Pimpare stresses, at the beginning of Chapter 6, that various forms of assistance have lifted people out of poverty, and that increasing the amount we apply to assistance programs could help more.
He seems to be countering the sometimes-heard claim that all of that money spent on poor people does no good.
Here's the question that I want you to think about: If we did raise our assistance expenditures, and if we did make sure that everyone who qualified for assistance received it, would that count as solving the problem of poverty? In other words, imagine that everyone who is now living below the poverty line were simply given the assistance they needed to be above the poverty line. If that happened, is Pimpare satisfied, or would that state of affairs still leave a lot undone?
This is all really a way of asking Pimpare: What's the end goal here? If everyone who needs assistance gets it, is the idea that we'd just go one like that forever?
What do you think? Does "no one living without the assistance they need" = "poverty solved"?
1.5 pages, single spaced, printed, in class. Use the book, but only what we've read so far. I want your own thoughts on what Pimpare is aiming at, and whether or not you agree.
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