Term Paper on "Welfare and Poverty"

Term Paper 8 pages (2176 words) Sources: 1+

[EXCERPT] . . . .

Poverty, Welfare and Sociology

Poverty: n. (1) being poor, need. (2) scarcity or lack. (Oxford Desk Dictionary and Thesaurus, American Edition, 1997)

Poverty is a term that promotes many different visions: children with hunger-bloated bellies in third-world countries; housing built of packing crates, sheets of scrap metal or plastic, also in third-world countries; slums, usually occupied by recent immigrants to whatever country the photo happened to be taken in; aboriginal people where they are found; the image of the welfare recipient as viewed by Americans, in particular, as people who prefer the welfare roles to getting out and getting a job. These are the dramatic examples of poverty from around the world.

There is, however, a different poverty that doesn't show up in the camera's eye. This is the poverty involved in barely making the bills. This is the poverty of the "working poor" who struggle constantly to keep up with their own national lifestyle. They are statistics, they are normally considered powerless with regard to political influence, they are nameless and faceless and they make up a large, frustrated, under-class of people especially in wealthier nations.

Welfare: (2) financial support given by a government to the unemployed, disadvantaged, etc. (Oxford Desk Dictionary and Thesaurus, American Edition, 1997)

Welfare used to be a word connected with compassion. It was considered admirable to be concerned with the welfare of your fellow human being. It is now a pejorative term. To "be on welfare" -- receive at least part of your income from the government without working for it -- makes you, in the minds of many people, lazy, dishonest, a drain on the upstanding, working members of society. Welfare is also a huge, self-sustaining bureaucracy in most countries where the system is found.

Sociology, n.: the study of society and social problems. (Oxford Desk Dictionary and Thesaurus, American Edition, 1997)

Sociologists, economists and philosophers have been discussing the issue of poverty for many years. Two very popular viewpoints are the Conflict Perspective espoused by such thinkers as Karl Marx, and the Individualistic and Cultural Perspective espoused by David Marsland, Herbert Spencer and others.

CONFLICT PERSEPCTIVE:

The "Conflict Perspective" is a concept proposed by Karl Marx and other radical thinkers that states the proposition that society is in a constant state of internal conflict due to class or stratification issues. Marx and others of his time saw the question framed in terms of economic classes in which there were those who owned the means of production -- the land, the factories, whatever was required for producing the needs of the people, and those who did the work. These thinkers, called socialists, used the terms bourgeoisie for owners, and proletariat for the workers. Now days, we add to those who would be considered proletariat or the "have-nots," people of color and age and women. The idea is that the "have-nots" are in conflict with the "haves" for a share of the power in the society. It is self-evident in the expression conflict perspective or theory that those in power do not willing give up or share power. This conflict is the basis for the Civil Rights movement in the United States and the Women's Movement and Labor Movements around the world.

A sociological explanations relating to the perspective

One perspective related to the conflict theory are the predictive or positivist concepts. Deborah Levison, et. al. describe this mindset:

Individuals form distributive judgments with respect to social groupings of all sizes, ranging from families to workplaces to nations. On the widest scale, what people think is fair or just in the distribution of social resources, such as income and job opportunities, is important for how they understand society and for the judgments they make on political actors, political outcomes and the political process itself. Thus the views of individuals are an important component of the political process that establishes the institutions that govern the distribution of economic resources, though the channels and strength of this influence vary among countries. (Levison, 2002).

Another concept related to conflict theory is called the "new institutionalist" tradition. Alice O'Conner writes:

More recently, scholars working in the "new institutionalist" tradition have developed the argument further, focusing on how the courts (Bussiere 1997), federal administrative agencies (Lieberman 1998), and political regimes at the subnational level (Amenta 1998) played a powerful role in shaping social relations and limiting the scope of anti-poverty policy.

(O'Connor, 2000, p. 547).

Probably, the best known concept related to conflict theory is socialism. Erik Olin Wright offers this explanation of the socialist view:

Socialists have traditionally criticized capitalism for the ways in which it violates four central values: 1. Equality: Capitalism generates morally intolerable levels of inequality of material conditions of people. This is especially offensive in its impact on children, but more broadly the levels of material deprivation in a world of affluence generated by capitalism violates a wide range of principles of egalitarian justice held by socialists.

2. Democracy: Capitalism thwarts democracy. By placing the basic economic resources and conditions of investment in the hands of private individuals, the capacity of the democratic polity to make decisions about the fate of the community is significantly undermined.

3. Autonomy: Capitalism robs most people of meaningful control over much of their work lives. There is a deep meaning-deficit in most people's lives because they are pawns in other people's projects. Capitalism does not merely generate inequality and poverty through exploitation, it generates alienation as well.

4. Community: Capitalism destroys a sense of solidarity among people. As G.A. Cohen has argued, the forms of competition and conflict built into capitalism drive economic activities primarily on the basis of two motives greed and fear. 1 Instead of social interaction in economic life being normatively organized around the principle of helping others, it is organized primarily around the motive of taking advantage of the weakness of others for one's own gain. This underwrites a culture of selfish individualism and atomism.

Socialism' was then posed as the way of rectifying all four of these negative features of capitalism. At least in its idealized form, socialists argued that a democratically controlled, centrally planned economy would eliminate poverty and greatly reduce inequality, enhance the democratic capacity of the local and national state, reduce alienation by giving workers greater control within the process of production, and strengthen values of community over individualistic competition.

(Wright, 1995, p. 153) evaluate 2 of the sociological explanations:

It seems almost a waste of time to evaluate the cited perspectives if a person has ever had the experience of being part of the poor class. If that same individual has ever had to deal with the welfare system, they are even more likely to understand exactly what these theorists are talking about.

Describe 4 studies of the sociology of welfare and poverty representing this perspective:

In Distribution of Income and Job Opportunities: Normative Judgments from Four

Continents, Levison et. al. discuss some of the premises on which humans consider that society should be based.

Poverty Research and Policy for the Post-Welfare Era. 547. By Alice O'Conner is a discussion of the situation in this country since Aid to Dependent Children was discontinued in the United States of America

Working Their Way out of Poverty? Sole Motherhood, Work Welfare and Material Well-Being by Maggie Walter discusses a similar welfare-to work program in Australia and its effects on mother-headed families.

Beyond Social Capital in Poverty Research, written by Irene Staveren discusses the idea of Social Capital, social capital being defined as the contribution that culture and social, human behaviors contribute to how well any given economy works.

Evaluate two of the sociological studies:

In Distribution of Income and Job Opportunities: Normative Judgments from Four

Continents, Levison et. al. discuss some of the premises on which humans consider that society should be based. The discussion/interpretation of "equity, equality and needs" is clear and relatively easy to follow.

Poverty Research and Policy for the Post-Welfare Era. 547. By Alice O'Conner is a discussion of the situation in this country since Aid to Dependent Children was discontinued in the United States of America. It enumerates the many ways in which nothing has really changed for low income people in this country -- except of course that they are now the working poor without even the medical safety net of Medicaid.

INDIVIDUALISTIC AND CULTURAL PERSPECTIVE

The individualist and cultural perspective basically works off the assumption that the poor are responsible for their own problems. The people who espouse this idea seem, frequently, to be people who, by happy chance, have never been in the situation of being out of work and out of funds. Because they are working and everyone around them is working, they make the assumption that the only people who aren't working are the people who don't want to.

A sociological explanations relating to the perspective

David Marsland and Charles Murry are prominent spokesmen for the idea that, people, when they are functioning "properly," not lazy or in some way chemically… READ MORE

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