Sejong's Enlightenment (2)

"What is the reason you said we must give up on saving every poor person?"

"The emergence of poor people within a country is something that, like famine arising after a bad harvest, cannot be predicted or prevented by human power."

There are all sorts of reasons people become poor in this world.

Someone who starts a business with a grand dream, only to see it fail and lose all his property in an instant, becoming impoverished.

Someone who spends excessively compared to his income until he can no longer bear it and goes bankrupt.

Someone who becomes obsessed with gambling or debauchery and squanders all the money he possesses, and so on...

Besides these, some people fall into the mire of poverty because of circumstances unrelated to their own rights or wrongs, such as an illness in the family.

No matter how diligently civil servants and the government keep watch over such sudden circumstances and try to help, it is impossible to help everyone.

How much more impossible is it in Joseon, where the problem is not merely smaller budgets and a smaller workforce, but the lack of even a computerized network?

"For the same reason, it is impossible to save everyone who becomes poor."...