What's so bad about being poor?

National Review, Oct 28, 1988 by Charles Murray

That being the case, I am arguing that the job of designing good public policy must be reconstrued. We do not have the option of saying, "First we will provide for the material base, then worry about the other necessary conditions for pursuing happiness." These conditions interact. The ways in which people go about achieving safety, self-respect, and self-fulfillment in their lives are inextricably bound up with each other and with the way in which people go about providing for their material well-being. We do not have the option of doing one good thing at a time.

In discussing the conditions for pursuing happiness I have put material resources first only because that is where they have stood in the political debate. I am suggesting that properly they should be put last.