I never said "just working hard" will solve the poor's problems. All I said was that it's better to do all you can than to expect help to come from the government or charity because that is unrealistic in countries with such a large poor population and would most likely only get you a lifetime of false hope.

And I am not saying that most poor people expect handouts. If anything I would guess that most of them are hard-working. I only brought it up because of the parent post. I realise I owe my own middle-class status to the fact that my parents are middle-class.

And I am all for the well-off helping the poor. I only wish the (South African, in my case) government would do their part.

No, but your parent did. My point is that merely knowing that you can work to improve your position, build on it, is novel information in and of itself for a great many people, not to mention how to do that.

My position is less about handouts, and more about the assumption that poor people know how to get out of poverty and all that's missing is the elbow grease. Yes, relying on the government for handouts isn't going to work, and you also want to be careful of welfare dependence. But education is a significant wealth-enabler, and merely knowing how to deal with various things can give people a leg up. Kamaal's point is about giving a giant shrug and saying "eh, what can you do?". It reflects the current realities of the situation, but the lazy part is not bothering to think of better ways forward.

> there isn't enough wealth to go around.

Though one often reads that acquiring/making wealth isn't a zero sum game.

It definitely isn't a zero-sum game - more basic medical skills in a demographic will improve quality of life, for example, and that's just (almost) free knowledge - but it still doesn't mean there's enough wealth to give everyone a comfortable life.