Actually it is possible to eradicate poverty by Oxfam's definition. all you need is a suitably tight distribution of wages below the median. For example, if every person in the country is paid the same wage, then no-one is poor by Oxfam's definition, since they are all on 100% of the median wage. (Median, incidentally for those that don't know, is the point at which 50% of the population are earning less and 50% more. Interestingly, Oxfam's definition is not actually socialist in the convential sense, since it is completely independent of the distribution of wages above the 50% point. Thus a society in which all men are paid 100x that of all women has no poverty by Oxfam's definition. (Men and women not picked to make a sexual politics point, just because there are slightly more than 50% women so thus all women would be earning 100% of the median wage in this situation.)
The essential point that Oxfam misses is that to a large extent poverty is not a relative phenomenon. In this country, barring cock ups, every citizen's basic needs are provided for. I am extremely dubious of any British citizen who claims to be living in poverty since to my mind poverty does not denote not having enough money to buy a pint of beer so much as not having the means to acquire enough food to live on (and a few other things). Even people who are 50,000 pounds in debt do not have these needs provided for, although they may be unwilling to admit that they need to sell their house in order to live at an acceptable standard. But that's another essential defining factor of poverty - you can't *choose* to live in poverty. If there's some way out that you're not taking because it seems unacceptable to you, then you aren't living in poverty.
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2006-01-10 12:23 pm (UTC)The essential point that Oxfam misses is that to a large extent poverty is not a relative phenomenon. In this country, barring cock ups, every citizen's basic needs are provided for. I am extremely dubious of any British citizen who claims to be living in poverty since to my mind poverty does not denote not having enough money to buy a pint of beer so much as not having the means to acquire enough food to live on (and a few other things). Even people who are 50,000 pounds in debt do not have these needs provided for, although they may be unwilling to admit that they need to sell their house in order to live at an acceptable standard. But that's another essential defining factor of poverty - you can't *choose* to live in poverty. If there's some way out that you're not taking because it seems unacceptable to you, then you aren't living in poverty.