Publisher’s write-up:
‘The United States is the richest
country on earth, yet has more poverty than any other advanced democracy. One
in seven Americans live below the poverty line, a line which hasn't shifted
over the last fifty years, despite the efforts of successive governments. Why
is there so much scarcity in this land of dollars?
In Poverty, by America, acclaimed
sociologist Matthew Desmond examines American poverty today and the stories we
tell ourselves about it. Spanning social isolation, mass incarceration, the
housing crisis, domestic violence, crack and opioid epidemics, welfare cuts and
more, Desmond argues that poverty does not result from a lack of resources or
good policy ideas. We already know how to eliminate it. The hard part is
getting more of us to care.
To do so, we need a new story. As things
stand, liberals explain poverty through insurmountable structural issues,
whereas conservatives highlight personal failings and poor life choices. Both
abdicate responsibility, and ignore the reality that the advantages of the rich
only come at the expense of the poor. It is time better-paid citizens put
themselves back in the narrative, recognizing that the depth and expanse of
poverty in any nation reflects our failure to look out for one another. Poverty
must ultimately be met by community: all this suffering and want is our doing,
and we can undo it.’
Poverty, by America is a book written by
the US-based sociology professor Matthew Desmond, explaining the causes and
effects of poverty in the US. This book starts by explaining the sheer numbers
of poverty, considering US is a country with considerable population and the
number of poor in the US is more than the whole populations of certain
countries like Australia. The author then explains structural issues, and how
certain solutions proposed by the ‘pro-establishment’ - such as a stable
marriage, are the kinds that support those who are already in a stable
situation.
It is split into nine short chapters and
talks about how many people find it difficult to imagine or understand the
choices of someone who is poor, even among those who is sympathetic towards the
poor and often make callous conclusions as to how they must be poor at
‘budgeting’.
I am not from the US, and even though I
have got members of family (immediate and extended) living in the US, I have
not been there. However, US has overwhelming influence on the world economy and
it is true that the systems that US creates has cascading effects in the rest
of the world. However, it must be noted that this book is very US-centric and
and the examples that the author cites needs to be extrapolated to your own
jurisdiction as circumstances might be very similar.
I am going to digress and refer another
book I have read and reviewed in this blog – Poor Economics by Nobel laureates
Abhijit V Banerjee and Esther Duflo (click here to read the review of this
book) – who explain ‘poverty trap’ and reading this book in conjunction with
those concepts did help me to apply to where I live (European Union in general,
France in particular).
I would say that this book would be very
interesting to Americans, but when he goes into specific policy details of
various administrations in the past and how it affected a particular county in
a particular state – that is too much detail for an outsider.
Maybe my expectation for the book was a tad
misplaced – I expected it to be how the US system (the ultra-capitalist) system
creates a lot of poor who cannot escape the poverty trap and are at the same
time, this ‘poverty’ created by America is exported to the rest of the world
(such as the sweatshops that exist in South and East Asia primarily meant to
serve American industrial interests). The talk of rest of the world was very
minimal barring how certain systems were better managed in France or the Netherlands.
On the whole, I found it a rather easy
read, given I have read a lot on the subject, and I would say it could be a
helpful read for most Americans, given how there are a lot of misconceptions
around the poor, who live from paycheque to paycheque. I gained some insights
on reading this book but given I am a major in economics myself, none of the
contents that I read were particular moments of epiphany. Let me know in the
comments if you had such moments (assuming you are not someone with a
background in economics).
I award the book a rating of six on ten.
Rating – 6/10
Have a nice day,
Andy
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