radically egalitarian so people do not feel judged and then refuse to open their doors. And medical teams need to be the same people, over and over, to establishment relationships of trust. Preferably, your medical teams would be people who come from poor neighbourhoods, who are medically trained as is the case in Cuba. 2. Women in poor neighbourhoods are already organizers. This is well documented in the US literature. Find those women and empower them to collectively identify problems and solutions with their neighbours. Poor people are poor due to lack of resources, not because they aren't smart enough to identify problems and solutions. You want to build collective capacity, not individual dependence on social workers. The one social worker to one family approach is seriously flawed - the social worker probably with the least understanding of poverty and the least lived experience, is the gatekeeper of the resources. Now everyone has to wait for them to understand poverty, in order for problems to be solved. And that's if they are motivated. Never put social workers in charge.
thank you for bringing up Cuba, good read.
Americans would whine and cry if they had a government official assigned to them, even if it improved their situation. This is another reason China is kicking our butts.
During the War on Poverty in the sixties, the government actually paid poverty class women to organize collectively in their neighbourhoods to solve problems and the result was free medical clinics, welfare organizing, organizing to remove lead from the local water supply, and campaigns to improve local schooling and housing. Local Republicans and Reagan killed these initiatives.
Yes, those welfare programs were ended with Reagan's pledge to get government off the people's backs. Ha, Reagan did. Reagan and Republicans shut down those clinics even though it was proven that clinics kept poor people healthier and less costly, while sicker poor people cost more money.
Exactly. There is a fabulous book about the clinic organized by Black hotel workers in Las Vegas called Storming Caesars Palace: How Black Mothers Fought Their Own War on Poverty by historian Annelise Orleck.
They would never do that now. People have been brainwashed by Faux Noise to believe anything associated with the government is the problem.
Thanks for some insight not available otherwise.
Neil, is there a good critical book that analyzes the successes and failures of the Chinese poverty reduction campaign? I would like to read it.
There were some negative issues throughout the campaign, but overall, it had a huge impact on the lives of rural people in China, and I would say most people were happy with the campaign as a whole.
also this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nuaJGPZCBYU&t=80s
https://www.amazon.com/Keywords-Understand-China-Targeted-Elimination/dp/7510471400
This can be a good read, talk about the mechanism of targeted poverty elimination.
Question: china's new five year plan prioritizes tech innovation over raising the poor, common prosperity. how will this impact the standard of living of the working class and peasantry? (I asked Deep Seek, and it couldn't answer.)
deepseek doesnt want to touch chinese politics.
I understand the five-year plan you mentioned, which prioritizes tech innovation. I recently came across another new plan released by the central government, covering the period from 2026 to 2030 , an urban renewal plan. The purpose of this plan is to target major housing upgrades and infrastructure renovation, shifting the focus from expansion-driven growth to city upgrading.
Specifically, the plan aims to renovate approximately 500,000 rundown urban homes, upgrade 115,000 old residential communities, and revamp 4,000 urban villages. It also includes upgrading and renovating existing infrastructure such as pipelines and related systems.
I think this answers your question. The government will always have new plans in motion, and both plans can actually complement each other at this point.
source
https://www.caixinglobal.com/2026-05-29/china-unveils-sweeping-five-year-urban-renewal-plan-102449023.html
I hope both plans complement each other, and tech will be used to benefit workers and peasants. China is giving social benefits to Hukou migrants which will hopefully mainstream them in the urban economies. China needs a plan for the poor to benefit from things like ai and biotech. In the U.S., tech benefits the capitalist and professional managerial classes, the top 10%, and crushes the working class.