POSC411 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Ralf Dahrendorf, United States House Committee On Oversight And Government Reform, Wage Labour
16 May 2018
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Causes of Poverty
❖ Individual Faults and Deviant Behavior
o The Culture of Poverty
▪ Poor develops a culture-means of adapting to their situation
▪ Disorganization and pathology of the lower-class is self-perpetuating
through culture transmission
• Early sexual experiences and unwanted pregnancies
• Unstable family life
• Distrust of authority
o Opposing Views to individual faults and deviant behavior
▪ Blaming the victim syndrome
• Can result in misdirected social programs
❖ Institutional Faults and System Disorganization
o 2 perspectives
▪ 1) poverty is a result of rapid social change
• automation
• decline of low-skill work opportunities
• discrimination
• shifting residential patterns
▪ 2) poverty is a necessary part of the social spectrum
• Negative functions
o Necessitating large amount of public expenditures
o Incentives for low-paying jobs t
• Positive functions
o Low wage labor pool
o Relieving affluent of chores
o Creates jobs for non-poor
o Poor people subsidize merchants by purchasing poor
quality products
o Convenient target for condemnation and punishment
o Provide an opportunity for non-poor to feel good about
themselves through altruistic or charitable activities
o Poor aid in the upward mobility of others
o Poor are powerless and so can be made to absorb the cost
of change in a society
❖ Inequality and Inevitable Conflict
o Karl Marx→ capitalism promotes the interests of those owning the means of
production
o Ralf Dahrendorf→ neo-Marxian explanation that authority rather than
ownership is the basis of class dominance and oppression of the poor
o Michael Harrington→ Capitalism maintain programs and misdirect priorities that
hampers solutions the problems of the poor
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