What is Poverty?

Blisterman

I was having an interesting debate with a friend over this.

He believes that poverty is relative. That no matter how rich a society, the people on the bottom live in poverty, as they would consider themselves poor compared to other people.

However, I believe that it is absolute. That if you have a bed for the night and can feed yourself, then you're not living in poverty. After all, the living standards enjoyed today by even the poorest of Irish or British people would have been comperable to that of kings 200 years ago, and would make much of the world's population envious today.

Dicuss.

Permabear

This post has been deleted.

alex73

There are no Poor in Ireland. By poor I mean with no avenues to get food. Nobody in Ireland dies of hunger because they can't get food. People may be "less-well-off", Poor no.

alex73

alex73 wrote: »

There are no Poor in Ireland. By poor I mean with no avenues to get food. Nobody in Ireland dies of hunger because they can't get food. People may be "less-well-off", Poor no.

I have to wonder about this. There are always extreme circumstances whereby people are exempted from any system... TBH, to say that nobody Nobody in Ireland dies of hunger because they can't get food seems rather smug and somewhat short sighted.

Although TBH if there are people within this bracket, they're likely to have slipped through the cracks and are unlikely to be reported beyond a minor footnote in some book.

Poverty exists. Alas we're usually so involved in our own lives that we overlook what really goes on.

MrTsSnickers

As far as I know there are different levels of poverty. There's relative poverty where a person/family can't afford the social or cultural norms but can still afford food, shelter, heat etc just no luxuries. Then there's absolute poverty, which I think means living on less than $2 USD per day. If I remember correctly, there are a few more points on the scale but I can't remember them off the top of my head. You'd probably find more info if you google the MDGs (Millennium Development Goals). Actually just had a quick look at combat poverty website : http://www.combatpoverty.ie/povertyinireland/measuringpoverty.htm

Starokan

Poverty comes in all guises, in its most base form you could view it as a hungry homeless person who has simply no options left, that is there are no avenues left for that person to eat/drink in order to live.

But a seemingly well off person can also be in poverty in that their lives are dictated by what they owe credit card companys/banks etc.

At first glance poverty is a social issue but i think its also reasonable to suggest that poverty is also a method of control. The population is controlled by what it owes or to whom it owes it too. When you find yourself in the mire of debt that many these days are experiencing freedom of choice is removed, that is control by poverty. To follow that line of thought you must then ask who is controlling you.

My point of view is probably more suited to the conspiracy forum but i thought id chuck my 2c in anyway.

Zombrex

Economists and other social scientists make a distinction between absolute poverty (cannot afford food water shelter) and relative poverty (a proportion of the population that have less that would be considered socially acceptable to have, things like owning 2 pairs of shoes)

Absolute poverty is almost non-existent in western countries, the issue facing those who cannot access basic necessities such as food and water is far more often to due to mental or other health problems such as drug addiction (eg homeless people on the street in Dublin).

Since relative poverty is socially defined there will always be various differences in how it is classified (for example does someone who owns an Xbox be classified as poor)

slowburner

Blisterman wrote: »

I was having an interesting debate with a friend over this.

He believes that poverty is relative. That no matter how rich a society, the people on the bottom live in poverty, as they would consider themselves poor compared to other people.

However, I believe that it is absolute. That if you have a bed for the night and can feed yourself, then you're not living in poverty. After all, the living standards enjoyed today by even the poorest of Irish or British people would have been comperable to that of kings 200 years ago, and would make much of the world's population envious today.

Dicuss.

I think that poverty is a relative term in the same way that wealth is a relative term. I agree with your friend - if you are at the bottom of a social pile, then you are in poverty. Poverty in Ireland and poverty in Rwanda have to be measured differently because the resources, conditions and norms are different.
Conversely, a Kalahari bushman without clothes or a house but with a cow could be considered wealthy amongst his peers. Would that apply in Ireland?
Poverty and wealth are social concepts. It is therefore irrational to compare conditions suffered by the poor in one society with the poor in another society.
And for humanity's sake, I hope that is how the state views it too. The state doesn't say to an applicant for a welfare payment 'You're not in poverty, you have a roof over your head and somewhere to sleep etc. - you don't need any assistance'.
You can be in poverty and still have plenty. Take as an example, an unemployed single mother of two school going children, who simply can't meet her financial obligations - she is in poverty. That's what poverty is - an inability to meet financial obligations. And the poverty trap is an inability to get out of this situation.
Perhaps what is meant by absolute poverty in this thread is penury or destitution.

Blisterman

The problem with judging poverty relatively is that it means regardless of increases in living standards, there will always be an equal number of people in poverty.

slowburner

Blisterman wrote: »

The problem with judging poverty relatively is that it means regardless of increases in living standards, there will always be an equal number of people in poverty.

......which I suspect is the reality of the world we live in and always will be.
Living standards do not always necessarily rise either and if they do, it doesn't mean that the tide lifts all boats equally.
Wasn't that the kind of thinking which failed in Thatcher's monetarist Britain?

Monty Burnz

slowburner wrote: »

......which I suspect is the reality of the world we live in and always will be.
Living standards do not always necessarily rise either and if they do, it doesn't mean that the tide lifts all boats equally.
Wasn't that the kind of thinking which failed in Thatcher's monetarist Britain?

I don't know that monetarist Britain did fail. Britain in the 70s was going down the tubes in a very big way, and by the 90s it was a thriving country again (aside from their property crash, of course). For most of that time, the Tories were in Government.

slowburner

Monty Burnz wrote: »

I don't know that monetarist Britain did fail. Britain in the 70s was going down the tubes in a very big way, and by the 90s it was a thriving country again (aside from their property crash, of course). For most of that time, the Tories were in Government.

It probably didn't fail in terms of GDP or GNP but I think it failed in humanitarian terms - remember Tebbit's 'On your bike' comment. Not everyone can thrive in a monetarist environment and wasn't it a conclusion of political theorists that the predicted 'trickle down' of wealth, did not actually happen?

Monty Burnz

slowburner wrote: »

It probably didn't fail in terms of GDP or GNP but I think it failed in humanitarian terms - remember Tebbit's 'On your bike' comment.

I interpreted the 'on your bike' comment as Tebbit suggesting people get off their arses and help themselves by looking for work, rather than waiting for the government to do it all. I'm not sure if that's a humanitarian failure? If anything, it treats people as responsible adults rather than infantilising them as if they are children who can't fend for themselves.

There were certainly issues of Tory policy that I'd have big issues with, but on the big picture, it seems to me that they took a country sliding into poverty and social unrest and turned into an economic powerhouse (with attendant social benefits).

slowburner wrote: »

Not everyone can thrive in a monetarist environment and wasn't it a conclusion of political theorists that the predicted 'trickle down' of wealth, did not actually happen?

Unfortunately, I don't really understand what you mean by a 'monetarist environment'. Monetarism is merely a means of controlling inflation - they don't seem to have an issue with it in Germany.

slowburner

Kinda going OT here, and I'm getting out of my depth - I don't subscribe to the politics forum

Monty Burnz

slowburner wrote: »

Kinda going OT here, and I'm getting out of my depth - I don't subscribe to the politics forum

Yeah, it's probably a bit O/T alright.

padma

Poverty is worrying about your future, whether that is feeding your child/you, or paying your bills, Poverty is the state of mind of worry which brings unhappiness, thus leading to someone feeling poverty stricken.

Monty Burnz

padma wrote: »

Poverty is worrying about your future, whether that is feeding your child/you, or paying your bills, Poverty is the state of mind of worry which brings unhappiness, thus leading to someone feeling poverty stricken.

By this definition, Sean Fitzpatrick could be described as living in poverty. It may be a bit too broad.

Permabear

This post has been deleted.

Blisterman

That brings another issue. It's very difficult to objectively define wealth.

Technically speaking a homeless person in Africa with no debts and 20c in their pocket could be richer than somebody on 100k, living in a mortgaged mansion in negative equity.

slowburner

Blisterman wrote: »

That brings another issue. It's very difficult to objectively define wealth.

Technically speaking a homeless person in Africa with no debts and 20c in their pocket could be richer than somebody on 100k, living in a mortgaged mansion in negative equity.

Blisterman wrote: »

The problem with judging poverty relatively is that it means regardless of increases in living standards, there will always be an equal number of people in poverty.

See. It's all relative
Wealth and poverty are ends of the same spectrum, define one and you define the other.
I don't think you can avoid any definition of either without consideration of wealth or poverty as an effect which is relative to other members of a specific society. (if that makes any sense)

yuppies

http://bigthink.com/ideas/24920 i posted this in another thread. This guy believes that by the year 2100, poverty will be something observed only in museums ie. it will be confined to history.

yuppies

Personally, I believe poverty should be measured as much as possible along objective lines and the objective increase in the well-being of the worlds population in the last 200 years is pretty mind-boggling..

[ incidentally, a suspicion of mine is that this is a contributory factor in the perceived rise in the incidence of mental illness, particularly anxiety and depression, in the western world; peoples' lives are so utterly different to those of their ancestors (ie. they experience much less discomfort, hardship and misery resulting from physical circumstances) that their minds are at odds with their environment, so their brain makes up for it with heightened anxiety in situations which would have been comparatively unstressful for our ancestors and this can lead to depression etc. As a depression sufferer, it wouldn't surprise me.. ]

slowburner

yuppies wrote: »

Personally, I believe poverty should be measured as much as possible along objective lines and the objective increase in the well-being of the worlds population in the last 200 years is pretty mind-boggling..

[ incidentally, a suspicion of mine is that this is a contributory factor in the perceived rise in the incidence of mental illness, particularly anxiety and depression, in the western world; peoples' lives are so utterly different to those of their ancestors (ie. they experience much less discomfort, hardship and misery resulting from physical circumstances) that their minds are at odds with their environment, so their brain makes up for it with heightened anxiety in situations which would have been comparatively unstressful for our ancestors and this can lead to depression etc. As a depression sufferer, it wouldn't surprise me.. ]

I think your suspicion is probably true, look at the worldwide (western) rise in obesity and eating disorders. We don't actually need to expend energy nowadays to obtain the necessities, and as you say, this creates anxiety. But I think stress might be a more accurate description. Driving is a good example of how stress is created. As you drive through rush hour traffic, you perceive a multitude of potential threats and you need to take action to avoid them. But the problem is, all the actions you need to take are carried out while in a sitting position.
We are not programmed to perceive a threat and to stay immobile - quite the opposite, we are programmed for 'fight or flight' - that's what adrenaline is for. So there you are in you car when you have a near collision with another car. Your body releases adrenaline and stress hormones to give you added strength to avoid the situation. But you haven't moved a muscle and all those stress hormones have to go somewhere.
It's probably not a great example, but this sort of effect is happening all the time in the modern western world.
There is a similar phenomenon which I like to call 'Long Distance Lorry Drivers' syndrome' (no offence meant to any lorry drivers). It is this, our brains, as we travel long distances, believe that we have expended a lot of energy because we have seen so much over such a long period. So the brain sends signals to the digestive system saying 'We've done a lot, we must have used a lot of energy, we need to replace the energy.' So we eat and the more we think we have done the higher the perceived need for calorie intake. The results of the equation '+calorie intake / -activity' are obvious.
And then the circle becomes vicious because of the well documented correlation between lowered self esteem and poor body image.

slowburner

Not so sure I agree with very much of what Mr. Mackey says, although his optimism and enthusiasm are refreshing. In particular, I disagree with the concept of an ever expanding pie. What about peak oil for example?

But that is a growing pie and it’s a win, win, win, win, win game and that turns me on. I'm very fired up and excited about that because it means human flourishing isn’t trapped in some type of a limited set of constraints. It means we can innovate and create our ways out of any of these traps, any of these sort of… I can’t remember or think of the phrase right now. I'm trying to recall, but.... this idea that we’re in some type of trap of limited resources and the only limitations we have are the limitations of human creativity, human imagination and intellectual capital that has been accumulated.

http://bigthink.com/ideas/24920

yuppies

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/01/25/AR2011012504735.html

Here's an interesting article somebody posted in a thread in "irish economy".

"We estimate that between 2005 and 2010, nearly half a billion people escaped extreme hardship, as the total number of the world's poor fell to 878 million people. Never before in history have so many people been lifted out of poverty in such a short period."