A personal take on Gan’s "The positive functions of poverty"

Sometime back, a friend shared a paper with me which had an interesting title “The positive functions of poverty” by Herbert J Gans, a German-born American sociologist. I got the time to read it yesterday.

Broadly speaking, this paper takes a functional approach of justifying that poverty exists because it serves certain functions in a society and to eliminate poverty would prove disastrous to the society as a whole unless other functionally equivalent processes are created to fill in the gaps.

This article is my criticism of part 3 of the paper which lists the positive functions of poverty and attempts to explain why I disagree with Mr. Gans.

Moreover, the debate about welfare–and about proposed substitutes such as the negative income tax and the Family Assistance Plan - has emphasised the impact of income grants on work incentive, with opponents often arguing that such grants would reduce the incentive of - actually, the pressure on - the poor to carry out the needed dirty work if the wages therefore are no larger than the income grant.

This is an inherently cruel statement to make. The only possible end state of a society built on such class stratification and hatred is complete societal collapse. This would broadly play out as follows: Increased inequality would lead to more sociological stratification of society (“us” versus “them”) leading to more civil unrest culminating in a civil war².

Why not believe in a world where, through a popular collaborative effort, we uplift the utility of the less-affluent class¹, enable class mobility to encourage more literate hands joining the workforce which translates to more brains capable enough to work on technological advancements? This would easily resolve Gan’s contention of “Who will do the dirty work?” by applying technology and automation as well as boost organic economic growth and productivity of the society as a whole.

Second, the poor subsidise, directly and indirectly, many activities that benefits the affluent. Of course, the poor do not actually subsidise the affluent. Rather, by being forced to work for low wages, they enable the affluent to use the money saved in this fashion for other purposes. The concept of subsidy used here thus assumes belief in a “just wage”.

By saying this, the affluent admit that there is some “just wage” that the poor should be paid but are denied by the rich. This is equivalent to stealing from a group that is not capable of standing up for its rights because social conditions set up the affluent are such that they cannot afford to engage in activities that would enable them to do so; such as sending their kids to school, investing capital, or accessing healthcare.

Why is the idea of a “just wage” not justified? Would it be justified if the affluent do not get the “wage” they want from their employer (who I can safely assume to be a member of the affluent class)? Thus, what we see is a double-standard setup by a tiny section of the society that have colluded together to circulate wealth and resources amongst themselves and to keep a strong hold over any attempts of redistribution of wealth to less affluent groups.

In addition, as Barry Schwartz pointed out (personal communication), the low income of the poor enables the rich to divert a higher proportion of their income to savings and investment, and thus to fuel economic growth.

Why does the affluent assume that only they are capable of making sound financial decisions which will result in the grand economic growth of the society? Who has given this right solely to the affluent? What will the less affluent do if they find themselves in possession of excess wealth? The affluent reason that since they have never had so much wealth before, they will be bad managers of wealth and end up squandering it. But what will, in fact, happen is to the contrary. Having a much stronger understanding of the value of money, they will be more cautious on how to spend it. They will make more informed investment decisions. Unlike the affluent who haven’t ever really seen the hardships and only days of vanity and degradation of the senses.

(Paraphrased) They consume the refuse of society, thereby lessening food wastage.
(Paraphrased) Gives employment to police, prostitutes, cheap liquor shops, etc.

These claims point towards a degradation of the poor, to treat them as the “other”, and to reduce them to something lesser than humans. This is, in stark violation, of the right of every human to be treated justly and in its present form, would not gain much popular support³.

One more point I wish to make in the passing, perhaps it’s more subtle: how the author seems to be welcoming the evils of the society as a feature of the existence of poverty.

…the poor also assist in the upward mobility of the nonpoor, for, as Goode has pointed out (1967, p. 5), “the privileged . . . try systematically to prevent the talent of the less privileged from being recognized or developed.” By being denied educational opportunities or being stereotyped as stupid or unteachable, the poor thus enable others to obtain better jobs.

This seems to be like an intentional twisting of words to suit the purpose but there may be some truth to it. And such reasoning can only come from groups that have only ever observed privileged upbringing and hatred and contempt towards anyone who even remotely dares to threaten their “social position”.

the poor have played an important role in shaping the American political process; because they vote and participate less than other groups, the political system has often been free to ignore them. This has not only made American politics more centrist than would otherwise be the case, but it has also added to the stability of the political process.

Perhaps, the irony in the above statement is not lost on the reader. How is America democratic, then, if such ideas are accepted as normative? The least that we can do is redefine the word democracy to avoid any further misconceptions with respect to its usage.

Overall, it seems like a paper written by an academic sitting comfortably in a pristine office perhaps with glass doors away from the heat and troubles of the underprivileged and the less fortunate of the society and the hardships that they face on a day-to-day basis. While building logical chains of reasoning, statements like “The poor provide X to the affluent” is so common that they completely miss the social and personal misery and unhappiness that it causes. The analysis does not take that into account at all and simply treats the two groups as inanimate objects where the experiences of these groups are somehow reduced to features of these groups. This fact itself should be alarming.

My personal views as noted above, may seem to point towards believing in the realisation of a world order with no poor people but I admit, that is impossible. What I believe in is an active collaborative popular movement where the control of a person’s life lies with the person. An attempt is made to relieve the less-affluent of their shortcomings by the more affluent. Rabindranath Tagore’s poem comes to mind,

Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way
Into the dreary desert sand of dead habit
…
Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.
~When the Mind is Without Fear, 1910

Footnotes

1: I detest using the term “lower” as it invokes spatial ideas of the “upper” class being more dominant somehow.

2: And then we can blame the sociologists and the economists for doing sloppy jobs.

3: This is analogous to how racists, pro-Nazis, or anti-semites will be looked down upon in most progressive societies.