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“They worry that I am assigning too much blame to the system and not granting "agency" to the low-income. They want me to say more about this group and they want me to suggest the right "nudges" that would push people to behave in certain ways. They want to know: what can we do to help "empower" the low-income so that they can help themselves? The problem with this mindset - not of those who are powerless but those who are relatively powerful - is that power is not a frame of mind but a material condition. People sitting in positions of authority are powerful not because they feel empowered bu because they have power. Their feelings of empowerment are an outcome of their actual ownership of power, not the cause. One can think - and indeed many of the low-income people I speak with do this - "I can do this. I must try". But if one is in fact lacking in power - lacking in control over time; lacking in leverage in the labour market; lacking in bargaining power with managers, teachers, social workers, landlords, creditors - no amount of merely changing how they think about themselves will change these realities.” — Teo You Yenn