Four paradigms for explaining the existence of poverty

¶ … poverty are the various approaches towards the explanation of the reason as to why poverty exists. These approaches towards the explanation of the existence of poverty may vary as much as there are disciplines that try to explain it. The explanation that will be given by an economist, will be different from that of a social science student, and different from that of political science specialists and the list is endless.

However, there are some four basic paradigms that try to give the resolution to the diversity in the explanations and try to cover the explanation of the poverty in its entirety. These paradigms are structural-functionalism, social process, critical, hermeneutics (interpretive).

Structural-functionalism

At the onset, this paradigm believes that social order can be achieved through value consensus. Functional theory or functionalism capitalizes on the fact that every section of the society has an important function and a positive effect to the purpose of the society as a whole. It postulates that the result of the action of each individual when brought together in an orderly manner with the other individuals sums up the type of society that results there of. The theory therefore indicates the expectations of each person within the society.

The theory focuses on the organization of the society and the relationships that are in existence between the broader social units. The theory tries to prescribe the solution towards a peaceful society, if there is to be societal eradication of poverty as one aspect that is considered as a communal distraction, then there needs to be orderly institutions among the people and a cordial relationship between these social institutions. These institutions are factories, corporations, communal groups and even the universities or other educational centers.

This is a deterministic theory such that, the institutions allow a narrow latitude of behavior that should be acceptable in as much as an individual might have the unofficial opportunity to deviate from the generally acceptable norms.

This theory of explaining the existence of poverty is also abstract, in that the social structure as a solution to poverty can only be appreciated from looking at the outcomes that it puts forth. In as much as the institution or the groups can easily be observed, the results are the ones that will qualify the paradigm. This paradigm therefore assumes that if we have good institutions, we are bound to have social order hence no poverty at all.

This paradigm is also seen to be Nomothetic, in that the theory gives the generalized laws and guidelines towards eradication of poverty, like indicating that good institutions is key to prosperity, but it does not get down to indicating how the cordial institutions can be created. This paradigm is widely viewed as deductive in its approach and direction since it deals with social facts.

Social process paradigm

The social process paradigm has it that people interact for an expected profit of the interaction, or a profit that is already at hand. This is more like the operant conditioning where one would react in a given manner due to the benefits that may come of that. It is true that in every basic action and desire that man makes, they are seeking reward or trying hard to avoid punishment, hence they create intricate strategies that are more often towards favoring the, this, according to this theory is the root of poverty.

The paradigm further indicates that throughout our life times, even at the infancy stage, we are trained to comply with the social alignments that are already in place. This then means that our behaviors will not be consistent with our authentic selves but with the person ruling the social structure. This is where the problem begins, the people we always get trained by the society to emulate are those who want us to remain under them and not dominate them, this means they can use even poverty to ensure we remain under them.

The exchange theory has some basic assumptions and these are the assumptions that can be used to explain the existence of poverty;

That people who are involved in any interaction, are always striving to maximize profits hence making the weaker person or the other person poorer. This proves that this paradigm is a subjective and introspective since one may not necessarily act in a way to benefit themselves alone.

The other assumption is that the gratification of individuals is usually in others, hence there will always be the poor group since there is someone elsewhere who is getting rich at their costs.

The next assumption is that people always are privy to information that will give them room to consider alternatives and more profitable situations that are more pleasant as compared to their present conditions. The information here includes the economic, social and the psychological aspects of interaction. To this extent, there is a presumption that those with access to the information will use it to their advantage hence impoverishing the others.

It also presumes that people are rational and they always scheme to their bets in order to compete in a rewarding situation or to avoid punishment as much as possible. This further explains the reason why poverty may not be eradicated soon.

This paradigm is also seen to be nomothetic in that it is based on general law, each individual will assign more value to a situation that he feels more deprived of.

Hermeneutics (interpretive) paradigm

This is a more complex approach to the explanation of the social events live poverty. Basically it deals with a detailed interpretation of written/oral histories to explain current social order and the social happenings like poverty among other factors. There are varies backgrounds that people come from, an in each community or society or even culture, there is always the stories of people and how they lived with each other. Therein are the details of the people who were once rich within that society as well as those who were poor (Joe Reichertz, 2012).

The historical poverty within a given group of people is a thing that is found among all religions and all cultural groupings. Even in the Bible, there are those who were historically known to be from the richer tribes and those from the poorer tribes. It is on the same vain that the historical material assist us to explain the phenomenon of poverty that seems to be a historical event. There are some countries that are historically poor and dominated and on the other hand, it is a fact that there are some countries that are endowed with riches historically and majority of their people live well through a long period of history.