economically well-off or free?

[Mathurin]

[Stratego]

Even if you're not imprisoned, you're not really free. If you live in the projects, you can go out and get a minimum wage job if you're lucky, or loiter around and maybe lift some weights. If you're poor, you're not bounded by legal limits, but you're bounded by economic limits.

[Mathurin]

[Homer]

[Stratego]

[Sandman]

I think once we get into any American analogies, we're already outside of the OP question. People in the projects are poor but essentially live in a police state, while the wealthy in America are rich but are far from living in a dictatorship.

Like Dharma said, I'd rather live free in any circumstances. I feel like realistically, I could live an extremely happy life in relative poverty. I've done it most of my life, and I've done fine living a "spartan" life with bare minimum material needs on deployment. To me, it all comes down to the fact that "poverty" is a relative term. There are people living tribally all across the globe who are poor by any modern economic standards, but many are happy. Many much happier, probably, for not living a disconnected life where Instagramming a meal is more important than actually enjoying it, to use the overly-used, cliche but still totally true example. Being rich has very little to do with quality of life.

[Mathurin]

[Mathurin]

[lil bit]

You should look at history to get a true understanding of what it was like to be poor in a democracy. The Victorian poor were free in the sense they weren't slaves ( unless they were indentured apprentices) and could come and go as they pleased, but their chances of improving their lot was virtually zilch.

It was thought by the ruling classes that poverty was a character fault that could be remedied by hard work and clean living. The government were reluctant to interfere in people's lives by insisting on fair wages and safety in the work place.


The rich man in his castle
The poor man at his gate
God made them high or lowly
And ordered their estate

And don't you forget it.

The Victorian wealthy had it made. There was virtually nothing money couldn't buy ( unless you were a woman, in which case you were unlikely to have any personal wealth, or a gay man), They were totally free to do whatever they liked to whomever they wanted, unless that person had more money than they, in which it was better to be rather more circumspect.

Gradually, as the 19th century progressed, those freedoms were gradually eroded.

That's why I would rather be rich, and preferably a straight white man, in a dictatorship, rather than be poor but free.

Free to be done over.

[Stratego]