Why Does Poverty Exist and Persist? Part 2—Broken Systems Contribute to Poverty, too.
Adapted from When Helping Hurts.
Although we need God to transform the ways we see and interpret material poverty in the world around us, this transformation alone is often insufficient to alleviate poverty.
First, understanding how a relationship is supposed to work does not automatically make the relationship work well. Healthy relationships require transformed hearts, not just transformed brains!
Second, demonic forces in the world seek to damage our relationships. Even if all humans fully comprehended God’s design for our relationships with Him, with others, with ourselves, and creation, Satan would still be on the prowl, attacking us and the rest of creation, thereby causing poverty in many manifestations (Eph. 6:12).
Third, one of the results of the fall is that the entire creation was cursed (Gen. 3:17–19), meaning that crops fail and tsunamis happen even when our views of the world are not at fault.
Fourth, because every one of us is affected by sin, other human beings sometimes actively work against or undermine the efforts of an individual person in poverty to change his situation.
Finally, most of the systems in which those in material poverty live—systems that contribute to their poverty—are outside of their control. Transforming the worldview of those in poverty will not transform these systems.
Broken Systems Contribute to Poverty—a Case Study
During the 1970s, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) restricted output and drove up oil prices around the world. Member nations of OPEC earned huge dollar revenues, many of which they deposited into US banks, which then lent these “petrodollars” to countries across the Majority World in dollar-denominated, variable-interest rate loans.
The oil price rises caused rampant inflation in the United States, prompting the US Federal Reserve Board to lower the money supply, which caused interest rates to skyrocket and the dollar to appreciate. Faced with rising interest rates and an appreciating dollar, the borrowers in the Majority World could no longer repay their loans. Needing assistance, these countries turned for help to the International Monetary Fund, which responded by rescheduling the loans as long as the borrowers cut their federal expenditures, devalued their currencies, slashed trade barriers, abolished inflation indexing for wages, and moved toward free market economies.
Did you catch all of that? It’s pretty complicated!
Farmers in Bolivia’s Altiplano did not understand these events, and they had absolutely nothing to do with causing any of them to happen. Still, these events initiated by OPEC’s actions impacted all the prices that matter to farmers in Bolivia—prices of fertilizer, seed, credit, land, labor, petroleum, output, etc.—and thus had a tremendous impact on their entire economic situation.
The vast majority of the economic, social, religious, and political systems in which a particular individual lives are not created or even influenced by that individual. Rather, most of these systems are the result of thousands of years of human activity operating on a local, national, and international scale. Yes, these systems have been and continue to be shaped by human beings, but most individuals, particularly those in material poverty, have very little control over them. Nevertheless, these systems can play a huge role in contributing to their poverty.
The systems are particularly tricky because they tend to be invisible to those working with individual people to address poverty. At the community level, this entire global story and the role it plays in local poverty is not always easily observed. It can be easy to conclude that the majority of the problem lies with the people in poverty themselves—their worldviews, behaviors, and values—because these faults are far more obvious than the fallen systems in which they live.
Which Came First, the Broken Individual or the Broken System?
Broken systems are a problem in the U.S. too. When society crams historically oppressed and relatively young human beings into high-rise buildings; takes away their leaders; provides them with inferior education, health care, and employment systems; and then pays them not to work,we should not be surprised to see broken families, violent crimes, and drug trafficking. Worse yet, we end up with nihilism, because these broken systems do serious damage to people’s view of themselves and others. Worldviews affect the systems, and the systems affect the worldviews.
High rates of unemployment caused by a broken economic system can be devastating to one’s view of self. In a capitalist society, where identity is measured by economic and individual success, the absence of work brings shame and discouragement. Since our society also defines identity by individual success, the absence of meaningful employment corrodes a sense of self and, by extension, family and community.
To feel unable to support a family and the wider community— which is what occurs with the structural absence of work in neighborhoods of concentrated poverty—can severely constrain the manner in which one thinks, feels, andacts with respect to the future. The effects of this have been severe.1
Again, worldviews affect the systems, and the systems affect the worldviews. These considerations ought to give us some pause before deciding that we know what the fundamental problem facing those we work with is. The fall really happened, affecting both individuals in poverty and the systems into which they were born.
Unfortunately, as recent research has demonstrated, white evangelical Christians in the United States, for whom the systems have mostly worked well, are particularly blind to the systemic causes of poverty and are quick to blame those in poverty for their plight.2 Evangelicals tend to believe that systemic arguments for poverty amount to shifting the blame for personal sin and excusing moral failure.
Being aware of this background ought to make all the difference when people walk into our church asking for assistance. Do they have personal sins and behaviors that are contributing to their material poverty? Yes! But to reduce their problems to this ignores the comprehensive impact of the fall on both individuals and systems and blinds us to our need to bring the reality of Christ’s redemption to bear on both.
We Are Not Neutral
As Christians from middle- or upper-class backgrounds seek to work with people in material poverty, it is crucial that we realize that we are not coming to them as blank slates. Rather, the way that we act toward them expresses our own worldview, painting a picture for them of our understanding about the nature of God, self, others, and the rest of creation. Unfortunately, our own worldviews are broken, causing us to communicate a perspective, a way of understanding reality, that is often deeply at odds with a biblical perspective.
If you’re interested in helping others understand the causes of poverty and how they can take a helping without hurting approach to solutions, the Chalmers Ambassador training might be a good next step. Our Ambassadors are trained to lead groups through online classes, speak to churches or organizations about Chalmers’ tools and practices, interact with the Chalmers team for product development, and engage in an exclusive online community with other certified Ambassadors.
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