Poverty is an outcome of the mode of production and plays a large role in relation to production. Therefore, according to Marx, it is a contributor to the economic base. People who are living at poverty level struggles to meet the living necessities due to capitalist exchange values on productions. What I mean by this that people in poverty cannot afford to buy enough food, clothes, and most importantly a safe home for their kids. This is due to the fact that most people living in poverty are being paid minimum wages that does not meet the exchange values of commodities. People in poverty are the laborers in the capitalist world, they a commodity as well. Using Marx’s theory, people in poverty are the proletariats since they are the actual …show more content…
To relate this to Durkheim’s theory, in a sense, it’s a norm that we have poverty in America because then we have people who can and will work the jobs that no one wants to, such as garbage collectors, janitors, and more. We need people to work these jobs so that society continues to function. However, one of the weakness of Durkheim’s functional theory is how do we define which job, talent, or function is more important and why. This is related to poverty because we have jobs that are low-paying jobs, but because we know with such bad social conditions, people are willing to contribute to the functional society by taking the less skilled jobs, also the least appreciated jobs as well. Relating this back to Marx’s theory on wages being lowered and proletariats accepting it because they need to mean their need of subsistence. However, in a sense, it can be argued that according to Durkheim, that there is a need for people in poverty because then no one would willingly take the low-paying …show more content…
This false consciousness causes people to solely think about themselves and how to make themselves look better than the others to get a better paying job.Their relationship to the production is at the same level as proletariats according to Marx. Poverty is an outcome of how production is produced and by who and therefore is part of the economic base. When social factors contribute to how institutions are run, the institutions created by the economic base are in a sense reinforcing and adding to the poverty concentration. One weakness of Marx’s theory to modern society is that there is not an explanation of race and ethnicity division that contributes to poverty. We have a lot of immigrants in the United States who comes with the desire to one day achieve the American dream. Although the aspirations and dreams are there, there is a lot of obstacles that immigrants has to overcome, such as language barrier, lack of money, and more. Immigrants come to the United State with the desire to improve their lifestyle, but that does not mean that they have the means to have a stable living the minute they get here. This can to thought about along with Durkheim’s concept of people following social expectations because immigrants often have the mindset that America is a land of equal opportunities and that it is one of the
Inter-reliant poverty comes with its own stresses- and certainly isn’t the American ideal- but it’s much closer to our evolutionary heritage than affluence.” (Junger 21)
In Marx’s opinion, the cause of poverty has always been due to the struggle between social classes, with one class keeping its power by suppressing the other classes. He claims the opposing forces of the Industrial Age are the bourgeois and the proletarians. Marx describes the bourgeois as a middle class drunk on power. The bourgeois are the controllers of industrialization, the owners of the factories that abuse their workers and strip all human dignity away from them for pennies. Industry, Marx says, has made the proletariat working class only a tool for increasing the wealth of the bourgeoisie. Because the aim of the bourgeoisie is to increase their trade and wealth, it is necessary to exploit the worker to maximize profit. This, according to Marx, is why the labor of the proletariat continued to steadily increase while the wages of the proletariat continued to steadily decrease.
In order to feed a family that provides just basic needs, they have to accept those conditions otherwise they would be down the street without any source of income. While the bourgeoisie class enjoys the large profits and luxurious life that has been provided by the effort of labor, they can barely afford themselves and the family. According to Marx, capitalist system has another damage rather than class differentiation and low source of income. This damage is basically an alienation of labor. Labor is fundamentally alienated from production, production process, man’s species and also from other men.
Some people believe that poverty is beneficial. For example, Herbert J. Gans. is a big fan of poverty. In his essay, “The Uses of Poverty: The Poor Pay All,” he explains the benefits of having poor people in society. “The existence of poverty ensures that society’s “dirty work” will be done.” -Herbert J. Gans (Gans, 1971.) He believes that the poverty level needs to be relatively high to support the comfortable lives of middle and upper class people. The working poor support the other classes. However, it is very difficult for people in the lower class to make a move upwards. Generally in the “dirty jobs” pay very little and there is little to no opportunity for advancement. Often times, there is an ascribed status for those in the lower class. Since their parents were poor, they have little to no opportunities to have a life any different. It is very difficult for these individuals to attend college, due to rising tuition prices. In today’s society it is nearly impossible to attain a high paying job without a college degree. Hundreds of thousands of U.S. jobs have been moved overseas to save money, but that means finding work in America is very difficult (Frontline Charts, 2013.) Even if they can find work, wages for such jobs have been dropping and are often not enough to support a family or even
Poverty is a potential outcome for everyone. It’s sneaky and many people fall victim to it every year. No one believes that they have the potential to fall into debt, but it can happen through a string of bad luck, time running short, and other possibilities that can’t be controlled. People who are struggling with difficulty believe that there is no way out because no one will help them. However, there are ways for us, as a society, to help those who are short on income receive the help that they need. Many of the impoverished are thought to be slackers, addicts, or self-destructive to their lives. Society can help each other by dismembering the stereotypes given to people who are underneath the “Poverty Line” that they used as wedges between the classes. Labels given to those who’re poor have nothing to do with who they are as humans.
Kal Marx states that there is two classes of people whom are the workers and the owners and states the fact that the owner doesn't care about their workers but produce wealth whatever it takes but the workers believe in their owners that they have their best interest of them and take care of them. And under this theory many people in a capitalistic society only see wealth as something you work hard for and see the poor and homelessness as being lazy and not a hard worker and only want to receive welfare and others to take care of them. Marx believed that homelessness people are often the results of shortcomings and is based on their personality flaws they have instead of society itself. This theory can explains why capitalism people resent those like the poor and homelessness people because they aren't dedicated in life and aren't at a higher educated level. These different classes are created by Capitalist Society who choose to be competitive and greedy for power and cause such hatred towards those below
This false consciousness causes people to solely think about themselves and how to make themselves look better than the others to get a better paying job. Their relationship to the production is at the same level as proletariats, Marx would say. Poverty is an outcome of how production is produced and by who and therefore is part of the economic base. When social factors contribute to how institutions are run, the institutions created by the economic base are, in a sense, reinforcing and adding to the poverty concentration. One weakness of Marx’s theory to modern society is that there is not a clear explanation of race and ethnicity division that contributes to poverty. We have a lot of immigrants in the United States who comes with the desire to one day achieve the American dream. Although the aspirations and dreams are there, there is a lot of obstacles that immigrants have to overcome, such as language barrier, lack of money, and more. Immigrants come to the United State with the desire to improve their lifestyle, but that does not mean that they have the means to have a stable living the minute they get here. This can be considered along with Durkheim’s concept of people following social expectations because immigrants often have the mindset that America is a land of equal opportunities and that it is one of the wealthiest country and so, they invest into it. However, they add to the number of people in poverty in America because they don’t have much themselves. Therefore, the concentration of poverty in America is composed of poor white Americans, black Americans, other racial Americans, and immigrants. Often we associate white Americans with being the wealthiest in comparison to blacks and other races due to the historical knowledge that we have. We know about slavery and who was the landowner, and
Poverty is more functional to the affluent members of society because they are the ones who benefit greatly from others living in poverty. In my opinion, there are a great number of people who are a part of the affluent society that lack compassion for others. This in turn results in them having more financial gains and people on the other end of the spectrum falling deeper and deeper below the poverty line. Members of the affluent society has also been known to utilize the impoverished to do the “dirty work,” which are strenuous low paying jobs that sometimes require an excessive amount of hours. Working these types of jobs, are not very beneficial to those living in poverty because of the downfalls they may cause on their households. Due to the amounts of hours that may be required, the impoverished often faces risks of losing their subsidies.
America has always been a country known for their great integrity, diversity, financial prosperity and great pop culture. It has been a place many people have flocked to from many different parts of the world in order to escape their very own poverty struck countries in their quest to build a new life in America and hopefully become financially stable. In this article written by M. Harrington he pointed out some key factors discussing how America has not really changed from over a hundred years ago. In specifics he tells how many years have gone by and still yet there is still a very large amount of a poverty class of people. Although our nation takes great pride on its classlessness there is still a one quarter percent of our country’s population that still lives in a poverty level. Some of these areas also included some inner city blacks, farmworkers, Appalachian whites and elderly people. Harrington’s book “The Other America” also tells us how as a country we have managed to hide the poverty level class from being seen while our country screams we are the wealthiest country in the world! America has done just that. Encourage the wealthy to become wealthier and poor to be poorer. It was also pointed out that the poverty class tends to have a poor language, poor mentality and just a poor outlook of the entire world view as a whole. He stated that the poverty people in this country are identified by a unique way of what is called “Culture Of Poverty”. What he was saying was that the mind of a poverty struck person will not ever surmount to doing things that will benefit them or change the course of their direction. In other words you may give a poor man a million dollars but he will not know wha...
Poverty is not wished upon, but area such the least industrialized nations there is more of it. There are many ways to analyze poverty. Functionalists believe that poverty is good for the economic and the workforce. Symbolic interactionists believe that it has a purpose but for what reason. While, conflict theorists believe that the system of poverty is flawed. That statement is more believable because calling someone poor is just using a label. It does not look at their family history, medical history or even their education.
Poverty has been a growing problem in America, and it most likely will never stop being one. Someone who is identified as being in poverty lives beneath the poverty line determined by the Federal government. The poverty line in 2015 for a family of four was $24,250. These are the people who are really considered poor. Poverty isn’t just a problem in the United States; in fact, other countries struggle just as much, if not more, than the United States does. Many people struggle to keep themselves above the government’s poverty line, shown by the fact that the percent of poor people in America hasn’t drastically changed over the years. However, it is possible to get out of, and ultimately stay out of, poverty.
Social class is a system of social stratification, the hierarchy creates specific types of social inequalities. Social inequality refers to the existence of social inequalities created such as ownership, types of occupation that creates differences in wealth, income and power, while social stratification refers to the existence of social groups. Class can be arranged to economic factors such as income, education, wealth and other factors at work. Poverty remains high and could argue that true poverty cannot exist in a country as rich as the United States. It is clear that poverty has an impact on certain groups of people, while other groups have it easy, but poverty is often associated with something low education, poor health and social inequalities groups. Nearly a quarter of less than high school (23.6%) education live below the poverty line, while 3.6% of people with tertiary education live below the poverty line (U.S. Census 2007). The assumption that poverty is something that adds to increasing educational opportunities for the poor and education overall, suggests that it is very difficult to get out of poverty. You can see some similarities between health, poverty and employment status. The results of poor health, poor health contributes to poverty, and the difficulty of working full time. These are all things that come to be in a state of poverty.
Poverty is “the inability to acquire enough money to meet basic needs including food, clothing and shelter” (Gosselin,2009). This social disadvantage limits one’s ability to receive a quality education and it is a constant problem throughout the world accompanied with“deleterious impacts on almost all aspects of family life and outcomes for children”(Ravallion,1992). Poverty is a main factor that affects normal human growth and development in a variety of ways, primarily impacting children’s early development, social behaviour, health, and self worth.
In today 's society, there is 1 in 7 people living in poverty which is costing Canadian citizens’ money as they are paying for taxes. There are many standpoints in which people examine the ways poverty affect society such as Marx’s conflict theory. Marx’s conflict theory goes over how social stratification being inevitable and how there is a class consciousness within people in the working class. Another way that poverty is scrutinized is by feminization. Feminization is the theory that will be explored throughout this essay. Poverty will be analyzed in this essay to determine the significance of poverty on the society and the implications that are produced.
“Malnourished children are 20% less literate than those with a healthier diet, says UK charity Save the Children” (The Information Daily). When parents become victims of poverty it can have some very unpleasing long and short term effects to their children. Parents in poverty have a lot on their plate and buying the best quality food or affording enough food can be a tumultuous task. Quality nutrition is essential for the development of the brain. At a young age, poor nutrition or not enough nutrition can seriously hinder “the brain 's development, a child’s ability to learn and has a devastating impact on a child’s future”(The Information Daily). “Malnutrition in the early developmental stages of the brain, by restricting the children’s cognitive growth, can lower a child 's IQ has much has 20 points”(The Information Daily). Long term effects of malnutrition leave permanent damage to the brain, however, malnutrition has short term effects as well. Malnourishment can greatly compromise a child’s immune system, making them more susceptible to infectious diseases. “Low counts of zinc, iron and vitamin A are commonly associated with weakened immune function” (Orphan Nutrition). A deadly infection can have a huge impact on a poverty stricken family leading to less affordability. Malnutrition negatively affects a student throughout their educational