Conventional wisdom is usually neither.

WorkingForChange-We have little patience with the poor:

"So let's talk about the poor. Let's talk about those among us who cannot afford basic medical care or decent housing. Let's consider those who, despite working 40 hours or more a week, still can't afford the prescription drugs they need. Let's talk about those who join the Army just to get dental care for their children.

Don't want to hear about them? You think they're stuck at the margins because they're lazy or dumb or inclined to crime? You think America offers prosperity to any man or woman willing to work hard enough to get it?

Americans have always believed that. That idealism distinguishes us from Europeans, who are more likely to believe that class determines one's future, that pulling oneself up by the bootstraps just ruins good bootstraps. Those who abandoned their homes in the Old World to seek fortunes in the New had to be relentless optimists, hardy souls who could make their own way. While some failed, many others thrived.

Those who don't choose their parents wisely often find their achievements limited. This country is more class-oriented than many of us would like to believe. Academic research has shown that adult men are often mired in the same economic bracket their fathers were in.

Indeed, it's getting harder to climb the economic ladder. As the pace of globalization picks up and manufacturing jobs disappear -- along with their benefits and pensions -- it's increasingly difficult for those without college degrees to get ahead. And the price of a college education keeps going up.

But we have remarkably little patience with those who don't share our good fortune. A generation of politicians and pundits has told us that the poor are lazy and irresponsible and undeserving of our help. Indeed, trying to help them would only make them worse off, we're told.

So the last thing we should do is establish a broad social safety net that provides generous health care and raises the minimum wage and ensures decent housing for all. Why, any one of those things could prove absolutely ruinous to the poor!

That political philosophy -- which claims to be a hard-headed compassion rather than the hard-hearted selfishness it really is -- has become the conventional wisdom.