Poverty is inherent to developed capitalism, not a Global South condition

Evidence

This data paints a very different picture from the one that portrays industrialized Western societies as centered on the middle class. Poverty cannot be passed off as a temporary condition of people living in the Global South (representing an astonishing seven billion out of the eight billion inhabitants of the planet) whose lot will soon improve thanks to economic growth and development. On the contrary, poverty is inherent to the very nature of capitalist society even in its most developed form. Even in the richest country in the world, the United States, during its golden post–World War II epoch, poverty was pervasive. In 1962, it plagued 20 percent of American families (around 35 million individuals) and almost half of the nonwhite population. — Clara E. Mattei, Escape from Capitalism, 88

Categorization

• XREF: Challenges developmentalist narratives that Mattei likely dismantles in the Sri Lanka and Kenya cases later in the book. — connects to: Poverty is inherent to capitalism even in its richest, most developed forms. — Clara E. Mattei, Escape from Capitalism, 88; First-world wealth does not causally depend on third-world poverty — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market: Human Rights…, 405; Inequality and human development are set by capitalist market and power relations, not education — Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis, Schooling in Capitalist America:…, 228