"Wealth and Poverty"

Paper Summary:

This paper analyzes the main themes in the chapter titled, "The Nature of Poverty". The chapter explores how attitudes regarding the poor, especially the black poor, serve to perpetuate an acceptance among elites that the poor are somehow different then the rest of us and are deserving and in need of special considerations and assistance. The paper shows how Gilder explains why the refusal of American leaders to the tell the truth about blacks, vis-a-vis poverty, only serves to perpetuate a stereotype of blacks, in which blacks are thought to be incapable of making it in America without the assistance of the government and government handouts. Beyond his initial theme regarding blacks and poverty, Gilder addresses attitudes towards work among America's poor and the importance of family structure in rising up from poverty into the middle-class. He finishes with how having faith in the future, translated into action, has an impact on the chances for success of individuals and communities.

From the Paper:

"The chapter begins with Gilder noting how the wealthy have been taught that the poor among us are somehow so different from other classes of the human species that to understand them requires "credentialed expertise." (Gilder 1993 p. 75) He notes that acquiescence to expertise regarding the poor was bolstered by the fact that many of the poor in modern times are black. "They looked different; perhaps they were different." (p. 75). Gilder often uses short, declarative sentences throughout his work to emphasize his willingness not to sugarcoat his observations or his prescriptions. Rhetorically, Gilder uses this straightforward approach to set a tone of plainspoken truth. When speaking of what he sees as weak or wrong assumptions by the liberal elite he makes liberal use of qualifying adjectives to describe the prevailing liberal sentiments of the day; "So new approaches emerged, allegedly more enlightened, but with implications equally farfetched." (p. 75)"

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