Explanations of Poverty

1. Poverty as Culture:

The poor are a subculture within America with a distinctly different set of values from the larger society. And these values -- especially fatalism and a present time orientation -- help perpetuate poverty. This theory was first developed by Oscar Lewis, an anthropologist studying the poor in Third World societies, who believed that those living at the edge of subsistence developed a set of values that allowed them to survive under such dire circumstances.

This culture of poverty theory was then adopted by some American social scientists and applied to the American poor.

Edward Banfield, The Unheavenly City (New York: Little Brown, 1970), pp. 62-63
"The lower-class individual lives in the slum and sees little or no reason to complain. He does not care how dirty and dilapidated his housing is either inside or out, nor does he mind the inadequacy of such public facilities as schools, parks, and libraries: indeed, where such things exist he destroys them by acts of vandalism if he can. Features that make the slum repellent to others actually please him. He finds it satisfying in several ways. First, it is a place of excitement "where the action is." Nothing happens there by plan and anything may happen by accident - a game, a fight, a tense confrontation with the police; feeling that something exciting is about to happen is highly congenial to people who live for the present and for whom the present is often empty. Second, it is a place of opportunity. Just as some districts of the city are specialized as a market for, say, jewelry or antiques, so the slum is specialized as one for vice and for illicit commodities generally. Dope peddlers, prostitutes, and receivers of stolen goods are all readily available there, within easy reach of each other and of their customers and victims. For "hustlers" like Malcolm Little (later Malcolm X) and the youthful Claude Brown, the slum is the natural headquarters. Third, it is a place of concealment. A criminal is less visible to the police in the slum than elsewhere, and the lower-class individual, who in some parts of the city would attract attention, is one among many there. In the slum one can beat one's children, lie drunk in the gutter, or go to jail without attracting any special notice; these are things that most of the neighbors themselves have done and that they consider quite normal."

2. Poverty as "Functional":

The poor exist because they serve a "purpose" for the larger society, in fact the larger society "generates" the poor. Karl Marx, for example, believed that having a significant group of unemployed individuals -- the lumpenproletariate -- was useful for the capitalist class. All workers were constantly fearful of losing their jobs and became more willing to accept low wages and poor working conditions.

Below is a quote made by a member of the US Federal Reserve Board in 1984 when the Board was worried about controlling inflation. It, too, illustrates a belief that the existence of unemployed (i.e. "poor") individuals can be "useful" for the larger social system.

"We need the unemployment rate to go a few points higher. Only then will workers begin to lessen their demands for too high wage increases. Only then will inflation be able to be controlled."

3. Poverty as Inferiority:

There are some individuals whose low level of abilities cannot generate the wages needed to provide an adequate standard of living.

This is the position taken by Richard Herrnstein and Charles Murray in The Bell Curve: Intelligence and Class Structure in American Life (1994). They argue that the level of innate abilities needed to survive in a modern industrial society is relatively high, higher than that possessed by a significant portion of the population. They also argue that the tendency for individuals of similar intelligence levels to marry is producing a tendency for this group to "reproduce" itself over time.

"Over the next decade, it will become broadly accepted by the cognitive elite that the people we now refer to as the underclass are in that condition through no fault of their own but because of inherent shortcomings about which little can be done."

Policies to Reduce Poverty

The kind of policies one recommends to reduce or eliminate poverty would depend very much on which of the above explanations of poverty one believes is correct.

Think of a set of policies that would flow from accepting each explanation of poverty ...

a cultural explanation of poverty

Think about what Oscar Lewis observed: "by the time slum children are aged six or seven, they have usually absorbed the basic values and attitudes of their subculture and are not psychologically geared to take full advantage of the changing conditions or increased opportunities that may occur in their lifetime" (Lewis, "The Culture of Poverty." In D.P. Moynihan (ed.) On Understanding Poverty: Perspectives From the Social Sciences. New York: Basic Books 1968: 188).

a functional explanation of poverty

If poverty remains "functional" than it is difficult to think of a reason why there would be any desire to reduce or eliminate it.

an inferiority explanation of poverty

Think about what Herrnstein and Murray observed: "It will be agreed that the underclass cannot be trusted to use cash wisely. Therefore policy will consist of greater benefits, but these will be primarily in the form of services rather than cash." (The Bell Curve: 523)