The History and Future of Poverty Essay - 3716 Words

To understand our current sins of earth-savaging, overconsuming, and overpopulating, we have to look at facts that are, like the sun, too painful for our direct gaze. Instinctively we look away. Poverty The poverty of the poor is their ruin, says the Book of Proverbs. And the ruin is not just material. Poverty rapes and kills the spirit of the poor. We underestimate its complexity and cruelty. There are four dimensions of poverty: (1) Material limit. Poverty does mean a lack of material necessities. For the one billion people in absolute poverty, the most basic essentials are critically lacking and death is fastening its grip on them. Note, too, that fewer than 3 billion people could eat as we eat, i.e. on a North†¦show more content†¦Infants reach for hope starting with their birth and the infants of the poor already show with their eyes that there is no hope for them. Hunger and pain have already told them that their humanity does not count. The stripping of respect and hope from the poor is well systematized. Capitalism from its start had poverty in its train. Serfs in the feudal, pre-capitalist system did often have a kind of paternalistic social security. They were part of a unit that shared the essentials out of a kind of practical necessity. With the dawn of modern capitalism, the serfs were cast out to look for work and security. Capitalism had two choices from the beginning, either to correct its deficiencies and care for those who were cast out by the blind mechanisms of the market or to e mbark on the systematic vilification of the poor, implying that their plight was their own doing and not an indictment of the system. Capitalism embraced the second alternative with passion. The Statute of Laborers in 1349 in England made it a crime to give alms to the poor. In modern terms this meant cutting off welfare from these lazy drones who opted freely for idleness. This same spirit emerged in The Poor Law Reform Bill in England in 1834, which said explicitly that the main cause of poverty was the indiscriminate giving of aid which destroyed the desire to work. Again, there was nothing wrong with the system, only with those left out by the system. Of this 1834 bill PrimeShow MoreRelatedThe war on terrorism in Afghanistan has been the longest war in the history of the United States of1100 Words   |  5 PagesThe war on terrorism in Afghanistan has been the longest war in the history of the United States of America, the war that nobody wanted is finally coming to an end. Ever since the September 11th attack on the twin towers in the heart of New York, the United States has led a 13 year long war on terrorism in the war-torn country, Afghanistan. The ending of the war is a major turning point in the history of America and Afghanistan. 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