By historical standards, the notion that poverty can be ended is novel. Until the most recent times, life was lived at or near subsistence levels, with individuals and communities struggling to get by and often failing. Coupled with the belief that poverty was natural was the belief that it was society’s responsibility to care for those most severely stricken. Religious institutions, public authorities, and private charities all generally contributed something.
This treatment of the poor changed with the Industrial Revolution, since which there was a swing between extemes of regression and progression of punitive policies anbd generous, remedial ones. There is a view today, that with the vast material wealth of the advanced industrial world, relatively small grants to the LCDs could make huge differences. This hopeful view is taken by liberals or social democratic thinkers and questioned by more realistic or pragmatic authorities of the right, who remind readers how optimistic plans and pleas have proliferated over the past two centuries and how little has come of them.
The principle of charity as part of the moral economy, began, as mentioned, to fall apart with the industrial revolution in 18th and 19th centuries. Many have argued that it was a prerequisite for capitalism, since the new, more fully marketized economic system required the commodification of labor: the creation of a large, floating, and relatively desperate labor force.
As much as it may be an overwhelming, maybe daunting, task, the optimistic view that poverty can be ended should guide the
west’s best planners. We should recognize both the power and limits of markets. The way to alleviate poverty is not to abolish or transcend capitalism, but to bring the poor fully into the system.
Notice should be taken that markets do not always work as intended, and political intervention is sometimes necessay to overcome intractable problems. Although introductory economics textbooks preach individualism and decentralized markets, or safety and prosperty depends equally of collective decisions. Where the preconditions of basic infrastructure (roads, power, ports) and human capital (health and education) are in place, markets are powerful engines of development. Without these preconditions, markets bypass large parts of the world, leaving them impoverished with no respite in sight. In such situations, preaching the virtues free markets and self reliance is at best fatuous naive and more likely cruelly indifferent.
During the capitalist era it has never been the means to eliminate poverty that has been lacking; it has been the will to do so. This will depends more on the general social, political and intellectual conditions of the daythan on argument on the amount of resources we need to get the job done.