Poverty Is a Threat to Democracy, with Tavis Smiley | Big Think

I believe that poverty is the defining issue of our time. I believe that poverty is threatening our very democracy, and I mean that sincerely. It's threatening our very democracy, the existence of it, the future of it. I believe that poverty is a matter of national security because these numbers are not sustainable.

One percent of the people cannot continue to own and control 40 percent of the wealth. The top 400 richest Americans, 400 individuals, have wealth equivalent to the bottom 150 million fellow citizens. That's not a democracy. You can call it an oligarchy; you can call it plutocracy, but it's not a democracy.

And that's why I say that poverty is threatening our very democracy. So, there is clearly the issue of poverty; there is the issue of income inequality, but I think there's a third issue that we don't talk about enough: the issue of economic mobility.

So, income inequality is the difference, the gap between the rich and the poor. Well, let's be frank: to some degree, you're always going to have a gap between the rich and the poor. Economic mobility is about how you lift the poor up from the suffering that they have to endure every day.

So, the conversation is really not so much about income inequality or wealth inequality as it is about economic mobility. That's the issue we have to focus on.