1. Poverty: Elements of Historical Definition

1. 1.Poverty: Elements of Historical Definition 19th -20th centuries

2. Oxford English Dictionary The condition or quality of being poor.  The condition of having little or no wealth or material possessions; indigence, destitution, want (in various degrees) Deficiency, lack, scantiness, dearth, scarcity; smallness of amount. Want of or deficiency in some property, quality, or ingredient; the condition of being poorly supplied with something; (of soil, etc.) the condition of yielding little, unproductiveness. Poor condition of body; leanness or feebleness resulting from insufficient nourishment, or the like.  III. 8. attrib. and Comb., as ……… poverty programme U.S., a programme or policy designed to alleviate poverty; poverty trap, a situation in which an earned increase to a low income is offset by the consequent loss of means-tested state benefits;

3. The OED indicates that in the English language, concepts of “poverty” from the 14th century onward stress the idea of lack, absence, deficiency, and ALSO more specific framing of “poverty” as “market income poverty” ====> “having little or no wealth.”

4. Creating a measure for “market income poverty” • Benjamin Rowntree formalized a market-based measurement definition in the early 1900s, when he established the concept of “poverty line.” • “Poverty Line” ==> the income level beneath which a person cannot buy goods and services that constitute a socially acceptable minimum standard of living.

5. Poverty lines can be set at any level appropriate for the purpose at hand. Higher lines designate higher “minimum” living standards; lower lines, lower minimum standards. The Millennium Development Goal “line” of $US1/day at 1985 US prices put about 1.3 billion people “in poverty” in 1990.

6. The CONCEPT of a poverty line depicting a global minimum standard for a socially acceptable minimum standard of living for the whole world came into existence only after 1945. This GLOBAL conceptualization of POVERTY as an object of measurement EVERYWHERE is a feature of WORLD ORDER in the later 20th century.

7. Concept => Measure => Policy • The original CONCEPT of poverty guiding MEASUREMENT and POLICY was nationality. • The modern problem of poverty, hence the idea of a “poverty line,” appeared FIRST inside territories of national state authority, • where NATIONAL norms prevailed, NATIONAL governments made policy, and NATIONAL elites and institutions debated policy options.

9. Conceptualizing Poverty, Nationally • In England, the IRISH famine and mounting URBAN poverty became prominent features of public life, in the 1840s, when the first modern studies of poverty appeared, one influential study by Fredrick Engels, Karl Marx’s close associate. • Modern ideas about socialism appeared at this time, to express the demand that the STATE protect the poor from poverty induced by early industrial capitalism (in England). • The Irish famine followed by INDIAN famines in 1870s brought to light massive VULNERABILITY to catastrophe among poor people living under the authority of the BRITISH EMPIRE • From the 1870s, PROTECTING AGAINST FAMINE became official government policy in much of Europe and also in British India.

10. Increasing Inequality Made Poverty a Pressing Problem As economic growth accelerated under industrial capitalism, in the nineteenth century, states took more interest in “the poverty problem.” Growing inequality generated demands to address poverty, in England and also in British India.

11. Nationalism and Socialism Nationalism in British India and Socialism in Europe both made strong claims that states had the responsibility to protect the poor from calamity. These claims became political challenges to states based on support for English national business interests promoting laissez faire market policies.

12. Revolution and Depression The Russian Revolution (1917) provided a real socialist option and model for national movements in Asia, including British India. The Great Depression (1929-1934) forced states to take responsibility for protecting whole national populations against severe market fluctuations.

13. Poverty Line and Cold War The mid-20th century made concepts of poverty more political First: by introducing TWO conflicting meanings for the POVERTY LINE, one associated with capitalism, the other, with socialism. Second: by giving INEQUALITY (measured around the poverty line) two meanings, with the same conflicting associations.

14. Poverty Lines & Entitlement in Socialism and Welfare States Under socialism and in welfare states, the “poverty line” marked an income level below which people became entitled to STATE provisioning of goods and services that people could not buy. The assumption here is that the state is at the very least the provider of LAST RESORT of necessary goods and services for citizens.

15. Market Entitlement • By contrast, the market economy by itself provides no such last resort entitlement • Amartya Sen defines entitlements of three kinds (Poverty and Famines) • 1. Self-Production (as on peasant farm) • 2. Personal Property (legal ownership) • 3. Exchange (purchase for money)

16. Shifting Paradigms • After 1970, the socialist and welfare definitions of poverty entitlement became less politically popular in many states. • This trend accelerated with the dismantling of many socialist regimes and state policies. • The NATIONAL STATE became less active as guarantor of ENTITLEMENTS for the poor.

17. Meanings of Inequality INEQUALITY (measured around the poverty line) had also acquired two meanings, with the same conflicting associations. In market-based capitalism, it retained its meaning as UNEQUAL WEALTH among disparate individuals. Under socialism, it acquired the meaning of UNEQUAL POWER over the distribution of goods and services among social classes.

18. UNEQUAL WEALTH among individuals became more broadly defined over time. [Kanbur et al, Laderchi et al] Poverty = • income insufficiency (market buying power) • lack of access (to goods and services in general provisioning, not just market, e.g. courts, welfare programs, family, community) • lack of assets (ownership, social capital, to use to acquire necessities, or to produce, e.g. land, animals, credit) • lack of capacity to do things (abilities), • lack of entitlement (rights to resources), Hence: insecurity, vulnerability (lack of protection, safety), lack of prospects or opportunities (e.g. education), hence poverty outcomes (symptoms) =>lack of health, food, shelter, hunger, disease, early death, misery, etc

19. Implications of viewing poverty as UNEQUAL WEALTH among disparate individuals • The fact that non-poor people have what poor people do not have is irrelevant to poverty. • Income inequality is just a ranking of attributions, from greater to lesser, from wealth to poverty. • Targeting poverty can mean provisioning, providing, or endowing the poor with means to ends (i.e. money or jobs to buy food) or with ends directly (e.g. food, housing, shelter, etc).

20. By contrastThe UNEQUAL POWER concept of INEQUALITYmakes poverty an outcome of inequality. This approach considers “lack” or “insufficiency” of wealth (by any definition) the outcome of denial; it applies the active verb meaning of “deprivation,” indicating that things people need are taken away, deprived, BECAUSE poor people do not have the power to sustain themselves. A lack of empowerment, in this view, is not just a lack, but a loss, as in disempowerment or oppression (an active reduction of prospects and freedom of action).

21. So when we see poverty as UNEQUAL POWER among social classes. • The fact that non-poor people have what poor people do not have is very relevant to poverty. • Wealth inequality represents the production of poverty by the systematic use of power to provide wealth to some groups and not others. • Targeting poverty can mean removing obstacles to their empowerment, including a reduction of the power of the non-poor poor to accumulate wealth.

22. Concept <=> Measure <=> Policy • The DEFINITION of poverty is thus a complex, changing process. • In which concepts and measures derive from policy orientations, • which are in turn formed within a changing world environment, • where people in state, regions, and localities engage poverty as a problem today.

23. 2.Poverty in Global Frames Since 1945

24. From International to Global Poverty Conflicting meanings of POVERTY LINE, ENTITLEMENT, and INEQUALITY became part of international policy dispute and conflict after 1945, When for the first time, THE WHOLE WORLD of Poverty became an object of policy attention.

25. From International to Global Poverty Poverty remains fundamentally national: Concepts, Measures, and Policies differ from state to state. Statistics remain state products. State politics still determine state policies. But the international system has become more and more powerful as a context for state activities.

26. From International to Global Poverty A World Development Regime came into being after 1945 The World Bank, IMF, United Nations agencies, GATT/WTO, and major “donor countries” set the tone for development These organizations actively shifted the POVERTY paradigm away from that of welfare/ socialism toward that of market/capitalism

27. Universal Norms, Concepts • The Universal Declaration of Human Rights was the first of many UN documents to formulate standards, norms, and concepts for all member states. • Member states eventually embraced almost all the world population. • The Millennium Development Goals are now the most GLOBALLY influential statements about POVERTY

28. Poverty as a global problem • Though policies focus on individual countries, • each operates inside a global regime • composed of states and inter-state organizations that set the tone for the dominant operative matrix of • CONCEPT => MEASURE => POLICY

29. National Poverty, Global Inequality The following slides indicate: • PERCAPITA GDP for each national territory (total product/total population) is the measure of global inequality; • people in poor countries are the global majority • people in the richest countries, which set the tone for global development, are a small minority • most of the world’s poor live in Asia. • poverty correlates with life expectancy (among other quality of life variables

34. Wealth inequality is life inequality (Based on 1996 UNICEF data)

35. 3.Measuring Poverty Institutions and practices

37. Spatial frames for approaching poverty

38. Concept <=> Measure <=> Policy • Policy orientations shape concepts and measures • Concepts and measures influence from policy orientations • Policy orientations take shape inside a changing world environment, • where people in state, regions, and localities engage poverty as a problem.

39. A Matrix of Interactions in the Politics of Knowledge About Poverty • Policy orientations inform policy within structured institutional settings • These settings tend toward self-justification, • They structure research, interpretation, explanation accordingly • Concepts, measures, and analysis rarely operate free of institutional structures. • We all operate within structured conceptual limitations … that said, we can proceed:

40. From definition to measurement: basic problems(Laderchi) • The “space” of poverty: what is possible now under current conditions or what is possible under altered conditions. • Universality: do definitions translate or move across contexts. • Subjective versus Objective: Values, Judgments, and Agency • Setting Poverty Line: Dividing Poor and Non-Poor • Units of analysis: e.g. person, family, area, population • Multidimensionality: how to evaluate elements • Time: month, year, lifetime, or longer • Do measures explain?

41. Four Approaches(Laderchi) • MONETARY Measure (MM) • CAPABILITY Approach (CA) • SOCIAL EXCLUSION (SE) • PARTICIPATORY METHOD (PM)

42. Monetary Measure: Poverty line cuts ranked income groups by level at which money income insufficient to acquire necessary goods and services Parsimony Statistics Objectivity Translatable Economic Theory Levels of Scale Definitions and Practical Benefits

43. CAPABILITY Poverty line distinguishes people without “freedom to live a valued life,” denied capacity to “realize human potential” Multidimensional Substantive Adaptable Non-Utilitarian Ethical Theory + Economics (HDI) Definitions and Practical Benefits

44. SOCIAL EXCLUSION Poverty line separates groups marginalized and deprived of basic social assets Relativity Agency Dynamics (process) Non-Individualistic Multi-dimensional Definitions and Practical Benefits

45. PARTICIPATORY APPROACH Poverty line defined by people themselves Sensitive Contextual Voice Democracy Relativity Definitions and Practical Benefits

46. Which measure is best? • Money measure is ubiquitous • Its practical benefits attract most support • Its theoretical attachment to economic theory implies explanatory and thus predictive power for policy makers • But diversity of measures better captures realities of poverty • and

47. “ … large discrepancies in those defined as poor according to different methods mean that one cannot rely on the monetary indicators to identify those in other types of poverty, nor conversely.”-- Laderchi et al.

48. Poverty Elements and Orientations The diversity of definitions emerges from entanglements among technical analysts, institutions, and “poverty issues.” Definitions of poverty do not emerge independently of theories, ideologies, statistical methods, and analytical procedure that inform policy, but rather inside them.

49. Gender Nationalism Globalization Economics Anthropology Cultural Studies Etc etc Specialist orientations and prior commitments generate definitions, procedures, priorities • Human Rights • Education • Environment • Law • Housing • Sanitation • Health Care

50. World Bank, World Development Report, 2000/1, Attacking Poverty. Introduction. • Poverty is multidimensional: it includes inadequate food, shelter, health, education; vulnerability to disease, dislocation, disaster; and often mistreatment by state and society. • “Poor people live without fundamental freedoms of action and choice that the better-off take for granted.” (capabilities, rights?) • “The experience of multiple deprivations is intense and painful.” The Voices of the Poor study, which informs this report, gives a first-hand glimpse of poverty. (participatory approach) • “Of the world’s 6 billion people, 2.8 billion – almost half – live on less than $2 a day, and 1.2 billion – a fifth – live on less than $1 a day, with 44 percent living in South Asia.” (monetary poverty) • “In rich countries,” less than 1 in 100 children die before age 5; while “in the poorest countries,” as many as 20% do. In rich countries, <5% children < 5 yrs old are malnourished; in poor countries, as many as 50%  ten times the percentage. • (Inequality, comparison, as definition of poverty)