How Guilty Should We Feel That We're Living in a Country With Extreme Poverty?

And does guilt solve anything?

For the audio version of this article, read by the author, go here.

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Michael and I are currently living in San Miguel de Allende, a charming colonial-era town in central Mexico that’s become a bustling tourist hub and thriving center for the arts.

We’ve rented a big, fabulous house, we’ve made lots of new friends, and we’re generally having a fantastic time.

And every day, we’re surrounded by signs of extreme poverty.

On our way to the gym, we pass an old man with a clubfoot playing his guitar for a few coins from the passersby.

The city center also has a fair number of Indigenous Mexican people — often mothers with small children or very old women — selling dolls or pieces of cactus stripped of their needles, for cooking.

Sometimes they — or others — are openly begging.

Photo by Bernardo Ramonfaur on Unsplash

And literally everywhere we go, we’re surrounded by Mexican people hustling for money with an intense work ethic that I’ve rarely seen in more developed countries — except among immigrants, of course.

Just now, a man came to our door asking to sweep our courtyard for a couple of bucks. He was so thorough that he was even taking the dead leaves off all the plants — and only stopped working when we insisted he’d done enough and could go.

The idea that Mexicans are lazy isn’t just stupid — it’s laughable.

“We Mexicans are the masters of the side-hustle,” declares one local friend.

So should the two of us feel guilty about all this?

OH MY GOD, YES! ABSO-FRICKIN’-LUTELY! ARE YOU KIDDING ME?

If any Westerner comes to a country like Mexico and doesn’t feel intense guilt over the overwhelming and fundamental unfairness of the world, I seriously question their basic humanity. When confronted by senseless poverty, how could anyone not feel intense empathy?

So much of the world’s “poverty” is so obviously capricious — just a function of the country where you happen to have been born, and the class you were born into.

At the same time, the whole issue of “poverty” can be fairly complicated — even here in Mexico. And “signs of extreme poverty” aren’t always what they seem.