Sept/Oct 1975 RAIN Page 1 7 .TURE OF POVERTY peasants and artisans have existed from time immemorial; but miserable and destitute villagers in their thousands and urban pavement dwellers in their hundreds of thousands-not in wartime or as an aftermath of war, but in the midst of peace and as a seemingly permanent feature- that is a monstrous and scandalous thing which is altogether abnormal in the history of mankind. We cannot be satisfied with the snap answer that this is due to ,population pressure. , "Since every mouth that comes into the world is also endowed with-~ pair of hands, population pressure could se,rve as an explanation.only if it meant an absolute shortage of , land-and although that situation may arise in the future, it decidedly has not arrived today (a few islands excepted). Ii cannot be argued that population increase as such must produce increasing poverty because the additional pairs of hands could not be endowed with the capital they needed to help themselves. Millions of people have started without capital and have shown that a pair of hands can provide not only the income but also the durable goods, i.e., capital, for civili~ed existence. So the question stands and demands an answer. What has gone wrong? Why cannot·these people help themselves?" Th~ answer, I suggest; lies in the abandonment ~f their indigenous "culture of poverty," ~hich means not only that . they lost true culture, but also that their poverty, in all .too many cas~s, has turned ,into misery. - The cost of the ephemeral and the eternaf . A '\:ulture of poverty" such as we have known in innumerable variants before the industrial age is based on one fundamental distinction-which may have been made consciously,or instinctively, it does not mam;r-the distinction between th~ "ephemeral" and the "eternal." All religions, of course, deal with this distinction, suggesting that the ephemeral i's relatively unreal and only. the etern'al is real. On·the material plane we deal with goods and services, and the same distinction 'applies: all goods and services can be arranged, as it were, on a scale which extends from the ephemeral to the ~ternal. Needless to say, neither of these terms may be taken in an absolute sense . (because there is nothing absolute on the material plane), although there may well be something absolute in the maker's intention : he/she may see his/her product' as something to be used up, that is to say, to be destroyed in the act of consumption; or as something to be used or enjoyed as a permanent asset, ideally forever. The extremes ~re easily recognised. An article of consump~ tion, like a loaf of_bread, is intended to be used up; while' a work of art, like the Mona Lisa, is intended to be there for- ' ever. Transport services t6 take a tourist on holiday are int~nded to be used up and therefore ephemeral; while a bridge across the river is intended to be a permanent facility. Entertainment is intended to be ephemeral; while education (in the fullest sense) is intended to be eternal. Between the extremes of the ephemeral and the eternal, there extends a vast range of goods and services with regard to which the producer may exercise a certain degree of choice: he/she may be producing with the intention of supplying something relatively ephemeral or something relatively .eternal. A publisher, for instance, may produce a book with the intention that it should be purchased, read, and treasured by countless.generations; or the intention,may be.that it should be purchased, read, and thrown away as quickly as p9ssible . , Ephemeral goods are- to use the language .of business- . "depreciating assets" and have to be "written off.", Eternal goods, on the other hand, are never "depreciated" but "maintained." (You don't deprecip.te the Taj Mahal; you try to maintain its splendour for all time.) · Ephemeral goods are subject to the economic calculus. Their only value lies in bei'ng used up, and it is necessary to ensure that the'ir cost ofproduction do.es not exceed the . bknefit derived from destroying them. But eternal goods are not intended for destruction: so there is no occasion for an economic calculus,, because the benefit- the product of annual value and time- is infinite and therefore incalculable. · Once we recognise the validity of the distinction between the ephemeral -and tlie eternal, we are able to distinguish, in principle, be~ween two different types of "standard of living." Two societies may have the same volume of production and the same income p(!r head ofpopulation, but the quality of life or life-style may show fundamental and incomparable differences: the one placing its main emphasis on ephemeral satisfactions and the other devoting itself primarily to the creation of eternal valu~s. In the former there may be opulent living in terms of ephemeral goods and starvation in terms of eternal goods- eating, drinking, and wallowing in entertainment, _in sordid, ugly, mean, and unhealthy surroundings.- while in the latter, there may be frugal living in terms of ephem.eral goods and opulence in terms of eternal goodsmodest, simple, and healthy consumption in a noble setting. In terms of conventional economic accounting, they are both equally rich, equally developed-which merely goes to show that the purely quantitative approach misses the point. The study of these two models can surely teach us a great deal. It is clear, however, that the question: "Which of the -two is better?" reaches far beyond the economic calculus, since quality cannot be calculated. No one, I suppose, would wish to deny that the life-style of modern industrial society is one that places primary emphasis on ephemeral satisfactions and is characterised by' a gross neglect of eternal goods. Under certain immanenit compulsions, moreover, modern industrial society is engaged in a process of what might be called "ever-increasing ephemerali_sation_;" that is to say, goods and services which by their very nature belong to the eternal side are being produced as if their purpose were ephemeral. The elconomic calculus is applied · everywhere, even at the cost of ski~ping and cheese-paring on goods which should last forever. At the same time, purely ephemeral goods are produced to standards of refinement, elaboration, and luxury, as if they were meant to serve eternal purposes and to last for all time. ' continued on page 18
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