Welfare can target the fact of poverty or its individual causes

Evidence

This distinction may be elaborated further. It is necessary to start from poverty as an objectively determined phenomenon and to attempt to eliminate it as such. Whoever the poor may be and whatever the individual causes that produce it and the individual consequences it produces, poverty requires assistance, compensation for this social deficiency. But, on the other hand, interest may be directed to the poor person, who is assisted unquestionably because he is poor, not for the purpose of eliminating poverty in general pro rata, but rather to help this particular poor person. His poverty operates here as an individal and specific characteristic; it serves as the immediate occasion for being concerned with him; but the individual as a whole should be put into such a situation that poverty would disappear by itself. For this reason assistance derived from the first attitude is directed more to the fact of poverty; and assistance derived from the second attitude, on the other hand, to its cause. — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 434

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines two divergent welfare orientations: toward eliminating poverty as a social deficiency vs. toward helping the particular poor person.
• XREF: connects to: Society aids the poor to neutralize a threat, not to help them — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 410; States relieve visible need while private charity treats individual causes — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 434; Resource scarcity and weak policing keep self-help the primary sanction in Somali society — I.M. Lewis, I. M. Lewis, A Modern History of the Somali_ Nation…, 69 (+1 more)

Related

• Society aids the poor to neutralize a threat, not to help them (similarity 0.83)
• States relieve visible need while private charity treats individual causes (similarity 0.81)
• Poverty is defined by social reaction, not by material deficiency (similarity 0.79)
• Sociological poverty is defined by receiving assistance, not lacking means (similarity 0.78)

Broader Connections

• States relieve visible need while private charity treats individual causes #corroborates (0.70) — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 434
• Resource scarcity and weak policing keep self-help the primary sanction in Somali society #qualifies (0.50) — I.M. Lewis, I. M. Lewis, A Modern History of the Somali_ Nation…, 69