Theories of Poverty

LAW AND POVERTY

THEORIES OF POVERTY

I. Poverty as a positive feedback system (vicious circle' theory of poverty) US

Council of Economic Advisors stated in 1964.

The U.S. Council of Economic Advisors stated in 1964, “The vicious cycle, in
which poverty breeds poverty occurs through time and transmits its effects from one
generation to another. There is no beginning to the cycle, no end.” (quoted in
Moynihan, 1968, p. 9).

Ken Coates and Richard Siburn argue that ‘Poverty has many dimensions each of
which must be studied separately, but which in reality constitute an interrelated
network of deprivations’.

These two statements contain the kernel of the theory that views poverty as a
positive feedback system, that is a system in which each part reinforces the others and
so maintains the system as a whole. This theory is sometimes known as the ‘vicious
circle’ theory of poverty as it argues that the various circumstances of the poor
combine to maintain them in poverty. The poor are trapped in the situation with little
chance of escaping.

The study of programs made by the President's Commission on Income

Maintenance illustrate the view of poverty as a positive feedback system. The
majority of Americans officially designated as poor have inadequate diets which can
have various consequences. Poor nutrition during pregnancy can hinder foetal brain
development and increase the possibility of premature birth. Protein deficiency
during early childhood can retard brain development. Inadequate diet can lead to low
energy levels which can hinder progress at school and work and which can be
interpreted by teachers and employers as evidence of disinterest, lack of motivation
and laziness. Since the poor often work in physically demanding Jobs, for example as
unskilled labourers, low energy levels are particularly significant. Poor nutrition

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lowers resistance to disease which can lead to longer absences from school and work
compared to the non-poor. In America, the situation is made worse due to minimal
provision of socialized medicine and the high charges of private medicine which are
often beyond the means of the poor. Frequent illness and low energy levels can sap
the drive and determination needed to escape from poverty.

The majority of the American poor live in accommodation officially classified as

‘sub-standard housing’ by the U.S. Department of Housing. Conditions are often
over-crowded, unsanitary and constitute a health hazard, reinforcing the danger to
health caused by inadequate diet. Dilapidated and improve the decaying dwellings
can undermine the situation and to escape from poverty. Public housing could
improve the situation, but its provision is limited by the state of city finances.

Sub-standard food and housing are not cheap. This is the Poverty is the paradox of
poverty. Poverty is expensive. Rented accommodations in inner city areas is often, in
view of its quality, more expensive than housing elsewhere. The price of goods and
services in poverty areas is often higher than in non-poor areas. The higher prices in
poor areas is partly due to exploitation of the poor by local businessmen charging
extortionate prices and providing credit at high rates of interest. The poor tend to buy
smaller quantities of particularly food than the non-poor because they cannot afford
to buy in bulk and often do not have the necessary storage facilities such as
refrigerators. This raises the price of goods since small quantities are more expensive
to package and handle and shopkeepers with a relatively small stock and turnover
have to pay higher wholesale prices. The poor pay higher prices because they cannot
afford lower prices. The same applies to transportation particularly in the inner city.

The Commission on Income Maintenance Programs sums up the situation thus :

“There are no jobs where the poor live, the poor cannot afford or are not allowed to
live where the jobs are opening up and there is no transportation between the two
places.”

The above example illustrates how the various circumstances in the life of the
poor that combine to maintain poverty can be multiplied. However, the theory

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Poverty as a Positive feedback system is inadequate as an explanation of poverty.

Instead of answering the question ‘why poverty’, the positive feedback theory directs
itself more to the question ‘once poverty exists, how is it maintained’?

II. The Culture of Poverty (Cultural Poverty)

Oscar Lewis, the American anthropologist developed the concept of ‘culture of

poverty’, which is also called ‘sub-culture of poverty’ or ‘cultural poverty’ in 1959
from his field work among the urban poor in Mexico and Puerto Rico. Lewis argues
that the culture of poverty is a ‘design for living’ which is transmitted from one
generation to the next.

Life style of the poor differs in certain respects from that of other members of
society. At the same time, poverty life styles in different societies share common
characteristics. The circumstances of poverty are similar, in many respects, in
different societies. Similar circumstances and problems tend to produce similar
responses, and these responses can develop into a culture, that is the learned, shared,
and socially transmitted behaviour of a social group. This line of reasoning has led to
the concept of a ‘culture of poverty’ (or a sub-culture of poverty), a relatively distinct
subculture of the poor with its own norms and values.

In Lewis's words, “On the level of the individual, the major characteristics are a
strong feeling of marginality, of helplessness, of dependence and inferiority, a strong
present time orientation with relatively little ability to defer gratification, a sense of
resignation and fatalism.”

The culture of poverty is seen as a response by the poor to their position in

society. According to Lewis, it is “a reaction of the poor to their marginal position in
a class-stratified and highly individualistic society”. However, the culture of poverty
goes beyond a mere reaction to a situation. It takes on the force of culture since its
characteristics are guided to action which are internalized by the poor and passed on
from one generation to the next. As such, the culture of poverty tends to perpetuate
poverty since its characteristics can be seen as mechanisms which maintain poverty,
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attitudes of fatalism and resignation lead to acceptance of the situation, failure to join
trade unions and other organizations weakens the potential power of the poor. Lewis
argues that “once established, the culture of poverty tends to perpetuate itself from
generation to generation because of its effect on children. By the time slum en are
aged six or seven, they have usually absorbed the e values and attitudes of their
subculture and are not Psychologically geared to take full advantage of changing
conditions or increased opportunities which may occur in their lifetime”.

Culture represent those norms (and aspirations) which are resistant to change, and
by this definition, a culture f poverty would consist of those cultural patterns that
keep people poor when opportunity beckons. But, in the view of Oscar Lewis, the
culture of poverty refers to the ways of life of people without opportunity but with
aspirations for something better; it is as much a culture of deprivation and alienation
as of poverty. Lewis’ conception harbors within it a notion of value stretch, it is a
culture of people who have other inspirations but cannot implement them because of
situational factors.

Culture of poverty in an opulent country is not only a matter of economic

deprivation, of disorganisation or of absence of something; it is also something
positive and provides some reward without which the poor could hardly carry on.
Though the culture of poverty transcends regional rural-urban and national
differences and shows remarkable similarities in family structure, interpersonal
relations, time orientation, value systems and spending patterns, it is essentially an
appendage of the larger culture of capitalism.

According to Lewis, the culture of poverty tends to grow and flourish in societies
with the following set of conditions:

(1) a cash economy, wage labour and production for profit; (2) persistently high rate
of unemployment and under-employment for unskilled labour; (3) low wages; (4) the
failure to provide social, political and economic organisation, either on a voluntary
basis or by government imposition, for the low-income population; (5) the existence
of a bilateral kinship system rather than a unilateral one; and finally; (6) the existence

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of a set of values in the dominant class which stresses the accumulation of wealth and
property, the possibility of upward mobility and thrift and explains 10 economic
status as the result of personal inadequacy or inferiority.

Culture of poverty is the total or partial lack o productivity of and/or

receptiveness to symbols, norms and values in societies and their subsets, and in
small interpersonal relations.

The constellation and systems of symbols is the ‘core of culture’ and the
poverty in respect to symbolic culture is the central problem of cultural poverty. By
symbols we understand the wide range of formalized means of information, learning,
influence, and expression in the sciences, arts, literature, fact-representation and in
legal, moral and religious codes. To an important degree, norms and values depend
on symbols for their formulation and transmission. On the other hand, values and
norms-individual and socially stabilized ones-are reflected in symbolic representation
and information; aside from this general relationship, symbolic culture, its products
or the processes of its reception may be classified according to intellectual and/or
scientific, aesthetic, technological, economic criteria i.e. valves or value systems.

As per Lewis, the culture of poverty is both an adaptation and a reaction of the
poor to their marginal position in a class-stratified, highly individuated, capitalistic
society. Culture of poverty represents an effort to cope with feelings of hopelessness
and despair which develop from the realization of the improbability of achieving
success in terms of the values and goals of the larger society. Indeed, culture of
poverty can be viewed as an attempt at local solutions for problems not met by
existing institutions and agencies because the people are not eligible for them, cannot
afford them, or are ignorant or suspicious of them. However, the bane of the culture
of poverty is that it does not stop at being an adaptation to the existing conditions but
tends to perpetuate itself from generation to generation because of its effects on the
children. Children socialized in these conditions, internalise values and attitudes
which cannot easily be erased.

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The culture of poverty develops when a stratified social and economic system
is breaking down or is being replaced by another, as in the case of the transition from
feudalism to capitalism or during periods of rapid technological changes.

Characteristics of the Culture of Poverty

(1) Some people of traditional societies are unable to participate in the major
institutions of changed society. Anthropologists studying developing countries have
shown that some urban newcomers of tribal origin are sometimes unable or unwilling
to adapt to the industrial economy of the time-clock; they work only until they have
enough money and then spend it without going to work though it is available.

Lack of active participation of the people who come from the lower strata of a
rapidly changing society results from a variety of factors which may include lack of
economic resources, segregation and discrimination, fear, suspicion or apathy, and
the development of local solutions of problems.

The conditions of low wages, chronic unemployment and under-employment

lead to low income, lack of property ownership, absence of savings, absence of food
reserves in the home and a chronic shortage of each of cash etc. They reduce
possibility of effective participation in the larger economy system.

People with a culture of poverty produce very little wealth and receive very
little in return. They have a low level of literacy and education which leads to low
productivity. They are aware of middle class values, talk about them but they do not
live on them.

(2) At local community level, people with the culture of poverty live in poor
housing conditions, crowding, gregariousness within slums.

(3) On the family life, the major traits of the culture of poverty are the absence
of childhood, negligence of parents about their children's education and abandonment
of children, immoral relations between men and women, lack of privacy, abusive and
vulgar language and insanitary living conditions.

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(4) On the level of the individual, the major characteristics are a strong feeling
of marginality, of helplessness, of dependence and of inferiority.

Writing about the culture of poverty in America, Lewis observes : “Because of

the advanced technology the high level of literacy, the development of mass media,
and the relatively high aspiration level of all sectors of population, especially when
compared with under developed nations, I believe that although there is still a great
deal of poverty in the United States (estimates range from 30 to 50 million people),
there relatively little of what I would call the culture of poverty. My rough guess,
would be that only about 20 per cent of population below the poverty line (from 6 to
10 million people) in the United States has characteristics that would justify
classification of their way of life as that of culture of poverty. Probably the largest
sector within this group consists of very low income Negroes, Mexicans, Proto
Ricans, American, Indians and Southern poor whites. The relatively small number of
people in the United States with a culture poverty is a positive factor because it is
difficult to eliminate the culture of poverty than to eliminate poverty per se.”

Lewis has seen the culture of poverty as a defence mechanism by which the
poor people cope with deprivation, frustration and alienation. Allison Davis and
Walter Miller supported the view that there is a distinctive culture that characterises
those who are born and brought up in poverty. But Merton holds the view that there is
no such thing as low-class culture. He says “poverty is not an isolated variable which
operates in precisely the same fashion wherever found;

It is only one in a complex of identifiable interdependent, social and cultural

variables. Hence, it would be wrong to speak of culture of poverty.”

Lewis states that the culture of poverty refers to one way of life shared by poor
people in given historical and social contexts. For example, in India the lower castes
(the chamars, the leather workers, and the Bhangis, the sweepers) may be desperately
poor, both in the villages and in the cities but most of them, are integrated into the
larger society any have their own panchayat (caste leadership) organizations which
cut across village lines and give them a considerable amount of power. In addition to

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the caste system, which fires individuals a sense of identity and belonging, there is
still another factor, the clan system. Wherever there are unilateral kinship systems or
clans one would not expect to find the culture of poverty, because a clan system gives
people a sense of belonging to a corporate body with a history and a life of its own,
thereby providing a sense of continuity, a sense of past and of a future.

People of cultural poverty fail to adapt to economic opportunities in changed

societies even when these are available due to persisting cultural and personality
elements and a set of behaviour pattern that hang together logically or
psychologically and impede the adaptation to opportunities. This is due to the fact
that people are not automatons who respond in spontaneously and similarly to the
same stimulus.

Walter B. Miller, an American anthropologist, argues that the American lower

class-the lowest stratum of the working class has a distinctive subculture with its own
set of ‘focal concerns’. These include an emphasis on toughness and masculinity, a
search for thrills and excitement, present time orientation, and a commitment to luck
and fate rather than achievement and effort as a means of realizing goals. Although
not directly concerned with poverty, Miller's ideas are along lines similar and names
to Lewis and have been linked to the culture of poverty. Like Lewis's culture of
poverty, Miller's lower class subculture is self-perpetuating, being transmitted from
one generation to the next. Miller argues that “lower Class culture is a distinctive
tradition, many centuries old with an integrity of its own”. Miller's catalogue of lower
class traits offers no hand holds to escape from poverty. Miller suggests that lower
class subculture is functional in providing the necessary adaptation for a ‘low-skilled
labouring force’ Aspects of this adaptation include ‘high boredom tolerance’ and the
‘capacity to find life gratification outside the world of work’. Faced with boring low
paid jobs and high rates of unemployment, members of the lower class have
responded by developing their own focal concerns which provide a measure of
satisfaction.

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Walter Miller sees values of cultural poverty as focal concerns which stem
from behaviour. This behavioural pattern approach may have been valid for the study
of preliterate groups, and of cultures which had developed around a specific economy
and ecology. But such an approach is not valid to the study of the contemporary poor.
In the present society, they are unhappy with their state, they have values and
aspirations which diverge from the norms underlying their behaviour. The culture of
poverty depends upon both behavioural norms and aspirations.

The total stock of behavioural norms and aspiration which people hold is a
mixture of situational responses and learned patterns. Some parts of his stock are
strictly ad hoc responses to a current situation, they exist because of that situation,
and will disappear if it changes or disappears.

Other parts of the stock are internalized and became an intrinsic part of the person
and of the groups in which he moves and are thus less subject to change with changes
in situation. Even so, the intensity of internalization varies; at one extreme, there are
values which are not much deeper than lip-service; at the other, there are behavioural
norms which are built into the basic personality structure and a generation or more of
living in a new situation may not dislodge them. They become culture, and people
may adhere to them even if they are no longer appropriate, paying all kinds of
economic and emotional costs to maintain them.

The prime issue in the area of culture and poverty, is to discover how soon poor
people will change their behaviour, given new opportunities and what restraints or
obstacles, good or bad, come from that reaction to past situations we call culture.

To study culture of poverty, we should deal with behaviour patterns and

aspirations on an individual basis, relate them to their situational origin and determine
how much the behavioural norms related to poverty would persist under changing
situations. Oscar Lewis, Michael Harrington, Elizabeth Herzog, Lloyd Ohlin, Miller,
W.I. Roadman, H., Labbens, J., conducted studies on 'culture of poverty. The
following are the findings of a study relating to the cultural poverty of working class

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youth of equal age of 14 to 18 years conducted by Leopold Rosenmayr during the

years 1959, 1960 and 1961.

(1) The parents' education was found to be closely linked to their occupational
status and income and it also strongly influenced their son's educational choice.

The parents' ownership of both books and pianos varied very much with social
class.

(2) Sons and parents read the same papers.

(3) The average number of books owned by high school students turned out to
be more than twice as high as among the apprentices. As with their parents' books,
this figure varied also by social origin.

(4) There was a detachment of apprentices from their parents in leisure

behaviour and the tendency for shortening puberty and the adoption of an adult
status: relatively more apprentices drank alcoholic beverages, more of them smoked,
more of them saved their money for concrete purchases.

The socio-economic conditions of present day under which our youth grows up
are distributed over a broad spectrum, starting from a ‘system of poverty caused by
environment’ to a ‘society of affluence’.

Poverty as a system especially in the developing countries includes : a

continuous fight for survival, unemployment, low wages, unskilled labour, absence of
food supplies, insufficient possibilities for privacy, child labour and numerous forms
of escapism such as alcoholism and drugs etc.

The paternal home in the lower social strata frequently does not provide their
children with an elevated care by means of manifold educational and cultural stimuli
adjusted to each other. The reason for this is that the lower strata 'satisfy their cultural
needs' only after their material demand have been satisfied. The actual search for new
stimuli is frequently in opposition to their traditional attitudes.

To sum up, the ‘level’ and quality of receptive and reproductive activities
within the ‘symbolic culture’ of adolescents depends on their social environments
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created by family, school and peers-in this order of priority. Educational activities
and interests of both parents and children are embedded within the whole complex of
participation in values, norms and symbols. The process of socialization is equally
conditioned environmentally. In the genesis of culture, socio-economic factors play
an important role, both quantitatively and qualitatively.

Since its introduction the culture of poverty theory has met with sustained
criticism. The actual existence of a culture of poverty has been questioned. Many
studies in Latin America and African countries cast some doubt on Lewis's claims.
The second and major criticism of the culture of poverty has centered round the
notion of culture. The use of culture implies that the behaviour of the poor is
internalised via the socialization process and once internalized, it is to some degree
resistant to change. The theory of culture of poverty suggest that despite the fact it
was initially caused by circumstances such as unemployment, low income and lack of
opportunity, that once established, the subculture of low income groups has a life of
its own. Thus, if the circumstances which produced poverty were to disappear, the
culture of poverty may well continue. The poor, therefore live in a world of their
own. These arguments have been strongly contested. Many researchers found that the
poor are constrained by the facts of their situation, by low income, unemployment
and the like, to act the way they do, rather than being directed by a culture of poverty.

In summary, the criticism of the culture of poverty are following:

(i) It either does not exist or applies only to particular groups in poverty and
therefore poverty life style are more variable than it suggests.

(ii) The behaviour which characterizes the culture of poverty is due to

situational constraints rather than cultural patterns. The poor do not have a distinct
subculture, they are not insulated from mainstream culture and they share the value of
society as a whole.

(iii) If there are cultural aspects to the behaviour of the poor, they are less
powerful than situational constraints in directing behaviour and are secondary hen
compared to the commitment of the poor to mainstream norms and values.
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(iv) The implication of all these criticisms is that once the situational
constraints of poverty are removed, much or all that is distinctive about the behaviour
of the poor will disappear.

III. Situational Constraints

The theory of culture of poverty has been strongly contested. Rather than seeing
the behaviour of the poor as a response to established and internalized cultural
patterns many researchers view it is as a reaction to ‘situational constraints’. In other
words, the poor are constrained by the facts of their situation, by low income,
unemployment and the like, to act the way they do, rather than being directed by a
culture of poverty. The situational constraints argument suggests that the poor would
readily change their behaviour in response to a new set of circumstances once the
constraints of poverty were removed.

Hylan Lewis, an American sociologist argues, “It is probably more fruitful to

think of lower class families reacting in various ways to the facts of their position and
to relative isolation rather than the imperatives of a lower class culture.” The
situational constraints thesis also attacks the view that the poor are largely insulated
from mainstream norms and values. It argues that the poor share the values of society
as a whole, the only difference being that they are unable to translate many of those
values into reality. Again, the situational constraints argument suggests that once the
constraints of poverty are removed, the poor will have no difficulty adopting
mainstream behaviour patterns and seizing available opportunities.

Elliot Liebow conducted a study based on participant observation of Black

‘streetcorner men’ in a low-income area of Washington D.C. The results of his study
strongly supports the situational constraints thesis. The men who were observed were
either unemployed, under employed (working part-time) or employed in low paid,
unskilled, dead-end jobs as manual labourers, elevator operators, janitors, bus boys
and dish washers. Their view of work is directed by mainstream values. The men
want jobs with higher pay and status but they lack the necessary skills, qualifications

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and work experience. They regard their occupations from the same viewpoint as any
other member of society.

When streetcorner men blow a week's wages on a ‘weekend drunk’ or pack in a

job on an apparent whim, the middle-class observer tends to interpret this behaviour
as evidence of present time orientation and inability to defer gratification. However,
Liebow argues that it is not the time orientation that differentiates the streetcorner
man from members of the middle class, but his future : Whereas the middle-class
individual has a reasonable future to look forward to, the streetcorner man has none.
His behaviour is directed by the fact that “he is aware of the future and the
hopelessness of it all.” In the same way Liebow argues that it is not inability to defer
gratification that differentiates the streetcorner man from members of the middle
class, but simply the fact he has no resources to defer. The middle class individual is
able to invest in the future, to save, to commit time and effort to his job and family
both because he has the resources to invest and because of the likelihood his
investment will pay off in the form of promotion at work and home ownership and
home improvement. The street corner man lacks the resources or the promise of a pay
off if he invests what little he has with a dead-end job or no job at all, and insufficient
income to support his wife and family he is 'obliged to expend all his resources on
maintaining himself from moment to moment'. Liebow argues that what appears to be
a cultural pattern of immediate gratification and present time orientation is merely a
situational response, a direct and indeed a rational reaction to situational constraints.
Rather than being directed by a distinctive subculture, the behaviour of the
streetcorner man is more readily understandable as result of his inability to translate
the values of mainstream culture, values which he shares into reality.

Liebow concludes that “the streetcorner man does not appear as a carrier of an
independent cultural tradition. His behaviour appears not so much as a way of
realizing the distinctive goals and values of his own subculture, or of conforming to
its models, but rather as his way of trying to achieve many of the goals and values of
the larger society, of failing to do this, and of concealing his failure from other and
himself as best he can. “Liebow therefore rejects the idea of a culture of poverty or
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lower class subculture and sees the behaviour of the poor as a product of situational
constraints, of distinctive cultural patterns.

However, Ulf Hannerz, a Swedish anthropologist sees some virtue in both the
situational constraints and cultural arguments. He conducted research in a Black low-
income area of Washington D.C. He argues that if a solution to a problem has the
theory of manly flaws, becomes accepted by a group, it is learned, shared and socially
transmitted and therefore cultural. To some degree it is based on values since the
theory of manly flaws provides a male role model to which to aspire. This model is
therefore not simply a cushion for failure, a thinly veiled excuse. To some degree it
provides an alternative to the mainstream male role model. Hannerz concludes that
situational constraints are more powerful in directing the behaviour of the poor than
cultural patterns. He argues that the cultural patterns that distinguish the poor exist
alongside and are subsidiary to a indespread commitment to mainstream values.

IV. Individual Traits Theory of Poverty

[Different Life Situations Theory of Poverty]

[Personal Causes for Poverty]

Holman considered the first category of the causes of poverty as 'individual and
poverty'. This includes pathological explanations of indolence and fecklessness. They
consist of sick and disabled. Being sick and indolent is not a cause of poverty. But
due to their sickness and disability they cannot work and get income and thus become
poor. This category also includes Genetic explanations which seek to relate social
status with supposedly inherited characteristics such as intelligence. Some individuals
who are seen idle and unwilling to work, associate with poverty. The psychology of
individuals drives the personality traits to achieve or not achieve some status.
Extravagancy, drinking, gambling and abnormality of personality leads a person into
poverty. These are the potential explanations of poverty and they do include a
dynamic, albeit a largely immutable one deriving from nature rather than nurture.
Effectively they reject social or structural explanations in favour of individual ones,
and thus they can readily be translated into approaches which seek to blame the 18
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for their own poverty. Proponents would argue however, that genetic or
psychological approaches do not Imply individual blame, they merely establish
causal links.

A second category of explanations which also have been interpreted by critics

as a case of blaming the victims are those which focus on the family or the
community as the cause of poverty.

Keith Joseph calls the ‘family as the cause of poverty’ as a ‘cycle of

deprivation’ in which the inadequate parenting, lowered aspirations and
disadvantaged environment of families and communities became internalised as part
of the values of some children as they grew up. Thus, when these children themselves
reached adulthood, their expectations, and their abilities, were lowered and they more
readily expected and accepted, the poverty and deprivation of their parents and
acquaintances.

Failure of State in providing social security system leads to poverty. For

example:

(i) Education:- Formally, the target of 6 per cent of GDP for education has not
been achieved. Those with resources, the rich, have found an individualized solution
to the problem of declining standards. They are sending their children either to
corporate educational institutes in India or abroad at massive resource cost to society-
Private resources are poured into tuition, coaching, training colleges, studies abroad
to make their children technocrats and bureaucrats who get higher incomes and
become rich. The poor, who are illiterate, become unskilled workers and agricultural
labourers and become poor with low income and they cannot provide education to
their children and cannot come out of ‘vicious circle of poverty’.

(ii) Health:- Now-a-days, medical care has become costly. The well off and
the powerful have switched to the private sector. In corporate hospitals, lakhs have to
be paid for major operations. Though medical facilities have been provided in rural
areas through primary health centres, there corruption enters and rural rich can get the
treatment and the poor cannot get medical services as they cannot afford to pay
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bribery to medical staff. The poor cannot afford to meet the expenses for the
treatment if they fall sick. Due to ill health their productivity is low and they are paid
low wages; their income will be low and they can not cross the poverty line.

(iii) Housing:- Rural poor build thached huts on ‘poramboku’ (Government)

lands or on lands provided by the rich landlords. In urban areas, they encroach
illegally on canals banks, road margins etc. They don't get electricity and water. Their
surrounding open areas are converted into latrines and garbage dumps, scavenging is
left to the pigs and animals. Civil amenities come under severe strain. Health
standards are poor resulting in repeated illness. All this leads miserable life which
affect their productivity and income and they forever, live as poor.

(iv) Customs and traditions:- Due to evil customs and traditions the people
are forced to spend beyond their capacities. These are so deep rooted, that even if a
few try to end them, they cannot do so without serious social disapproval of their
action.

(v) Criminalization:- Due to poverty, some people become dadas (law-

breakers) and draw unemployment and illiterate boys and youth into activities like
crime, drug trafficking and prostitution. Criminalisation has its most serious impact
on the weak in society. Because of their bad character they can not get work and they
live and die as poor.

(vi) Lack of own means of production:- Scarcity of natural resources is the

basic cause of poverty. Those who have right to have property through hereditary
rights, though they do not work in lands can get income as rents. The large size farm
holders could get higher income above their needs. As the agricultural labourers have
no such right over land, they have to depend on landowners for their livelihood. They
provide their labour to them for very meagre wages. The labourers cannot get work
through out the year. As agriculture is a seasonal one, they get work during particular
seasons of plantation, harvesting etc. Because they get low wages, they lead their life
below the poverty line. The land owners, with their higher incomes are above the
poverty line. In urban areas also, the industrial labourer gets low wages.

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(vii) Caste structure:- The son inherits his father's occupation and this process
continues in the times to come. The occupations in rural areas are : village priests,
carpenter, blacksmith, goldsmith, potter, washerman, barber, shoe-maker, weaver etc.
All these professionals are dependent on cultivators to get their income. As they get
low income, all of them are under the poverty line. Along with them agricultural
labourers who are unskilled workers get their income from the cultivators. The
average annual income of an agricultural labourer is very low. When they are in dire
need of urgency, they raise loans from money-lenders with high rate of interest and
they never repay the principal as their incomes are not sufficient to pay even interest
and they remain under debt bondage.

Poverty is not merely the product of individual trait or weakness or failure.

Rather, it is the result of social forces-classes and groups and agencies and
institutions which operate to reproduce a particular social order in which some are
poor. Social forces produce poverty and therefore in order to understand the cause of
poverty we must understand social forces and how they operate to produce it.

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