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The Meaning of Poverty: Questions of Distribution and Power

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Author Info
Arthur MacEwan
Abstract

Focusing on the low-income parts of the world and reviewing the different ways we can define poverty, I first argue that what people generally mean by poverty – or, more broadly, by economic well-being – cannot be adequately captured by a single, absolute measure such as income level or a more complex aggregate such as the Human Development Index. Not only do these measures fail to account for the complexity of human material needs, but they also fail to recognize the importance of distributional issues. The failure to incorporate a consideration of distribution in defining poverty is conceptually problematic, if not simply wrong. This failure also creates serious practical problems for campaigns against poverty, at best limiting their impact and at worst dooming them to failure.

The United Nations Millennium Goals program is a case in point. If poverty is viewed simply in absolute terms rather than including a consideration of distributional issues, the social structures that generate poverty tend to be ignored. Policy is then viewed as a technical issue and often focuses on particular programs that are directed to helping the poor improve their absolute situation: new seed varieties to raise income, mosquito nets treated with insecticide to improve health, more schools to raise the level of education. These sorts of policies, when they are actually implemented successfully, can have positive impacts. Yet they leave unexamined and unaddressed the social structures and power relations that have generated and continue to generate poverty.

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Paper provided by Political Economy Research Institute, University of Massachusetts at Amherst in its series Working Papers with number wp148.

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Date of creation: 2007
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Handle: RePEc:uma:periwp:wp148

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Related research
Keywords: poverty income distribution power Millennium Development Goals Human Devleopment Index

Find related papers by JEL classification:
I32 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare and Poverty - - - Measurement and Analysis of Poverty
O11 - Economic Development, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Macroeconomic Analyses of Economic Development
O15 - Economic Development, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Economic Development: Human Resources; Human Development; Income Distribution; Migration
O20 - Economic Development, Technological Change, and Growth - - Development Planning and Policy - - - General

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  1. Miles Cahill, 2005. "Is the Human Development Index Redundant?," Eastern Economic Journal, Palgrave Macmillan Journals, vol. 31(1), pages 1-5, Winter. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  2. Pan-Long Tsai, 1995. "Foreign direct investment and income inequality: Further evidence," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 23(3), pages 469-483, March. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  3. Alesina, Alberto & Rodrik, Dani, 1994. "Distributive Politics and Economic Growth," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 109(2), pages 465-90, May. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  4. Miles Cahill, 2005. "Is the Human Development Index Redundant?," Eastern Economic Journal, Eastern Economic Association, vol. 31(1), pages 1-5, Winter. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  5. Bowles, Samuel, 1978. "Capitalist development and educational structure," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 6(6), pages 783-796, June. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  6. Sen, Amartya, 1983. "Poor, Relatively Speaking," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 35(2), pages 153-69, July. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  7. Cornia, Giovanni Andrea, 1985. "Farm size, land yields and the agricultural production function: An analysis for fifteen developing countries," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 13(4), pages 513-534, April. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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