Sociology Essay - the Poor Are Largely Responsible for Their Own Poverty

It is quite difficult to argue that poverty is definitely caused by individualistic, or by the social reasons. Indeed, poor people living, for example, in one of the poorest African countries below the poverty level significantly differ from people living in the United States or another country, where the society undertakes all possible efforts to reduce poverty and to bring the country to prosperity and welfare. Yet, although it is difficult to judge, I believe that poverty is likely to be caused by individualistic reasons, and support the opinion that the poor are largely responsible for their own poverty.

Poverty is rather the consequence of laziness, weak character, personal inadequacy, wrong choice, alcoholism, and many other human vices and wrongful acts. In such a way, in order to get rid of economic and social and cultural deprivation, along with all those societal and structural issues, which are often considered to be the factual causes of poverty, it is necessary to change the poor. For example, it is possible to affect socialization, motivation, and to enhance educational and professional levels of the poor, to mention a few. Yet, it should be also taken into account, that when people try to make the poor responsible for their own poverty, they often blame the poor, which is not exactly true.

There is an opinion that poverty is caused by imperfect economic, social, and political systems, and, logically, the responsibility should be laid rather on society than on the individuals. The explanation is that economic system is unable to provide equal opportunities for employment, and competitive social structure causes problem social groups (those living below the poverty level, etc), which is not true. It is logical to suppose that poverty, in its turn, creates poverty, i.e. poverty creates people with unique personal traits (over 70% of Americans support this opinion) (Smith, 1989). These people often have an inferiority complex and low motivation level, and they often tend to blame somebody for their misfortune. For example, family history of poverty is the so-called 'risk factor', as people born to poor families face higher risk to remain poor. This can be basically explained not by social unequal distribution of the welfare, but rather by the cyclically learned behaviors from the family, weak parenting skills, weak literacy skills along with the lowered emphasis on education, weak financial management skills, and many other factors. At the same time, these people often lack economy, and refuse trying to do something in order to change the situation. Low wages in some sectors of economy, as well as insufficient employment rate, or lack of good schools and other possibilities to get an appropriate education and to improve their lives are less responsible for poverty. In support we can provide the statistics from the Charity Organization Society's Analysis of Records of 500 Applications for Aid, 10 percent of applicants were professional beggars, and 121 applicants had no real need for aid. 25.88 percent of the applicants were reported as being helped by private charity, having secured work independently, having been found not in need, and having disappeared (Lerner, 1980).

It is possible to make two important conclusions. The first is that both economic success and economic failure depends on the individual and his attitude to life. The U.S. is a country of opportunities, where all people are welcomed to realize their dreams. By trying to individualize economic and social problems, the U.S. welcomes people, who undertake all efforts to realize their ideas, who have a high level of discipline and self-appraisal. Therefore, the economic failure is mainly the responsibility of the person himself, as the individual always has opportunities to improve his situation (in case he really wants it). The U.S. government protects human rights. The individualism, which is so popular in the U.S., reflects the ideals of free competition, equal opportunities, and, logically, personal responsibility for own successes and failures. Therefore, although to a certain extent poverty can be explained by societal and structural causes (mostly in the countries with low level of economic development), it is likely to be explained by personal characteristics of the individual, as where there is a will, there is a way.

References

Lerner, M. (1980). The belief in a just world: A fundamental delusion. New York: Plenum Press.

Smith, K. (1989). Rags, riches, and bootstraps: Beliefs about the causes of wealth and poverty. The Sociological Quarterly, 30.