"Let us all help reduce if not totally eradicate poverty." "There can never be continuing prosperity and peace if a great majority of our citizenry are underprivileged, deprived and living below comfortable standards." "The poor are primarily responsible for their plight, as if naturally sustained in a culture of poverty from generation to generation.".
From wherever source these words came from, either from sociologists, government leaders, religious groups, masses, politicians or change agents, a deeper understanding of these thoughts and beliefs (just to sample some of them) needs to be had before any significant change can happen. One way is to understand it from a social stratification point of view.
Let us take one. According to the Davis-Moore assertion, social stratification is a universal pattern because it has beneficial consequences for the operation of a given society. It is implied in this statement that social stratification has a function or purpose that is why poverty, an indication of the lower strata, can never be removed no matter what programs of government or of any conscience-group is done. If this is true, then the other end of this statement could be that the higher strata, the rich or the better endowed, will be there always as if it goes without saying that the poor are there because there are rich or vice versa, and there is a functional relationship between these two basic levels of society. Of course, the relationship obviously is not mutual, not one of a give-and-take from both sides, but a take and take in one direction. The poor perceive that there is so much inequity and they are being used so that the rich could become more affluent. This results to a more disturbing outcome of the functional relationship that the social inequality promotes conflict and revolution. It is difficult to determine the carrying capacity of the lower strata, such that if the upper level does not properly address this because they have the means, this could become a social explosion.
