AS CHAPTER V HISTORICAL EXPLANATIONS OF POVERTY AND DEPENDENCY S soon as poverty became a common phenomenon it became the subject of speculation. While we can place no date for the first appearance of an explanation of poverty, it is probable that men began to speculate as to the cause of it shortly after it became common. As we have pointed out, so long as tribal life lasted as the social organization of a people, and goods were owned chiefly in common, all were poor together. We find in the early literature of almost every people references to poverty. When poverty appears in the literature, reflections on the cause of poverty also appear. Primitive Explanations of Poverty. The ground-work of an explanation of poverty was to be found in the religious conceptions of primitive peoples. Primitive man conceived of Nature as a personalized or animized thing-a spirit like unto his own, yet more powerful and less comprehensible, inhabiting the objects of Nature. Moreover, since their god was their own peculiar possession, he must be concerned with their subsistence. This idea was strengthened by the fact that primitive people shared with their god the fruits of their flocks and fields. The relationship was so intimate and yet the nature of the god was so uncertain that any pestilence or failure of food supply was attributed to either the pettishness or the anger of the god. Hence, when a people suffered from lack of food or from disease, it was a certain sign of the displeasure of the deity. While they might not understand why he was displeased, nevertheless it must be because of some fault on their part. Application of Religious Explanation to Individual Life. This conception was the most natural thing in the world to carry over into the explanation of individual misfortune. One of the most familiar examples of this explanation of poverty, as well as other misfortune, is to be found in the Bible. The Hebrew people, like every other primitive people, carried over from tribal life these conceptions of the close interrelation of sin and suffering. Thus the Prophets explained 2 the calamities that befell the Israelites in drouth and pestilence, locusts, blasting and mildew.' The Psalmist reflects this idea when he says that "I have been young and now I am old, yet I have not seen the righteous forsaken nor his seed begging bread." A slightly different philosophy of poverty is to be found in the poetic and wisdom literature characteristic of early peoples. It represents a common-sense reflection upon the causes of poverty. Thus a Hebrew Proverb says: "The rich ruleth over the poor, and the borrower is servant to the lender." The connection between poverty and dissipation is indicated in: "He that loveth pleasure shall be a poor man; he that loveth wine and oil shall not be rich." The connection of poverty with lack of industry is indicated in another saying of the Wise: "He that tilleth his land shall have plenty of bread, but he that followeth after a vain person shall have poverty enough." 5 Licentiousness as a cause of poverty is indicated in this saying of the Wise: "For on account of a harlot is a man brought to a piece of bread." " This pithy wisdom of primitive peoples records many similar observations that indicate the reflections of the Wise on naturalistic explanations of poverty. In the course of Hebrew history it was seen that there were inadequate explanations of poverty. With the growth of social classes, the development of rich and poor, the oppression of the poor by the rich, there grew up with the Prophets an explanation of poverty as due to social injustice. Consequently, from that time down through the remainder of Hebrew history, concurrent with the other explanations, and growing more important in the thought of the teachers of Israel, was this fruitful conception. Survival of These Explanations. Even in more developed society many of these primitive explanations, refined, but yet essentially the same, remain. Thus the religious explanation developing from the ideas rooted in primitive conditions continues. Sin or unworthiness is the cause of poverty. This explanation has continued down even to the present time. Usually, since the birth of natural science, some attempt is made to connect the sin with the violation of some natural law. On the other hand, the important explanation of poverty as due to |