People are poor not because of an increase in misery, but because of the attitude of resentment at what they do not possess and what others possess
POVERTY is relative to richness. It is one of the foremost social problems facing Pakistan and other countries. John L. Gillin asserted that poverty may be regarded as “that condition in which a person, either because of inadequate income or unwise expenditure, does not maintain a scale of living high enough to provide for his physical and mental efficiency and to enable him and his natural dependents to function usually according to the standards of society of which he is a member”.
Poverty exists when one is not able to get sufficient food and necessities of life. According to Goddard J.G., “Poverty is the insufficient supply of those things which are requisite for an individual to maintain himself and those dependent upon him in health and vigour”.
Rich and poor have always existed in society, but historically the existence of poverty did not constitute an important social problem until exchange system and a scale of values came into existence. When trade expanded, some people began to amass wealth, leading to its uneven distribution. They started living a luxurious life, depriving others of comforts. The members of society began to compare the differences in economic status and look upon themselves as either poor or rich in accordance with the prevailing living standards.
So, poverty is considered a problem only when obvious differences in economic status among members of a society are established and comparisons and evaluations of those differences are made. In the absence of these differences, poverty does not exist, even though life may be most precarious. Thus, poverty was no problem in the Middle Ages, even though by modern standards the level of living at that time was incredibly low, poverty was simply accepted as inevitable.
Poverty is relative to richness. It is only when people feel resentment at their lot as compared to that of others that they feel the sting of poverty. In case of extreme privation, they may feel this sting without comparing their lot with that of others. They fail to achieve more than what they have and the awareness of this failure causes resentment of poverty among them. Therefore, it is the attitude of resentment which brings the problem of poverty to the forefront.
The primitive people lived a more precarious life, but they considered their discomfort as a natural condition, rather than as a problem calling for solution and, hence, accepted it without being resentful. People are poor not because of an increase in misery, but because of the attitude of resentment at what they do not possess and what others possess. They regard themselves as poor when they feel deprived of what others possess and enjoy. It is then that poverty becomes a social problem.
What are the causes underlying poverty? According to Henry George, the main cause of poverty is the personal ownership and monopoly of the individual on the land. He writes, “In the great cities, where land is so valuable that it is measured by the foot, you will find the extremes of poverty and of luxury. And this disparity in condition between the two extremes of the social scale may always be measured by the price of land.”
According to Marx, the main cause of poverty is the exploitation of the workers by the capitalists. According to Malthus, increasing population is the cause of poverty. These thinkers, however, laid emphasis on one particular cause of poverty. As a matter of fact the causes of poverty are numerous and complex. Some of the causes are personal while others are geographical, economic and social. It is the task of an economist to analyse them in detail.
Gillin listed three factors as primarily responsible for poverty: one, in the capacity of the individual, which may be due to a faulty heredity or to the environment; two, unfavourable physical conditions, such as poor natural resources, bad climate and weather, and epidemics; and, three, maldistribution of wealth and of income and the imperfect functioning of our economic institutions.
Of these three factors the last two are principally responsible for poverty in Pakistan. Ours is a country rich in natural resources, but we have not yet adequately exploited them. A vast area of land remains uncultivated. Our means of cultivation are old styled, resulting in less production. Industries are not well developed; a vast portion of population depends on agriculture. And, in addition to it, wealth is unevenly distributed due to bad economic planning which even leads to wastage.
Various theories have been advanced through the years to explain poverty. Let us take a closer look at three of them.
According to the Culture of Poverty thesis, the poor in class-stratified capitalist societies lack effective participation and integration within the larger society. Clustered in large ghettos in cities like New York, Mexico City, Karachi and Mumbai, these people develop feelings of marginality, helplessness, dependence, and inferiority.
Such circumstances breed a variety of survival mechanisms: a sense of passivity and resignation because of enduring poverty; a present-time orientation because of the pressures of day-to-day survival; feelings of fatalism and powerlessness deriving from a lack of political resources; low aspirations because of a lack of opportunity; feelings of inferiority because of the larger society’s contempt; and the creation of female-headed families because of the inability of poor men to be adequate breadwinners. In turn, this self-defeating set of values and attitudes, along with an impoverished intellectual and emotional development, is passed on to successive generations through socialization.
The Culture of Poverty thesis has proven attractive to some who see it as an explanation of entrenched poverty, but it is roundly criticized by others who consider it a variation of ‘blaming the victim’ themes. Critics say that the so-called pathological consequences of poverty will disappear when the poor are provided with decent jobs and other social resources.
Moreover, evidence shows that adolescent motherhood and dependency do not invariably set the stage for a lifetime of welfare dependency and related disadvantage for either the mother or the child.
Another view sees poverty as largely ‘situational’. According to this point of view, many people who slip into poverty do so for a limited time after major adverse events, such as divorce or illness. There is little evidence that individual attitudes and behaviour patterns affect individual economic progress. To a far greater extent, individuals are the victims of their past, their environment, luck and chance.
Still another view portrays poverty as a ‘structural’ feature of capitalist societies. The cyclical movements of economic expansion and contraction — boom and bust — contribute to sharp fluctuations in employment. Marx contended that an industrial reserve army is essential for capitalist economies.
The industrial reserve army shall consist of individuals at the bottom of the class structure who are laid off in the interests of corporate profits during times of economic stagnation, then rehired when needed for producing profits during times of prosperity.
It is disproportionately composed of minorities, who traditionally have been the last hired and the first fired.
And proponents of the ‘structural’ view charge that it is the workers who bear the brunt of changes in industry, as seen in the persistent unemployment currently being experienced by many former workers in such rust-belt industries as autos and steel.
The vicious cycle, in which poverty breeds poverty, occurs through time, and transmits its effect from one generation to another. There is no beginning to the cycle, no end.
In 1970, Coates and Silburn described a series of problems which the poor suffer, which reinforce one another and which are likely to continue from generation to generation. According to them: “A culture of poverty often exists among the poor which leads to a passive acceptance of their position allied to a hostility towards authority. “Children growing up in neighbourhoods where such attitudes are the norm are likely to leave school early and enter unskilled and often low-paid, uncertain employment; marry early, and have larger families than people elsewhere. In turn, their children are likely to grow up equally deprived so that poverty becomes ‘cyclical’ — it is likely to be unbroken, like a circle from generation to generation”.
The existence of such a cycle has been disputed on the grounds that the factors quoted are symptoms, not causes, of poverty.
“The poor you have always with you,” says St John’s Gospel. But the poor have not always been treated in the same way. In sum, the poor may always be with us, but they are not always who we think they are.
People are poor not because of an increase in misery, but because of the attitude of resentment at what they do not possess and what others possess 
