Lecture 3

 Poverty and social welfare

i. Values and Beliefs about Poverty and the Poor

ii. Religious Beliefs About Charity
iii. Poverty As Crime
iv. Poverty As Motivation
v. Human Capital Explanation of Poverty
vi. Culture of Poverty Explanations
vii. The Pauperization Argument
 What is Poverty?

 Underlying the myriad of social problems that require social

welfare intervention is poverty. Let’s now explain the concept of
poverty.

 Poverty can be understood in both absolute and relative terms.

 Absolute poverty is based on a fixed level of resources, or

threshold. If a person’s resources fall below the threshold, he or
she is viewed as experiencing ‘absolute’’

 Relative poverty is based on comparison. If an individual’s

situation is disadvantaged compared to someone else’s, or
compared to what it was in the past, he or she is viewed as
experiencing relative poverty.
Values and Beliefs about Poverty and
the Poor

 Cultural values and beliefs about poverty and the poor

influence the methods that are chosen to prevent or mitigate
poverty. These values and beliefs can be grouped in to seven
broad categories:

i. religious teachings about charity;

ii. punitive responses to the poor;
iii. poverty as motivation;
iv. human capital approaches;
v. culture of poverty explanations;
vi. restricted opportunity explanations; and
vii. ‘‘pauperization’’ arguments.
 Religious Beliefs About Charity

 Charity is an essential part of the teachings of most world

religions. The Code of Hammurabi, written two thousand years
before the birth of Christ, called for protecting the weak from
the strong.
 Buddhism teaches that emancipation of the heart through love
and charity is the most important form of righteousness.
 Islamic teachings view charity not as a favour done by the
giver but as spending for the cause of Allah as a means to
purify the soul of the giver and to unite him with the poor
brother.
 Ancient Jewish doctrines moved care of the poor from the
realm of charity to that of justice.
 Religious Beliefs About Charity
Cont’d

 Religious beliefs taught that not only did the well-off have a duty
to give charity, but the poor had the right to (and even a duty) to
receive it.

 The Talmud, a collection of biblical texts accompanied by

rabbinical commentaries, prescribes in careful detail how relief is
to be administered.

 Under Talmud law, a poor man should receive ‘‘Sufficient for his
needs in that which he wanted.

 If he is hungry, he should be fed; if he needs clothing, he should

be clothed; if he lacks household utensils, they should be
purchased for him.
 Religious Beliefs About Charity
Cont’d

 Thus, religious approaches do not attempt to explain why some

people are poor and others are not.

 Poverty is viewed as neither an individual nor societal

failure, but as an integral part of human condition, offering
the opportunity, requirement, or possibility of personal
charity.

 This view stands in sharp contrast to approaches that treat

poverty as a crime.
 Poverty As Crime

 Punitive responses to poverty are based on the belief that some

of the poor are lazy and need punishment to overcome
these evil ways.
 Most obvious among these undeserving poor are individuals
who are able-bodied but do not work. But their ranks also
include people whose disabilities might be considered their
own fault, such as alcoholics and spendthrifts.

 Modern approaches to the poor are seldom as harsh, but are

nonetheless punitive. The poor are no longer subjected to
whipping but to shame and indifference.
 Poverty As Motivation

 According this view, capitalist industrial economies require the

existence of poverty, because they need a large unemployed
segment in their labour force.

 The poverty and embarrassment associated with unemployment

are seen as necessary motivators for workers to labour for low
wages in difficult conditions.

 Under this view, no one on relief should be well-off as the

lowest-paid labourer. This principle is integral part of poverty
interventions.

 It is manifest in the low level of benefits provided by public

assistance programs and by humiliating administrative practices.
 Human Capital Explanation of
Poverty

 Human capital explanations of poverty focus on the skills,

education and experience (human capital) that an individual
brings to the marketplace.

 According to this view, the poor simply have inadequate or

outdated skills and work experience. Neither the individual nor
the system is held responsible for poverty which is viewed as an
inevitable consequence of a dynamic economy.

 Interventions based on this outlook incorporate job training

and education for the poor. They might also include subsidized
employment.
 Culture of Poverty Explanations

 The culture of poverty is seen as a distinct set of values that

arise in the context of hopeless disadvantage.

 These values include a present-time orientation that seeks

immediate gratification and precludes long term planning or
deferred reward.

 According to this view, a person raised in poverty would

prefer the instant rush of intoxication to the sustained effort
of education.

 They may be seen as improvident or lazy, when in fact they

have learned that effort is not rewarded, life is short, and
pleasures are rare. Their behavior represent effort to adapt to
lifelong even intergenerational poverty.
 Culture of Poverty Explanations
Cont’d

 Drug addiction or teenage pregnancy can be understood as the

natural consequence of growing up in poverty.

 Crime may be logical reaction to repeated failure and family

break-up the inevitable result of a chaotic social milieu.

 Yet, ‘the coping mechanisms by which the poor adjust to

their state also serve to prevent them and their children from
ever moving out of poverty’’.

 An important component of this view holds that the victims of

poverty cannot make use of opportunities that present themselves
later in life because they have been irreparably damaged by their
culture.
 Restricted Opportunity Theories of
Poverty

 Like culture of poverty explanations, restricted opportunity

theories about poverty surfaced in the twentieth century (C20th).

 But whereas the culture of poverty explanation attributes poverty

to personal attributes, restricted opportunity explanations focus on
structural barriers that prevents individuals from securing the
education and/or jobs necessary to succeed financially.

 According to this view, traits such as gender, race, and class

expose an individual to institutional discrimination that restricts
opportunities and increase the risk of poverty
 The Pauperization Argument

 The pauperization argument reflects a widespread belief that

welfare does not relieve poverty but causes it by fostering
dependence on a system that destroy incentives to work.

 The welfare system creates paupers (or permanent poor) from

those who might otherwise succeed.

 If they were no welfare, the pauperization argument held, those

who are receiving public assistance would be motivated to find
jobs and pull themselves out of poverty.

 The pauperization argument has been used by critics of most

established systems of cash assistance to the poor.
Public Interventions to Prevent or Alleviate
Poverty

 In most capitalist nations, poverty encounters deep-seated

ambivalence. The allocation principle used in most programs
(to each according to his need) is incompatible with that of the
capitalist economy (to each according to his product).

 Thus, poverty programs are often criticized for their socialist

underpinnings. Further, the history of poverty interventions
frequently intersects with that of labour policies.

 A nation’s willingness to support the poor may fluctuate

according to the labour needs of its economy.