LBJ re war on poverty: "the challenge lies in how to create a just distribution of rising abundance"

[stg81]

Lyndon Johnson was a true believer when it came to understanding how government can lift people out of poverty, encourage equality and provide leadership for social, economic and scientific progress. Helping the most vulnerable in our society was, in his view, not only a proper role of government, but an obligation. Johnson did not doubt that America would continue to be a prosperous nation. The challenge lay in how to create “a just distribution of rising abundance.” Just as political power was not an end in itself, neither was wealth if it did not enrich human life.

Attribution:

Goodwin, Doris Kearns. Lyndon Johnson and the American Dream, St. Martin’s Press, 1976, 1991

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/1999/9910.califano.html#byline <=== Excellent article all about the Great Society


This is really how to look at the War on Poverty. How equitably is the wealth we all generate distributed? Is the distribution consistent with our values, morals and desires as a society? In LBJ's words: how to create “a just distribution of rising abundance." A JUST distribution. Not a handout. Not redistribution. A JUST and fair and right distribution.

[mike_c]

1. this is one of the greatest lost opportunities of the last 50 yrs....

Then Reagan canonized greed.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

2. If LBJ had stuck to that war instead of pissing it away in the other, he'd probably be

considered a great president instead of a one known for war crimes and blunders.