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Reflection Paper 1
Introduction
When we observe a person or community feeling difficulty or inability to meet the basic needs of life due to financial scarcity of resources, we call it poverty. International institutions like the United Nations and the World Bank have defined some basic needs for individuals that must be fulfilled, if any individual or group of individuals lack the resources to fulfil their basic needs, they are considered poor. This segment of humankind falls under the poverty line marked by international institutions. Functionalists believe that poverty is a reality and unavoidable, whereas, the Conflict Theorists believe that poverty is the result of the struggle between different segments of society who fight to grab more resources. Symbolic Interactionist belief is different from these both claims in a sense that it holds the interaction between different segments of society responsible for poverty.
Poverty
Poverty is an economic state where a person or a group of individuals face economic setbacks in their lives and appear unable to fulfil their essential needs. Society is divided into many segments in terms of ethnicity, religion, beliefs, and social status. Social status of people is determined by their economic background. People are divided into three major classes according to their social status: rich/elite, middle, and poor. People with an abundance of resources to enjoy luxuries of life are called rich or elite; Marx also calls them Haves (Colomy, Paul. N.p.). The middle class comes under this segment and it has two further types: lower and upper-middle class. This is considered the most struggling social segment of society. They have enough resources to meet their needs, but they need to keep working to maintain or update their social status. Poor class lags behind the mentioned segments and it faces the deadliest scarcity of resources.
Poverty is one of the gravest issues of society and many scholars attempt to identify the reasons for this factor to address the issue, but unfortunately, it is still insoluble. Poverty can be called the mother of many crimes as many people use unlawful means to meet their needs when they do not feel it possible to pursue their goals or fulfil their essential needs because of financial setbacks they face in their lives. This rule applies to both individuals and societies as the regions where people face dire economic circumstances, have a higher crime rate than the prosper regions in the world. For instance, Brazil and India have the highest crime rate in the world and they both are developing countries with millions of poor people, whereas, Switzerland and Japan are developed countries and they have the lowest crime rate in the world. In my opinion, poverty is a curse for a society that gives birth to many crimes, injustices and anarchy in society.
Social Theorists’ view on Poverty
Three social theories are popular which are explained by scholars. These theories include Functionalist theory, Conflict Theory, and Symbolic Interactionist theory (Homans, George Caspar. P.p. 51-69). All the mentioned theories have different views about different aspects of society and their different attitude is apparent also apparent while explaining the causes of poverty.
Functionalist theorists always attempt to justify the status quo of social structure. They claim that this structure is natural therefore it cannot be and should not be altered. According to their belief, poverty is also the ultimate result of the way society is structured. Moreover, they claim that poverty is a natural phenomenon and it cannot be alleviated entirely as the poor class is also an important and essential segment of society. Theorists like Hebert Spence (1820–1903) and Émile Durkheim claim that if there were no poor class, we would not have to work (labour) class in society which was instrumental for the global development.
A Conflict theorist Carl Marx claims that society is divided in an unjust way and it is the result of poverty. He argues that a certain segment of society (Bourgeoisie) has created its hegemony over the resources of society and it keeps increasing its resources by exploiting the other segment (proletariat). Moreover, Bourgeoisie, also called Haves, do not let Proletariat, also called Have-Nots (poor class) to access the resources. Eventually, one segment of society becomes highly poor and the other extremely rich (Baron, Robert S. P.p. 1-40).
Symbolic Interactionist theorists like Herman and Reynolds (1994) claim that social circles of people are responsible for their economic state. According to this group of theorists, the human being is always influenced by his/her surroundings and he/she struggles according to the motivation he/she receives from society (Popper, Karl. N.p.). In simple words, poor individuals of a society are poor because they live and interact with poor and same is the case with the rich individuals. Poor individuals who enter rich zones (cities, friend/relationship circles) get motivated to work hard and become rich; the majority of them achieve their goals.
Conclusion
Inability to achieve one's goals or fulfil basic needs due to economic setbacks is known as poverty. Poverty is one of the most serious issues every society, or the world in general, faces. Many social crimes are born because of poverty. It has many causes, and different scholars have different views about those causes. Functionalists believe that poverty is a natural and unavoidable aspect of society. Additionally, they believe that this is both boon and bane for society. Conflict theorists believe that poverty is the result of unjust division among different segments of society. Symbolic Interactionists, on the other hand, claim that poverty is the result of social circles’ different individuals mingling in each other’s lives, as in, the rich socializing with the poor.
Works Cited
Popper, Karl. The poverty of historicism. Routledge, 2013.
Homans, George Caspar. "Contemporary theory in sociology." Sociological Methods. Routledge, 2017. 51-69.
Colomy, Paul. Functionalist sociology. Edward Elgar Publishing, 1990.
Baron, Robert S. "Distraction-conflict theory: Progress and problems." Advances in experimental social psychology. Vol. 19. Academic Press, 1986. 1-40.
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