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There's a new game around. It's called "bashing the poor". It's played in the public policy research think tanks. The players have never felt the pinch of poverty.

One of the qualifications to be a player is superficiality. You see if you're not superficial you might look beyond appearances. That would be an error; for then you might begin to ask real world questions. It helps if you are also muddleheaded.

One variation of the game is "Here is how I would live if I were poor."

A cardinal rule of the game is to ignore the logic of language. You must ignore the fact that the words poor and rich are comparatives -- that they have meaning only in relation to each other. That way you can imagine (step one) a time and place where population is sparse, and technology is limited to human powered machines. These are conditions which do not permit much production of wealth; nor much variety. Then you can call these people poor if you compare them to an Illinois farmer, or a LaSalle Street stockbroker.

Step two, in this instance, is to imagine you are forced by some mysterious circumstance to live in such a community for the rest of your life. Again ignoring logic, you begin this new imaginary life by bringing capital, knowledge and skills from your own time and circumstances. The capital would enable you t buy some land to work. You see, without land of your own to work you would have to work for one of your new neighbors at wages he would be willing to pay.

So, now, with the capital you bring in you buy land and learn how to make and use the kind of capital appropriate to the circumstances of population, soil and climate. You survive as an equal to your neighbors. You participate in their entertainments and festivals, their joys and sorrows. Then you say, "see, being poor isn't so bad."

Now, it is no great trick for someone from a modern industrial society to adapt to a technology based almost entirely on human physical power. Physically difficult? Yes. Mentally difficult? No. One's psychology would adapt to the limitations of such an economy so long as no one with greater physical force or legal power takes what one produces.

In an area where all must work to live, there is no great disparity of wealth. Some may have a little more and others a little less than the average; but, there are no rich and no poor. So long as all have access to land, and trade is not prohibited by custom or law, there can be no poor. It is whether one is prevented from laboring, or from keeping all that one produces that determines if one is poor or not.

Poverty is relative. It can't be defined by a government clerk. The dollar income which purportedly defines poverty is meaningless. Ten thousand (1990) dollars cash income to a family who own a house, a few acres of fertile soil and some chickens is gravy compared to a family who have no land, and must rent a few rooms.

To compare the poverty of an unemployed or low paid laborer in a high-tech society to a standard of living in a society where primitive technology is prevalent, is to compare apples and oranges. The lack of amenities does not mean the people are poor. A hard life? Yes. But not poverty; not near starvation in the midst of plenty.

A variation is to imagine living in a public housing project, say Cabrini-Green in Chicago. Here the advantage you want is to have not only the 'welfare' check, but the three major expenses -- rent, food and medical care -- furnished free. No need for you to bother with hard choices. That is, you don't want to be bothered by having to decide between a gallon of milk or a box of detergent after you pay the rent.

You can probably think of other variations to play. The important thing to remember is that you must have an advantage -- one not ordinarily enjoyed by those whose circumstances you imagine you are emulating. You don't want to play by the same rules that apply to a family on welfare, or as a parent trying to get by on minimum wage. You may despair if you do.

Then, there is "Pull yourself up by your own bootstraps." Here it is important to think of symptoms as being causes of poverty. The object here is to get yourself out of poverty.

So, what is one to do to get out of poverty? Why, go to a free public high school of course. Get yourself an education. Never mind that public schools are now being condemned for turning out illiterates. Never mind that studying -- the effort to pay attention -- requires both physical and psychic energy; that the energy level is related to food.

After you get the education, get into the job market. Get a job and keep working. Never mind that a business merger may squeeze you out of your job; or that an illness may cause you to lose your job. Keep working whatever the wages.

The point of this game is to demonstrate that unemployment or low income is due to personal failure, not the economy or the market or politics.

With disconcerting frequency, the business sections of our daily newspapers carry reports of sudden loss of employment, not only by unskilled workers, but even corporate executives. Business mergers, business failures, market changes, or a downturn in the economy means unemployment for any number of workers. Not all are lucky enough to have a 'golden parachute' to tide them over until the next job.

Poverty is the fault of the poor. We all know that, don't we?

Let's see. Once upon a time there were no poor in Egypt. Along came Joseph the Dreamer. Pharaoh made him Prime Minister. Joseph instituted a tax on agricultural production. The crops failed. The people (that is, the farmers who had been taxed, not the priests and government officials) were hungry. They asked Pharaoh for help. He sent them to Joseph. After first trading their money, then their tools, then their livestock, their seed, and their land for food, they had nothing left but their bodies -- their labor. Result? Poverty in Egypt The once proud farmers worked thenceforth for whatever wages Pharaoh dictated.

Maybe the "thinkers" ought to go out into the real world. If they look hard enough they may find answers. Or, they might even study Georgist economics to discover how the free market can operate without causing widespread involuntary poverty.