Defining Poverty

Poverty, what is it? Shipler’s article gives at least a hundred direct examples of societal inequalities. These things don’t necessarily define poverty in a textbook sense- but they pull at us as ironies. The copy editor of your textbook has not been to the dentist in a decade. The woman who cashes checks has $2.02 in her own checking account. A man who sells dog food yet cannot feed his family. Things that shouldn’t be. Things that don’t seem right. The people who live in the margins of the world, pushed to the side, ignored, unwanted--no one is concerned about them. The U.S. government’s definition of poverty is simple: “An annual income, for a family with one adult and three children, of less than $18,392 in the year 2003.”(Shipler)

Shipler says, “Indeed, being poor in a rich country may be more difficult to endure than being poor in a poor country, for the skills of surviving in poverty have largely been lost in America.” But maybe it’s the simple ability to live in moderation that’s been lost in America. We commonly find ourselves either stressed out or bored. Seldom just content and peaceful-- usually in a hurry to get some place we complain about going and spend too much in order to get there. Thousands of people rush into the same areas of our major cities at the same time of day each driving their own car with about 3 extra seats and disgruntled about traffic. Most westerners have their own personal living space--at least a bedroom, if not apartment or house to themselves. Many of whom spend most of their time watching TV or some other individual activity. We exist in the same spaces but do not engage each other. Many of us only see our immediate family members a few days or weeks per year. In America we value individual success --specifically economic success (especially when it’s accompanied by independence: the ability to make your own decisions) above everything else. It shows in our national politics (taxes have always been an issue, but how much will it take more of us to pay attention to the environment?), our international relations (our closest allies are our trading partners, decisions made based on what benefits us), our college enrollments (You can find a whole lot more business majors in any given college than you’ll find social work majors.) We, as a nation are generally regarded internationally for our swagger and bully : we are mostly seen as arrogant, selfish and loud. We tell our citizens to pull themselves up by their bootstraps and then laugh at them for having bootstraps because “those are so last season! You can’t expect to make it if you’re not dressed for success!” So the average American buys in, believes what they hear. They’ll get a fast food job and buy things on a credit card with ridiculous rates so they can afford something they don’t want in order to pursue what they don’t really need. They may purchase a new pair of shoes and put off the phone bill. A trip to Maui comes before the mortgage. Dessert before dinner. French fries may be considered a “vegetable”. We often indulge while neglecting things we actually need like healthcare (The average american spends $1.50 for every dollar they make before taxes.) (Guttmacher). And so it often produces this endless cycle of going after something that is never quite achieved. Even many of our most successful citizens are this way. CEOs who have more than they could ever even personally take an inventory of always want more (Enron’s Ken Lay). We get a rush off of buying things or gaining status and recognition. But it is never enough. The strange urge to go faster. Going just five or ten miles over the speed limit no matter what it is even if we aren’t actually in a rush. We are usually moving, wanting to be somewhere else and feeling either bored or too busy. Seldom content. Rarely satisfied. It’s not even enough to take what other countries have. Most Americans or westerners aren’t even aware that we use up most of the world’s resources with our “normal” or “average” lifestyle. We have all or most of their oil, coffee, political and media attention, and countless other resources that are available to them. The poverty we run from is a condition of the spirit more than it is one of the pocketbook. There are two sides to this issue. The “third world’s” poor might cry from empty stomachs but our poor cry from empty lives. There are more sides to this issue than finances and economic security.

Poverty means you are always working, never full, never able to get to where you are going or know where that is. A person in poverty is often willing to steal, kill and destroy anything it takes to be satisfied-- because they believe this is their only option. This takes many more forms than a beggar on the street. More than one in five babies conceived in the United States will be aborted (this is only the legally reported abortions--and the rates continue to rise)(Guttmacher). Speaking of abortion in America, Mother Teresa said, “It is a poverty to decide that a child must die so that you may live as you wish”(Brainy). She also said, “In the West there is loneliness, which I call the leprosy of the West. In many ways it is worse than our poor in Calcutta”(Brainy). This is a woman who is world famous for a life devoted to serving the poor. She was the top expert in her field: poverty. She daily dealt with leprous beggars literally dying in gutters, babies left for days on garbage heaps, the smelly, the ignorant, the dying, the extremely destitute. Most of India believes in karma, so their poor are treated by almost everyone like they deserve that type of life. And she calls “the leprosy of the West” worse than anything she saw in Calcutta. This woman had little to no material possessions and spent her time with those who had even less--going totally against the grain of the world--and it made her strong in a way that most of us are not. Because she gave so much, she lived a life of joy and fulfillment despite her lack of pursuing those things which we assume would save “the poor” from their poverty.
Consider Sam Walton in contrast with Mother Teresa. He threatened his way to the top of the global economy, personally owning more capital than most countries. He created Wal-mart to be the perfect epitome of deception--on the outside it looks like good products at great prices, but it creates urban sprawl, ruins local businesses and economies. It takes the capital out of the community and gives it to the Waltons-- tricking thousands of American towns and millions of people into poverty (below the statistical federal level) in America. Each one of whose American lifestyle drains the world of its resources and creates an exponentially wider global economic gap (Stop Sprawl). She pulled people out of gutters one at a time and treated them like angels for the last few hours of their lives so they would know they were valuable. What a better example of one man’s trash being another man’s treasure. How can one be so deceptive and selfish that they will suck the life out of anything that comes their way and be called “rich”. How can the other be so joyful, influential, celebrated, giving and statistically be called “poor”. These are the real ironies. The things that exist in the world that just don’t add up.

Public references may define poverty in the realm of “lack of material possessions. Lack of means to provide for oneself”(Poverty). But if you ask people who are actually in poverty, they may be more likely to say that poverty is something more like, “what’s in the mind or the heart...Not hopelessness--helplessness’. ‘The state of mind,’ said a [poor] man in Washington D.C. ‘I believe that spirituality is way more important than physical’”(Shipler). Shipler also described a woman who had a job running Xerox machines. She called herself rich, but it wasn’t because of her minimum wage job. She said, “because--not only material things--because I know who I am, I know where I’m going now.” Those who have not experienced poverty talk about it like a eunuch would describe a condition like parenthood. They would say something like “a woman is fertilized by the man’s seed and genetically produces a child by their biological system.” They may even talk about a special bond between mother and child or each one’s role in the other’s life. But until you have experienced motherhood you cannot really understand the heights and the depths of the situation in all of its fullness. To know that something is growing inside of you. To love someone so much that you’ve never met before. Even those who give their babies away or betray them in the worst ways possible will never be able to let go of this thing that they cannot explain but cannot run away from. And so it is with those who have experienced true poverty--it is a condition of the spirit as well as economy.

In the early Christian church--and the modern Catholic church, poverty is a discipline. There are several ways to go about it--a person would take either a solemn or simple vow to live in material poverty as a way to strengthen their spirit and avoid material distraction. Jesus lived in poverty as we define it now. He didn’t have a house, almost no material possessions, was constantly bothered and threatened to be arrested and hated. But he, like several others (Ghandi, Bhudda, Mandela, Mother Teresa) are among the most influential people in all of human history lived “poor”. They are respected because of what they said and did- the life he lived- not because of what he had. The lack of material possessions can serve as a focusing tool. Something to hold us back from becoming vain or selfish. Someone who is not worried about maintaining possessions will develop other less temporary and fleeting aspects of life.

Is it possible to be rich and have no money? Clearly it’s been done before. The wealthy are not always happy, but those who are happy generally consider themselves to be rich. But how many of us are able to “discern eloquence under a threadbare cloak”?(Juvenal) The task of overcoming poverty is more than a task of economics or financial institutions. There are clearly multiple sides to this issue manifested in the world today. However, in the West poverty is defined as the opposite end of a spectrum from something that is not wealth. When we value economic success so much, we create poverty by looking for life in dead places. If we seek to make the world’s “poor” like our “wealthy”, we will have failed. We will have succeeded in existing and not really living. We will only be deceived into deeper poverty.

Sources
1. Brainy Quote. “Mother Teresa”. 30 October 2006. <http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/m/mother_teresa.html>.
2. How Big Box Stores Like Wal-mart Effect the Environment and Communities. Stop Sprawl. The Sierra Club. 30 October, 2006. <http://www.sierraclub.org/sprawl/reports/big_box.asp>.
3. Juvenal. Quotations about Poverty. 15 October 2006. <http://www.quotegarden.com/poverty.html>.
4. K.Knight, Nihil, Obstat.The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume XII. 1911. Robert Appleton Company. Online Edition. 2003. John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York. 17 October, 2006. <http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/12324a.htm>.
5. “Poverty.” The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language. 4th edition. Houghton Mifflin Company, 2004. 13 Oct 2006. <http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/poverty>.
6. Shipler, David K. The Working Poor, Invisible in America. Vintage Books. New York 2005. p.3-11.
7. Table maker.Guttmacher Institute. 14 October 2006. <http://www.guttmacher.org/tablemaker/page4.mhtml>.

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