poverty
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“The upper class keeps all the money, pays none of the taxes. The middle class pays all the taxes, does all the work. The poor are there… just to scare the s**t out of the middle class.”
— George Carlin
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“The problem of the working class is not merely the problem of ‘poverty’; it is the problem of being despised and neglected by the middle classes, who may sometimes ‘help’ them but never truly understand them.”
— George Orwell (from Road to Wigan Pier):
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“The modern Democratic Party is not the party of the poor, but of the professional class — a class that sees itself as a progressive force, but often promotes policies that benefit itself rather than the truly needy.”
— Thomas Frank (from Listen, Liberal)
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The Shame of Poverty
Robert Walker
CHAPTER
1 The Origins of Poverty
This chapter argues that more attention should be paid to the psychosocial dimensions of poverty and notably to shame experienced as a result of living in poverty. Such shame is internally felt but structurally imposed by social institutions and by people who are not poor. Shame associated with poverty is painful, constrains human agency, and may contribute to the persistence of poverty. The chapter explains that poverty is a political construct and traces its origins to the writings of Confucius in China, to the Vedic culture of ancient India, and to philosophers and politicians in the ancient Graeco-Roman world. These ideas have been carried forward and only partially transformed by the vectors of religion and ideology including Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Confucianism, and secularism. Poverty has almost invariably been construed as a policy problem and very often as a consequence of the personal failings of the people affected by poverty.
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“The opposite of poverty is not wealth; the opposite of poverty is enough.”
— Dr. Wess Stafford
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“The Crash Will Be WORSE Than 1929…” | Warren Buffett’s Last WARNING