Introduction
The problem of poverty in modern society is one of the most important social problems. This phenomenon is complex, provoked by various reasons and prerequisites. Culture, economics, psychology, and the mentality of nationality play their role. Often, poverty is directly related to the geographical location of the area, historical vicissitudes and other conditions of formation, development of the area, and the state. Both the Scott (1990) and the Desmond & Travis (2018) readings discuss whether and how disparaged groups resist their exploitation and powerlessness, but their proposed approaches regarding the effect of influencing social processes differ significantly.
Lenses of Social Resistance
The differences in the lenses of social resistance are related to the processes that, according to the authors, have the greatest impact on the ways in which disparaged groups resist their exploitation and powerlessness. For example, James C. Scott, unlike Desmond & Travis, pays more attention to external factors occurring at the political level in the state. James Scott, as well as Desmond & Travis, highlights major social problems, expressed in poverty and even hunger of significant segments of the population in certain regions of the world, increasing inequality, spontaneous migration and depopulation of some regions and rapid population growth in other territories, climate and environmental degradation. However, for him, the most significant additional factor in the aggravation of the crisis in the social system, unlike Desmond & Travis, is not the processes taking place within society but how the state manifests itself in the political arena. It is this lens of social resistance that is decisive for the author.
Scott notes that social transformations within population groups, including those below the poverty line, occur due to the task of ensuring the effective functioning of the labor market and employment of the population, stimulating the development of the education and health system as fundamental social sectors, as well as taking measures aimed at social protection of the population. These factors, in turn, are influenced by the peculiarities of the political situation of the state, which makes them the main ones, according to Scott, for strengthening the resistance of disparaged groups to their exploitation and powerlessness.
At the same time, Desmond and Travis, unlike Scott, are more focused on the processes taking place within society than on political events affecting it from the outside. For Desmond and Travis, the motivational factor of the fight against poverty, and the setting directions of public policy do not play a decisive role. They, unlike James C. Scott, propose to study poverty from the standpoint of a systematic approach since the nature of this phenomenon is social and psychological in nature.
Political poverty for the authors, unlike Scott, is only a consequence, not the root cause, the result of internal and external economic conjuncture, sometimes aggravated or restrained by state policy. This classification of factors into external and internal is generalized, where the causes of poverty are determined depending on which sphere of life is being considered. However, Desmond and Travis, unlike Scott, consider lenses of social resistance in more detail. Scott is limited to classifying, to a certain extent, objective factors contributing to increased resistance to poverty caused by external political processes. Desmond and Travis take into account people’s own motives, psychological state, and level of education, considering society not on a global but more micro-scale.
Implications of the Study
The Desmond and Travis study is devoted to the assessment of internal processes occurring in disparaged groups. The authors establish the relationship between the degree of mutual assistance and interaction between community members and how much the degree of resistance of their exploitation and powerlessness fluctuates. During the Desmond and Travis study, it was revealed that this indicator decreases in proportion to the number and intensity of inter-community contacts. The study showed that observing unfavorable conditions in other households, members of disparaged groups either get used to this way of life, considering it to be the norm, or begin to consider the problems too large to deal with them.
The implications of the Desmond and Travel study for social movement organizing among the socio-economic disadvantaged is to account for these effects. It is necessary to create as many different centers within the community as possible and monitor the main social institutions, such as schools so that the nature of contacts within the community is positive. This approach will give the members of disparaged groups hope for the success of the changes, pushing them to organize a social movement organizing among the socially economically disadvantaged in order to introduce the same beneficial lifestyle in their own households.
Conclusion
The group of people who make up the poor stratum of the population below the poverty line is not homogeneous, it includes people with different preferences and leading different lifestyles. Common to all of them is the limited access to financial and information resources of the economic system in which they conduct economic activities. At the same time, the factors influencing the intensity of how disparaged groups resist their exploitation and powerlessness include both external political and internal processes in the society itself. At the same time, understanding these processes within the poor will help social movement organizing among the socially and economically disadvantaged in order to bridge the gap between different levels of the economic pyramid.