Desirable poverty

In his novel Crime and Punishment, Fydor Dostoevsky writes partly about the social desirability of poverty. When Raskolinikov’s sister is courted for marriage, her prospective husband indicates his preference for a poor bride. He wants a wife from impoverished roots. Naturally, when Raskolinikov learns of this fact, he is morally outraged. It strikes him as perverse. The idea of exploiting another’s poverty for one’s personal benefit struck him as utterly repugnant.

Unfortunately, the desire for impoverished brides still exists to this day. Many American men seek mail order brides. They want to marry women from poor, third world backgrounds.

Is this ruthless exploitation? If it is, then many religious groups are guilty as well. One Church in particular practically worships on the altar of poverty–“blessed are the poor.”

In reality, there is a substantial social, cultural, political and spiritual/religious desire for poverty. Poverty is in high demand. Some perverse human beings never want poverty to end once and for all.

Poverty serves some very useful functions. First, it affords people the opportunity to exercise compassion. Some folks really feel good about themselves whenever they exercise compassion. Without the presence of the less fortunate, the worldwide compassion industry would be out of business. Charities and Churches would fold instantly. Government welfare programs would be put out of business, and government workers would have to be terminated.

Some people love poverty because it promotes family values. With a few exceptions (mostly in the United States), poverty is where the family values are most concentrated.

When families are impoverished, they are more dependent upon one another. Merely consider the Philippines versus America. Where are the family ties, both nuclear and extended, strongest? Why, in the third world of course.

Many relatively affluent American men want to marry foreign women from impoverished backgrounds because they tend to have more solid family values. Divorce rates are highest in the United States, where economic necessity no longer forces people to put up with bad marriages.

People are richer and more independent in wealthy countries. They are less dependent upon one another. Family values are at risk.

The obvious exception is the U.S. inner city minority community. In this population, poverty tends to be strongly associated with single parent families, broken families, drug abuse, child abuse, and so forth.

But in other parts of the world poverty serves to keep people together–dependent upon one another. Poverty tends to promote collectivism, which only promotes more poverty. When a family member is morally obligated to look out for other family members, he may never get a chance to accumulate capital for himself.

Strictly a personal view. Charles Reyes Jr. is a regular columnist of Saipan Tribune. Mr. Reyes may be reached at charlesraves@hotmail.com