Introduction
Poverty turns persistent when there is great, increasing wealth elsewhere. According to the human rights theory of liberal individualism, the rich people of any society must have perfect freedom to increase their wealth, and go on increasing it, freedom being “a distinctive feature of the liberal individualist project.” On the other hand, the theory of communitarianism demands of the rich to respect the human rights of poor people in their quest for greater wealth. Poor folks are oft described as “oppressed,” and the rich are usually identified as the perpetrators of oppression. Hence, the practice of liberal individualism by the rich must be considered a moral crisis for society, if in fact the rich have been getting richer at the expense of the poor, as it happens in South Korea.
After all, poverty is known to rob the afflicted of their basic human rights, such as access to clean water, food, shelter, healthcare and acquirement of good quality education. Such people are described as ‘underprivileged.’ As the following case study of poverty and income inequality shows, even though Asia has a collectivistic culture where communitarianism should be fully applied, whereas liberal individualism is considered a theory applicable in the West alone, the ‘underprivileged’ abound in South Korea. Had collectivism or communitarianism not been combined with the practice of liberal individualism on the part of the rich and the powerful in South Korea, poverty and income inequality would have been nonexistent. While it is true that South Korea works to resolve these issues in the spirit of communitarianism, it remains a fact that liberal individualism is practiced by the rich people of South Korea in addit...
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In order to sustain a vibrant economy, the government needs to help the poor with their resources. The poor are poor not because they don’t work, but because government has failed to provide wages that American families can survive on. Cost can be an issue but the cost to subsidize the workers with low-wage jobs are higher (Kukathus 49). Acknowledging ethical and reli...
Although poverty has minimized, it is still significant poverty which is characterized by a numerous amount of things. There are two types of poverty case and insular. “Case poverty is the farm family with the junk-filled yard and the dirty children playing in the bare dirt” (Galbraith 236)Case poverty is not irretraceable and usually caused if someone in the household experiences “ mental deficiency, bad health, inability to adapt to the discipline of industrial life, uncontrollable procreation, alcohol, some educational handicap unrelated to community shortcomings” (Galbraith 236).Case poverty is often blamed on the people for their shortcomings but on some levels can be to pinpoint one person's shortcomings that caused this poverty. Most modern poverty is insular and is caused by things people in this community cannot control. “The most important characteristic of insular poverty is forces, common to all members of the community, that restrain or prevent participation in economic life and increase rates of return.
With each class comes a certain level in financial standing, the lower class having the lowest income and the upper class having the highest income. According to Mantsios’ “Class in America” the wealthiest one percent of the American population hold thirty-four percent of the total national wealth and while this is going on nearly thirty-seven million Americans across the nation live in unrelenting poverty (Mantsios 284-6). There is a clear difference in the way that these two groups of people live, one is extreme poverty and the other extremely
...th what little they have, however; why is it left to the poor to have to suffer the consequences of these political choices. The persistence of extreme poverty and social ills speak to a situation that bears for a different approach. It is clear that capitalism and free market solutions cannot spread wealth as advocated. American governments have shown their reluctance to admit this discrepancy through the strategic creations of welfare policies and welfare reform coupled with placing blame upon the citizens who possess little power to change market decisions that govern and effect their lives.
The neoliberal policies have benefited some people in generating great wealth for them, but controversially, the policies have failed to benefit the people who live in extreme poverty and those people are the most in need for financial support (Makwana, 2006). In the last 2 to 3 decades, the wealth disparity between nations as well as within nations has increased. Currently, one out of every 5 children in the United States is in a state of poverty, continual hunger, insecurity and lack of health care (MIT, 2000). This situation is becoming even more desperate. Between 1960 and 1980, the developing countries’ economic growth was 3.2 percent. Then it dropped significantly to 0.7 percent between 1980 and 2000, and this is the period when neolibe...
For generations, activists and legislators have strived and struggled to approach the subject of the unequal resource distribution across the nation. Typical discourses have concentrated on the dilemma between espousals of feigned concerns for insecure and impoverished people, while simultaneously projecting particular anxieties with supporting their dependency on the state. For the past three decades, US policy has positioned itself in conjunction with neoliberal philosophy, composed with the intention to discourage political aid. Not necessarily to foster an environment of starvation, but rather to encourage private individual living without state intervention. However, the consequence of neoliberal policy often results in marginalized identities,
We look in particular to the case of the United States. The US is the world’s leading power and hegemon, who also has the world’s highest GDP and GDP per capita. However, in recent years the gap between the rich and the poor has been growing at a fast pace. This prevalence of income inequality in a free market society like the US indicates that inequality is a direct result of a market or government failure. In a free market it is believed that individuals possess an equal opportunity to be successfully, but because of misallocation of resources in a market economy this is not possible.
American society today is epitomized by the growing divide between rich and poor. What is significant about this fact is that both ends of the spectrum are accelerating away from each other, with poor individuals sliding further still into the doldrums of poverty, while those that have enjoyed success in the past to a large degree continue to accumulate even larger sums of riches.
The world contains a lot of societies, cultures, and classes. Each household belongs to some social class that represents their level of education, their work position, and their financial status. These different classes have created a conflict between people. It fills rich people's minds with the thought that poor people are criminals, and that conflict ended up with creating poverty. The authors Gilbert, Kahl, Magnet, and Gans are discussing the important causes and reasons that created poverty in comparing and contrasting these points with each other.
The poor gets poorer, and the rich gets richer. Economically speaking, this is the truth about Capitalism. Numerous people agree that this inequality shows the greedy nature of humankind. The author of the source displays a capitalist perspective that encompasses an individualist approach towards an “un-ideal” economic system. The source articulates a prominent idea that capitalism is far from perfect. The reality is, as long as capitalism exists, there are always those people who are too poor or too rich in the system. We do not need elitists in our society but that is exactly what capitalists are. In this society, people are in clash with those who “have” and those who “have not”, which creates conflict and competition. Throughout
The government of Korea is not dispersing the money throughout the country. Instead, the money is utilized for unnecessary expenses in which the revenues go toward South Korea. It is a displacement of finances for a nation which can also be seen in the book’s chapter “Why Nations Fail Today: how to win the lottery in Zimbabwe.” In this chapter we discover that the president of Zimbabwe, Robert Mugabe, happened to have won the lottery. Acemoglu and Robinson argue that this was not just a coincidence. So with that being said, the real explanation for why some countries are poor and others are prosperous is because they are strategically constructed and organized differently. Rich countries have incentives such as more job availability, protection and monetary support from supporting countries. Poorer countries do not have these
There are many rich and poor people in the world today, in our own country and in others. We have classified by how much they can afford and they are put into a class system. It’s hard for everyone in a country to be equal in the sense of how much money they make. Adriana Delgado says, “The vast differences between the rich and the poor, the powerful and the powerless, will be the catalyst for the best intentions to be rewarded with ungratefulness and contempt, creating resentment and mistrust between the classes.” there is always going to be problems between the rich and poor, because one sometimes is held higher than the
On today’s life, social inequality is given based on a variety of different characteristics, of race, ethnicity, gender, culture, economic class, immigration status, and sexual preference that a person may have. It is the power of privilege the holds the honor and respect, and the prestige of income and property, that wins every time. Auto-differentially positioning the poor as minority groups to hold less power, and manipulated by those who want to maintain themselves as elite. “Often experiencing unequal treatment compared to the dominant group, giving them a collective sense of being discriminated against” (Carl 2013, Pg.41) It is clear that society still struggles to find opportunities to live in equality with the poor. Rewarding them with only unequal distribution of opportunities that only increases, today’s wage gap and the disadvantages that they must overcome on their way to survive and succeed in life. What factors can increase this inequality? The poor must overcome the lack of economic resources, the stereotypes created among their group, and the government cutbacks that they must live on their daily basis till the rest of their lives.
Extractive institutions are used throughout this book to explain that the upper class extracts resources and goods from the lower class. They don’t allow growth or competition, but rather they just exploit the rest of society into doing their labour. It’s used to please a few, rather than the majority, and can still be seen in most places in the world. Whereas, inclusive institutions are the ideal way nations should be run, allowing for fair economical systems, property ownership, educational facilities and allowing all citizens to participate in the growth of the economy. Acemoglu and Robinson argue that this is the main factor in distinguishing the rich countries from the poor and, moreover, how they treat their citizens. This system is relatively used in North America and Western Europe.
South Africa is a nation with a wonderful and varied culture. This country has been called “The Rainbow Nation”, a name that reflects the diversity of such amazing place. The different ethnic and cultural groups of the South Africa do, however, appreciate their own beliefs and customs. Many of these traditions, besides African culture, are influenced by European and Western heritage. The complex and diverse population of the country has made a strong impact to the various cultures. There are forty-five million people; about thirty million are black, five million white, three million coloured and one million Indians. The black population has a large number of rural people living in poverty. It is among these inhabitants that cultural customs are preserve the most.