[PEN-L:5204] Re: measuring poverty

[mmeeropo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Mike Meeropol)]

Once again, Jim Devine says something that causes me to reflect and consider
...

Jim Devine wrote:
>
> My idea here is that one could take the idea of the vicious circle
> of poverty seriously: one is "poor" if being in your income class
> (or asset-ownership class) imposes special costs that make if
> difficult to escape from one's income class (or asset-ownership
> class).
>
stuff omitted ...
>
> What I'm thinking of is also
> related to the Marxian idea that the situation that
> workers find themselves in makes it damn hard to escape
> the working class (except for a small number of enter-
> tainers and other lucky ones)

It's this point that I think is so difficult to make our "individual
achievement oriented" students accept when they are exposed to class-based
analysis of economic reality.

The parallel I try to draw (and I use it in discussing the on-going impact
of racism on the achievement of African-Americans and other people of color)
is that under the U.S. system of slavery there were a few highly successful
individuals who were able to accumulate enough independent income to _buy
their own freedom_.  I then ask the students to consider whether because
there were such individuals that _therefore_ slavery was not a system rigged
against the slave?  Most would acknowledge that, No, the existence of a few
extraordinary individual success stories does NOT invalidate the general
proposition that a system, such as slavery, is inherently skewed against the
person on the bottom --- in this case the slave.

I then suggest that the existence of successful African American businessmen
in the period of extreme segregation and official second-class citizenship
in the United States did not in any way create a situation in which there
was "equal opportunity" for African Americans.  In fact, the evidence is
overwhelming that there was a skewed income, asset-ownership, and occupation
distribution that could be directly traced to racial discrimination.  Again,
they agree that, No, the existence of a few black millionaire businessmen in
the 1920s does not prove that there was equal opportunity for African
Americans under the US version of Apartheid.

Now comes the hard part:  The success of the (relatively small) African
American middle class --- the success of the (very few) rags to riches
millionaires who start in the working class and "climb the ladder" ---- do
not constitute proof that if you're born black or born in the working class
that the society isn't rigged against you --- and that the income, asset-owning
and occupational distribution inequality is prima facie evidence that a
rigged society SIMILAR TO THE ONES THAT HAVE JUST BEEN DESCRIBED exists here
and now.

Most do not accept this next step, but I haven't been able to figure out a
better way to make it...

[thanks, Jim]
>
> Jim Devine
> jndf@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx or jdevine@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Econ. Dept., Loyola Marymount Univ., Los Angeles, CA 90045-2699 USA
> 310/338-2948 (daytime, during workweek); FAX: 310/338-1950
> "Segui il tuo corso, e lascia dir le genti." (Go your own way
> and let people talk.) -- K. Marx, paraphrasing Dante A.
>
--
Mike Meeropol
Economics Department
Cultures Past and Present Program
Western New England College
Springfield, Massachusetts
"Don't blame us, we voted for George McGovern!"
Unrepentent Leftist!!
mmeeropo@xxxxxxxx
[if at bitnet node:  in%"mmeeropo@xxxxxxxx" but that's fading fast!]