Because terms like “wealth” and “poverty” derive their meaning from the normative cultural values within which they occur, any application of New Testament texts which fails to take cultural differences seriously can only misrepresent those texts.

What the Old Testament says about wealth and poverty cannot be taken as prescriptive for any modern society, but its emphasis on the fate of the powerless prompts us to ask how our society deals with those unable to protect themselves from the depredations of others.

The early church did not provide us with any normative statement on wealth and poverty, but it did give us clear witness to the hazards of wealth and to the abiding necessity of alms for the poor.

The purpose of this article was to compare Jerome’s and Augustine’s sermons on the fifth book of the Psalms with regard to their views on the rich and the poor. After a brief consideration of the different audiences of Jerome and Augustine, we focused on their attitudes to wealth and poverty, and almsgiving and its relationship to eschatology. In both Jerome’s and Augustine’s commentaries we were confronted with problems regarding the nature of the collections, the composition of the (...) audiences, and a lack of overlap between the two works, but it was possible to discern congruences and differences in their exegesis. In their preaching on poverty and riches, both homilists associated Judas with the devil and wealth. With regard to the identification of Christ and the poor, Jerome offers a somewhat uneasy exegesis in explaining that Christ stands at the right hand of the pauper, although the Lord himself is rich. Augustine mentioned the identification of Christ and the poor a few times in Enarrationes in Psalmos and framed the poverty of Christ within the body of the church, emphasising the common humanity of his congregation. In his sermons, mainly delivered to monks, Jerome advocated total renunciation. Augustine made more allowances for human frailty, advocating partial and gradual dispossession. The Songs of Ascent provided both our authors with the opportunity to consider the place of almsgiving in an eschatological context. Contribution: We investigate the views of two prominent Latin fathers on wealth and poverty in their sermons on Psalms 109–150. The focus on wealth and poverty is evident. Judas is identified with the rich and Christ with the poor, placing Christ and riches against each other in an either/or position. (shrink)

The way in which a nation’s economy is structured is of great importance for the material welfare of its people as well as the people’s relationship with the state and the operation of the state itself. It is also important for the proper functioning of a nation as a people and its psychological welfare. If the gap between rich and poor increases, the structure of an economy, and therefore the welfare of the state and the nation, is at risk. Two (...) important documents of antiquity, Plato’s Nomoi and the Book of Deuteronomy, which even today influence life, dealt intensively with the fissures between rich and poor within society as a danger to political welfare and harmony. This article will examine these documents to make use of these two books for improving a societal situation. This will be done by a comparative perspective on both of these books. (shrink)

We live in a time of human paradoxes. Scientific knowledge has reached a level of sophistication that permits understanding of the most arcane phenomena and yet religious fundamentalism dominates in many parts of the world. We witness the emergence of a civil, liberal constitutionalism in many regions of the world and yet ethnic violence threatens.

Through a study of the history of the concepts of wealth and poverty, this paper investigates the onset of a transition in the conceptual architecture of epidemiological research concerning social differences in mortality rates from 1858 to 1914. It raises the question as to what the concepts of wealth and poverty meant to those who used them and what objects of interventions the conceptual architecture surrounding the concepts enabled the researchers to create. It argues that a (...) transition began in the late 19th century in which an important framework for the understanding of causal relations behind the mortality patterns changed and that this change in turn influenced the scope of what was conceived as relevant objects of intervention. (shrink)

The debates over the future of human population and the earth’s environment, and similar large issues, usually take place without reference to explicit models. Debate would be clarified if such models were employed. We propose that the logistic equation and its extensions like the generalized logistic and the Lotka-Volterra equations, so familiar to ecologists, can easily be modified to model the important "macro" questions that motivated the three thinkers of our title. The long term rate of population growth must normally (...) be controlled by the rate of improvement in K, the carrying capacity of the earth. K will in turn be controlled by the rate of technological progress. The present situation, in which technological improvement (but also perhaps environmental deterioration) are increasing at rates above r, the Malthusian intrinsic rate of natural increase, is probably unique in human history. Can present levels of human prosperity and population growth be sustained? What processes are most likely to determine the answer to this and similar questions? We here sketch a model that endogenizes technological progress and environmental deterioration in the logistic framework. We discuss extensions of the logistic approach to multiple populations, such as other species, and sub-populations, such as human social classes, using the Lotka-Volterra equations. (shrink)

For the Life of the World (FLW), part IV, offers a thought-provoking discussion about the problems of poverty, wealth and civil justice. Poverty, basic needs and a living wage are central to the concerns and proposed goals for action in this part. While understandably referred to in a general sense since FLW is ‘a preliminary step for further discussion’, in the contemporary world, these issues are highly ambiguous, controversial and difficult to measure. Hence, to promote further dialogue, (...) I explore and highlight critical issues that must be addressed. I also offer a brief discussion of the stigmatization of poverty that cruelly affects many who are poor. I argue that to develop a more expansive theological and normative discourse about poverty and wealth, we should first aim to clearly understand key terms such as poverty in a fully multidimensional, holistic manner that explicitly considers the dynamics of the stigmatization of poverty. (shrink)

Donald Winch completes the intellectual history of political economy begun in Riches and Poverty. A major theme addressed in both volumes is the 'bitter argument between economists and human beings' provoked by Britain's industrial revolution. Winch takes the argument from Mill's contributions to the 'condition-of-England' debate in 1848 through to the work on economic wellbeing of Alfred Marshall. The writings of major figures of the period are examined in a sequence of interlinked essays that ends with consideration of the (...) twentieth-century fate of the debate between utilitarians and romantics in the hands of Leavis, Williams and Thompson. Donald Winch is one of Britain's most distinguished historians of ideas, and Wealth and Life brings to fruition a long-standing interest in the history of those intellectual pursuits that have shaped the understanding of Britain as an industrial society, and continue to influence cultural responses to the moral questions posed by economic life. (shrink)

This chapter provides an overview of the most prominent debates about the moral significance and implications of poverty among those who accept a broadly utilitarian account of poverty’s most morally important dimensions. The first section outlines the central features of utilitarian moral theory and describes the basic features of a broadly utilitarian account of poverty’s moral significance. The next section examines the various accounts of the moral obligations of the affluent to contribute to alleviating poverty that (...) have been defended by those who accept broadly utilitarian accounts. The central issue in these discussions is how demanding the obligations of the affluent are, and in particular how much of their wealth they are obligated to sacrifice in order to aid those in poverty. The third section focuses on the recent debate about whether obligations to donate more rather than less effectively – that is, in ways that produce more rather than less good – can plausibly be understood as merely conditional obligations. The central issue in these discussions is whether the broadly utilitarian requirement to do more good rather than less for those in poverty with a given set of resources can be defended independent of a commitment to potentially demanding unconditional obligations to provide aid. A brief conclusion ends the chapter. (shrink)

This article argues that there is no sound basis for thinking that we have a general and strong duty to rectify disparities of wealth around the world, apart from the special case where some become wealthy by theft or fraud. The nearest thing we have to a rational morality for all has to be built on the interests of all, and they include substantial freedoms, but not substantial entitlements to others' assistance. It is also pointed out that the situation (...) of the world's poor is not that of victims of disasters, but simply of less-developed technology, which can be repaired by full and free trade relations with others. The true savior of the world's poor is the businessman, not the missionary. What we do need to do is strike down barriers to commerce, rather than requisition "aid.". (shrink)

Aurélio Agostinho, when he was consecrated bishop in Hippo, had contact with a community in a situation of extreme social inequality, and adding to his understanding of bidirectional love (to God and neighbor), translated into nonconformity with the suffering of others, in the function as a bishop he had the opportunity to fight with the weapons at his disposal for a less undignified life for the poorest. Therefore, the concept of poverty that appears between the lines of his texts (...) and sermons is translated as a lack of material resources that makes it impossible for people to get the basics for survival. Among the weapons used by the philosopher bishop is the exhortation in his sermons, which in addition to denouncing the intense inequality of society, pondered on ways to resolve this huge gap between rich and poor. Thus, in this article we will analyze Augustine's lucubrations in sermons: 345, 355, 60, 61, 161, 14, which critically reflect poverty and wealth. The aforementioned sermons stand out on the subject for their critical reflections, because, although they treat the rich and their accumulation of wealth very harshly, showing solidarity with the less favored, and at different times they also have a critical look at the poor they idealized as a dream., desire or life goal to possess riches. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Beyond the Ethics of Wealth and a World of Economic InequalityMark D. WoodAnalyzing the ethics of wealth and the relationship between the dominant ethics of wealth and economic inequality is vital to creating a humane mode of global life. We are living during a period in which the unequal concentration of wealth—which is to say, the unequal concentration of the resources that make human existence, (...) development, and fulfillment possible—has never been greater.1 The World Bank reports that almost “1.3 billion people remain below the extreme poverty line with an income of US $1.25 or less a day. Close to 2.5 billion—more than one-third of the world’s population—live on less than US $2 a day, another common measurement of deep deprivation,”2 and a staggering 80 percent of the world’s population struggles to survive on less than US $10 dollars a day.3 Credit Suisse’s 2012 Global Wealth Report indicates “the bottom half of the global population [or more than 3.5 billion persons] possess barely 1 percent of total wealth... In sharp contrast, the richest 10 percent own 86 percent of the world’s wealth, with the top 1 percent alone accounting for 46 percent of global assets.”4 Given the history of international colonial and neocolonial relations, it comes as no surprise that wealth is highly concentrated in Western Europe and North America, while the overwhelming majority of individuals living in poverty are concentrated in Africa, India, Asia, and Central and South America.5The wealth gap between the top 10 percent and the bottom 90 percent is, however, also reaching record levels in developed nations. While in 2012, the United States had the seventh highest average wealth holdings per adult in the world, “among nations with at least a quarter-million adults, only Russia, Ukraine, and Lebanon are more unequal” than the United States.6 A Reuters investigative report published in 2012 reveals that “inequality has risen not just in plutocratic hubs such as Wall Street and Silicon Valley, but also in virtually every corner of the world’s richest nation: Inequality has increased in 49 of 50 states since 1989,” with Mississippi being the only exception, even as it still “ranks worst in the nation on both counts.”7 In 2010, “the top 1 percent of households (the upper class) owned 35.4 percent of all privately held wealth, and the next 19 percent (the managerial, professional, and small business stratum) had 53.5 percent, which means that just 20 percent of the people owned a remarkable 89 percent, leaving only 11 percent of the wealth for the bottom 80 percent [End Page 125] (wage and salary workers).”8 In The Price of Inequality (2012), Nobel Prize–winning economist Joseph E. Stiglitz indicates that the “six heirs to the Walmart empire command wealth of $69.7 billion dollars, which is equivalent to the entire wealth of the bottom 30 percent of U.S. society.”9 In short, six individuals possess more wealth than do ninety-six million individuals—though this figure is misleading inasmuch as most of the ninety-six million own almost nothing but mounting debt. Most significantly, the top 10 percent own between 81 percent and 94 percent of all stocks, bonds, trust funds, and business equity, and almost 80 percent of non-home real estate.10 G. William Domhoff makes the vital point that inasmuch as “financial wealth is what counts as far as the control of income-producing assets,” that is, control of the means of producing wealth, “we can say that just 10 percent of the people own the United States of America.”11 Meanwhile, according to the latest census, fifty million Americans qualify as poor and another 100 million qualify as low income.12The concentration of the lion’s share of wealth in the hands of a tiny fraction of humanity is devastating for the majority of people living on the planet and ultimately for everyone. On the ground, capitalism’s champagne glass–shaped distribution of wealth means that hundreds of millions of persons have barely enough of the basics necessary to exist. Between 24,000... (shrink)

Being poor can influence how one makes ethical decisions in various fields. Nepotism is one such area, emerging as kinship-based favoritism in the job market. People can be poor on at least three levels: one can live in a poor country, be poor compared to others around them, or feel poor in their given situation. We assumed that these levels can simultaneously influence nepotistic hiring decisions among Hungarian and US participants. Prior cross-cultural, non-experimental studies demonstrated that nepotism is more prevalent (...) in poorer countries such as Hungary than in richer countries such as the United States. However, contrary to our expectations, in our non-representative, preliminary study, US participants showed stronger nepotistic behavioral tendencies than Hungarians. Furthermore, people with lower socioeconomic status had less nepotistic intentions than richer people. When participants were asked to imagine themselves as a poor person, they tended to be more nepotistic than had they imagined themselves to be rich. Finally, nepotistic hiring intentions were in general stronger than non-nepotistic hiring intentions. These seemingly paradoxical results were interpreted in the light of the COVID-19 job market context and were explained by the mechanisms described by research on wealth and immoral behaviors, as well as the presence of risk aversion. (shrink)

Plato’s views on the significance of poverty and wealth in The Republic challenge us to rethink the role and position assigned to wealth in contemporary society. These ideas on poverty and wealth play an important role in shaping the central arguments of the Republic. The themes and views expressed in the opening dialogue of Plato’s Republic (328b - 331d) serve to introduce some of the core ideas of the Republic. I start with an analysis of (...) the opening dialogue and then I proceed to discuss the significance of Plato’s views on poverty and wealth in the context of the Republic. Through this analysis I want to establish the claim that Plato argues for the following: [1] that justice, in the sense of the morality of individuals and societies, is far more important than the acquisition of wealth, [2] that moderate wealth is important for its function to enable humans to live a moral life, [3] that poverty and excessive wealth have negative consequences for both individuals and societies, and [4] that desiring and possessing excessive wealth disrupts and destroys moral integrity and internal harmony in individuals and societies. (shrink)

While Thomas Hobbes is not typically cited as a philosopher concerned with economic inequality, there is a great deal of evidence in his writings to suggest that he was aware of inequality and worried about its effects on the commonwealth. This essay first contextualizes Hobbes in the development of the 17th-century English political economy to understand the mercantilist milieu that might have shaped Hobbes’s thoughts. Second, it then explores Hobbes’s thoughts on wealth, poverty, and inequality, as outlined in (...) his major political works – revealing distinctively Hobbesian grounds for understanding these phenomena. Third and finally, it explores Hobbes’s constructive political philosophy for means by which he might offer prescriptions for addressing them. (shrink)

Recent studies on crying show that crying is more common in happier, freer, and richer countries than in poorer and less free countries. These results can sound counterintuitive and contradict the hypothesis that crying is more observable in countries where people experience more distress. Adam Smith may offer an explanation: In the severe hardship of poverty, showing emotion and distress can be read as a sign of weakness, attracting no sympathy and compromising survival. As a result, emotional displays are (...) avoided. Instead, wealthier commercial societies offer ease and tranquility which allows individuals to express their emotions with fewer negative consequences. (shrink)

In this book, Kate Ward addresses the issue of inequality from the perspective of Christian virtue ethics. Her unique contribution is to argue that moral luck, our individual life circumstances, affects one's ability to pursue virtue. She argues that economic status functions as moral luck and impedes the ability of both the wealthy and the impoverished to pursue virtues such as prudence, justice, and temperance. The book presents social science evidence that inequality reduces empathy for others' suffering, and increases violence, (...) fear, and the desire to punish others. For the wealthy, inequality creates "hyperagency" - abundant freedom, power, and choice beyond that enjoyed by other members of society. For the poor, scarcity of time, money, and other important goods can also impair their ability to pursue virtue. Having established the theological harm caused by inequality, Ward then makes the argument that both individual Christians and Christian communities have obligations to address the impact of inequality. As individuals, Christians should pursue what Ward calls encounter, conversion, and contentment. Encounter means genuinely reaching out to the less fortunate and spending enough time to get to know individuals as human beings. For Ward, conversion means informing oneself about the realities of poverty and inequality. Contentment means being satisfied with one's position and not striving for more material wealth. Christian communities, in Ward's view, have obligations to pursue political action, tithing, and aid, and to foster encounters in parishes and educational settings. (shrink)

Bertrand Russell’s Scandinavian lecture tour in October 1935 has been largely undocumented because of the longstanding embargo on the tour correspondence Russell exchanged with Marjorie (“Peter”) Spence, his lover and future third wife. These archival restrictions ended in 2009, and this paper presents annotated transcriptions of twenty letters sent by Russell to Peter during his trip to Denmark, Sweden, and Norway. The tour allowed Russell to test early versions of two important papers in his return to philosophy in the mid-193s, (...) and his meetings with Niels Bohr and Werner Heisenberg in Copenhagen significantly enhanced his understanding of quantum mechanics. Additionally, these letters demonstrate the impact of the tour on Russell’s political thought and his evolving views on fascism and pacifism, and they provide the first intimate picture of Russell’s complex relationship with Peter. (shrink)

In the last 30 years, China has experienced an astounding economic development that calls for a differentiated understanding of this complex process of wealth creation. In the first section of this article, I present a new concept of wealth creation that goes beyond making money, maximizing profit and adding value and serves as a framework to address the article's main topic.In the second section, I investigate in what ways and to what extent this new concept might apply to (...) China's economic reform and development, particularly in the 1980s and 1990s. In the third section, I attempt to draw a couple of lessons for development ethics in general. (shrink)

The paper develops a preliminary framework for confronting poverty within the Eastern Orthodox Christian tradition. In the first section, I draw on St. Gregory of Nazianzus’s Oration 14 to discuss what is called the stigma of poverty. Although stigmatization is not essentially linked to everyday economic poverty, poor people as such are often subjected to stigmatization. For example, disaffiliation grounded in social rejection was often a distinguishing mark between pôtchos and penês. Moreover, stigmatization in itself constitutes its (...) own form of poverty since those who are stigmatized are imputed to be fundamentally impoverished or defective as person. In the second section, I focus on the writings of St. John Chrysostom and argue that the central problem for Chrysostom is not poverty but wealth, or more properly the ways in which we acquire and use wealth and the ends to which it is put. Put simply, for Chrysostom, a critical, engaged and spiritual response to poverty presupposes a critical and spiritual response to wealth. (shrink)

The paper develops a preliminary framework for confronting poverty within the Eastern Orthodox Christian tradition. In the first section, I draw on St. Gregory of Nazianzus’s Oration 14 to discuss what is called the stigma of poverty. Although stigmatization is not essentially linked to everyday economic poverty, poor people as such are often subjected to stigmatization. For example, disaffiliation grounded in social rejection was often a distinguishing mark between pôtchos and penês. Moreover, stigmatization in itself constitutes its (...) own form of poverty since those who are stigmatized are imputed to be fundamentally impoverished or defective as person. In the second section, I focus on the writings of St. John Chrysostom and argue that the central problem for Chrysostom is not poverty but wealth, or more properly the ways in which we acquire and use wealth and the ends to which it is put. Put simply, for Chrysostom, a critical, engaged and spiritual response to poverty presupposes a critical and spiritual response to wealth. (shrink)

This book is an important effort to fill a notable void in moral and political philosophy, for there has been, according to Sharon K. Vaughan, “no formal study of the treatment of poverty in Western political thought” . Vaughan attempts to rectify this with a survey of the views of Plato, Aristotle, Locke, Rousseau, Adam Smith, Mill, de Tocqueville, Hegel, Marx, Rawls, and Nozick on the subject of poverty, the poor, the redistribution of wealth, and justice. Her (...) effort is valuable, even if more work remains to be done.The time is well chosen for Vaughan’s undertaking, both because of the resurgence of political philosophy in the past forty years and also because of a more recent interest in the relationship between the empirical sciences and philosophy. An account of poverty, and a philosophical theory of how to respond to poverty, are clearly of importance to the justice project, central to contemporary political philosophy; but it is unlikely to be carried out well without attention to empirical details concerning the sources of poverty, the demographics of the poor, analyses of programs that have, and have not, been effectively used in the past, and the like. As Daniel Shapiro has recently shown in Is the. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThe concept of poverty is understood differently by people across the globe. Despite this conceptual limitation, higher economic growth in the last few decades in many countries has helped reduce extreme global poverty. The growth process has been supported by globalization. The number of global poor is, however, still quite large and more than the entire population of USA, UK, France and Russia. Their numbers have gone up by 100 million in Sub Sahara region in last three decades. (...) While removal of extreme poverty is clearly vital, it cannot be considered sufficient for a dignified life. The crux of human dignity is development and it must provide every individual access to education, healthcare, nutrition, habitat, and exercising of democratic rights in accordance with the rule of law. While helping reduce poverty, globalization has also led to some morally unsustainable consequences. There is huge and rapidly increasing inequality of wealth and income in most nations. There are now new opportunities for corruption which are being exploited by multinationals. These corrupt practices are resulting in illicit flow of about one trillion Dollars every year. For a more ethical society, effective measures are needed for controlling corruption for improving quality of life. (shrink)

Poverty using the United Nations’ criteria refers to denial of choices, opportunities, and the lack of capacity as a result of low income for a person to effectively participate in society. Poverty creates problems such as ill-health, inability to acquire the basic necessities of life, deprivation of full exercise of civic and political rights, and so forth. In spite of the enormous wealth in both human and natural resources in MENA, many people in the region are living (...) in abject poverty. Using phenomenological hermeneutics and existential critical analysis, the paper argues for ethical philanthropy to be used to alleviate the poverty in the region. Poverty is an ethical issue for it affects the quality of lives that humans can live as moral beings and impacts human behaviour. It is unacceptable that the enormous wealth of the region is not used for the benefit of all. Outside government efforts and the imperative of efficient political leadership, wealthy individuals and non-governmental groups have a moral responsibility to help to alleviate poverty in the region. It is this ethical role of individuals and groups in rendering philanthropic help to alleviate and if possible end poverty in the region that is the thrust of this paper. The paper affirms that abject and other forms of poverty are present in the region. The paper concludes that individuals and groups have an ethical duty in philanthropy to alleviate poverty in the region. The people of the region will become better and achieve a higher level of happiness and peace through the practice of ethical philanthropy. (shrink)

The purpose of this article is to take a fresh look at the concept of wealth creation that is urgently needed, given the huge gap between the global importance of wealth creation and the attention paid to it. It is argued that its notion we encounter is often very simple (as in "making money") or extremely vague (as in "adding value"). In the first section "Need for a fresh look at the creation of wealth", the need for (...) a fresh look is highlighted by pointing to three concerns about globalization and the roles and responsibilities of corporations. In the second section "Conceptual clarifications: what is the creation of wealth?", a rich concept of wealth creation is developed that includes physical, financial, human, and social capital, encompasses private and public wealth, accounts for its production and distribution, recognizes its material and spiritual side, and places wealth in the time horizon of sustainability. Moreover, creating (wealth) as "making something new and better" is distinguished from possessing and acquiring, and different motivations required for wealth creation are explored. The third section "Challenges for business ethics" discusses several challenges of this rich concept for the understanding of business ethics. (shrink)