Everyone feels that they know the causes of poverty. The concept of poverty is very complex. It has so many factors and causes that not one single perspective can have the exact cause.

Let’s make a list of the causes of poverty.

Functionalists believe in the stratification system.

Davis and Moore (1945) (Two Sociologists) stated that all societies must ensure that people will fill essential positions and perform important tasks. Some positions and tasks are more important or more difficult than others.

People who fill the more difficult or more essential tasks are given greater rewards – both economic and social – as a consequence.

According the functionalist view, people who do not perform useful tasks receive fewer rewards.

Reward = Job done to give back to society.

When the link between what a person does and what he or she receives becomes vague or broken entirely, then social disorganization can result.

People no longer believe that work will be rewarded and so stratification is no longer a motivation for people. This id due the discrimination in the job market.

The Economy

In the realm of poverty, normal and sometimes desirable changes in the economy can affect the level of poverty.

Unemployment and Inflation are indirectly related.

To reduce inflation there needs to be a increase in unemployment.

Structural Unemployment

When unemployment serves a purpose like decreasing the inflation rate then it is the very part of the economy.

According to some functionalists, one of the reasons that poverty persists is that it performs some positive functions for society or at least for some groups in society.

Herbert J. Gans (1994) wrote about the benefits that poverty gives to society:

The existence of poverty ensures that society’s "Dirty Work" will be done. (examples: Dish Washing, Farm Workers, ect.)

Poverty subsidizes many of the activities of the more affluent because the poor are willing to work for low wages. (House Keeping)

Poverty Creates jobs for all those people who serve the poor, such as social workers, or who protect society from them, such as police and corrections officers.

Poverty creates a market for inferior goods and services. (Used cars, ect.)

The poor help to support and symbolize the status of the nonpoor by serving as the official "losers" or "underdogs" in the societal race for success.

Interesting!

The conflict’s perspective on poverty comes mostly from Karl Marx.

Karl Marx viewed society as involving a constant struggle between social classes over scarce resources, with some groups managing to capture more of these resources than others.

In the Functionalist perspective we found that pay or poverty has nothing to do with rewarding talent or filling important positions.

Karl Marx believed that the ways people gain desirable positions in the stratification system is through coercion, exploitation, and possibly inheritance.

Once the positions are acquired by the rich, they work to protect it against inroads by less fortunate groups.

The Book sites many ways the affluent try and keep less fortunate groups out.

The Book sites many ways the affluent try and keep less fortunate groups out.

Some of the examples are:

Employers seek cheapest labor possible because this increases their profits.

The tax system is used to benefit affluent who can use tax loopholes.

The legal system seems to favor affluent

Why do you think the affluent are so given so many breaks in society?

If you think about it in a historical perspective, the founders of this nation were the elite of the elite. They were affluent and made the first laws about property to protect what they had.

Now days a person who is on welfare and who works three jobs cannot get elected to an office in any government. That is how and why they want it that way.

Marx describes a subtle way in which dominant groups can protect their position:

They can convince subordinate groups that the existing distribution of resources is "natural" or preferable to any other.

Through Schools and the Media people can be taught to believe that everyone will be successful if they apply themselves. The implication of this belief, of course, is that poverty is caused by one’s not having worked hard enough. Being poor is one’s own fault.

Marx said that this is done to deflect people’s attention from the societal structures and barriers that contribute to maintaining some groups in power.

Poverty is then viewed as a personal problems rather than a societal problems and people are less likely to stand up to change the system.

Social Mobility

The movement of people from one social position to another in the stratification hierarchy.

Once people have become successful they tend to pass their success to their children and this makes it harder for people in general to have upward social mobility.

Other factors are that children of affluent parents have over others:

Access to a better education

Access to Health Care

Access to experiences that are expensive enough to be exclusive.

From a Conflict Perspective the issues of poverty need to be addressed in a global effort.

The global economy pits large corporations in a competition out of which some win and some loose. When some loose, some families loose and individuals loose.

Higher profits and lower wages keeps the poor in poverty.

Cultural Analysis of Poverty

The values attitudes, and psychological orientations that may emerge among groups of people who live under conditions of poverty (Marks, 1991).

The basic idea is that people who live in poverty develop a cultural orientation to a way that enables them to still feel good about themselves.

Anthropologist Oscar Lewis (1966) was the first to discuss this issue.

The poor tend to be isolated from centers of power and decision making in society and influential groups and organizations.

When the culture of poverty develops it is sometimes passed on from generation to generation.

Cultural Analysis has been criticized because it seems to blame the "victim"

Is this true of Cultural Analysis?

Cultural Analysis argues that certain social conditions – discrimination, lack of opportunity, social isolation – can produce a culture of poverty, and this culture in turn perpetuates the victimization of the poor.

Traits of the "Culture of the Poor" only occur in less than half of the poor.