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Edward Royce's Views Of Poverty And Power

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Shivvani Sharma
SOCL 3310
June 13, 2017
Ann Strahm

“Today They Say That We Are Free, Only To Be Chained In Poverty” (Marley).
After reading the few chapters from Poverty and Power, by Edward Royce, there were a few things that came to my attention that I guess I never cared to notice before. The first being the different views on poverty and what causes it. Some of the impacts of poverty that Royce analyzed are from an individualistic and structural perspective and how they compare and contract with each other on why poverty exists. Edward Royce demonstrates that poverty influences most everyone in one way or another and exists because the people who are wealthy and have power need poverty to exist to force the poor to be dependent on the …show more content…

1). I agree with Royce on the terms of this increase overtaking the rate of inflation and making it harder for the middle class to hold their ground, let alone the ones counted as poor.
Another major factor that can affect poverty is the economy, specifically the economic system used in a country. Capitalist economies, like our own, focus on privately owned means of production, the people who own the company keep the profits and typically the government will not interfere. This private ownership of profits leads to the rich getting richer leaving little for the growing population of the poor. In a capitalist country where the government typically offers little support to its citizens, a large number of its citizens can be left without any services because they cannot afford them. An example of this is the United States, the richest country in the world where 28.5 million of its citizens have no health insurance (Collins). Poverty causes many problems for individuals, families, and society. Now I see how the only few people and organizations that actually benefit from poverty are the rich and those who control the means of production.
According to the individualistic perspective, those in poverty are seen as deviant, and become labeled as being against society’s values, often those who have children out of wedlock, are welfare dependent, high school dropouts, and

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