Is Poverty A Reality for Everyone?
The understanding of the nature of poverty is, I am afraid, going to be one of those efforts that never quits. When I started this little project I thought I would be able to locate some kind of "truth" that I could pass on to my sponsors, and that would be that.
But that has not proven to be the case. First, after a half century of struggling to comprehend the nature of poverty and what to do about it (including my own), I have not found any hard truth that can be reliably passed along to others year after year without alteration or discussion. We are human, I suppose. Therefore we change and are changed by our interactions with others.
Second, poverty is world wide. No society has ever been without its poor. Even the mighty barons of American society of a hundred years ago, the Rockefellers, Carnegie, etc., could not divorce themselves from contact with those around them who were in poverty. In fact, much of their money came off the struggles of the extremely poor in their circle of contacts.
One of the societies that has had the reputation in recent years of general wealth has been Japan. After World War II, Japan was able to re-focus its own industrial capacity and style to a more internationally targeted technology and manufacturing package. By doing this and without putting its own money into military expenditures, Japan has had a very strong economy.
But there apparently problems yet. I have found a web site that is very interesting in the study of poverty in rural America, http://Japanfocus.org. Within this site there is an article that is really filled with a deeply conscious consideration of what poverty does to the human spirit. The article is found at http://japanfocus.org/article.asp?id=052 . The article is a dialogue between Kaneko Masaru, Professor of public finance at Keio University, and Keneko Masaomi, deputy director Office of Labor Policy, Tokyo Metropolitan government. This article is a discussion of homeless in Japan, both urban and rural. The questions addressed are focused on the process of becoming homeless, both in personal history and psychologically. Then it turns to the meaning for individuals and families of being homeless for a continuing period of time. It is a beautifully incisive analysis of the reality of homeless for humanity, not just in Japan. I would recommend it to all persons interested in the nature of poverty for humanity, and the need for general social change.
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