Poverty

Paper Summary:

This paper discusses the theorist, Karl Marx, examining his theories of poverty and the struggle of the working class. The paper compares Marx's theory to that of Herbert Spencer. The paper illustrates that, although other theories have some validity, the theory of Karl Marx is the most accurate.

From the Paper:

"The second class in Marxism is that of the proletariat. This class represents the working class, in modern thought. The proletariats own only their personal ability to work, and nothing else. They have no capital, and thus have no way to obtain an income to support themselves and their families other than to work for the capitalist (Marx, online). Their relationship with the capital owner is exploitive, according to Marx, in that the worker works as the capitalist requires, not as he or she would normally choose to work. Additionally, if the capitalist is to continue to accumulate capital, he or she must continue to keep the wages of the proletariat low to maximize the surplus of the capital. This means that the proletariat works more time than needed to provide their own survival for wages that further the distance between the income and capital attainment of the two classes. While the proletariat does the labor to produce the surplus, that surplus is given to the capitalist, as are the initial products of the labor (Marx, online)."

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