PAUPERISM. - A phenomenon of a social nature whereby, in a given historical period and in a given territory, a part of the population comes to find itself in a general and continuous state of economic conditions such as to make the satisfaction of its most elementary needs extremely difficult.
A certain extent of the phenomenon and its continuity therefore distinguish p. from simple poverty (v.) or, rather, distinguish the different perspective from which the phenomenon of the deficiency of goods in relation to needs is considered.
I. PERMANENT AND TEMPORARY POVERTY
Although, in fact, poverty is a phenomenon that, however limited, has always existed in every type of society and that undoubtedly will not disappear even in the future, when it has historically struck a given society it has affected a large part of the population and for a more or less long period, but in any case a continuous one. Having established this, it is possible to distinguish two forms of poverty: one of a permanent character and the other of a temporary character. Permanent poverty is the phenomenon by which in every age and in every society, therefore also in the economically most advanced ones, there has always existed, as it still exists, a more or less large number of individuals living in conditions of indigence; and this depends on the fact that no human society, however perfect, will ever succeed in eliminating all the circumstances that can cause an individual to fall into conditions of misery. Illnesses, misfortunes, financial reverses, etc., together with other circumstances by which the mitigating intervention of society becomes difficult or even nonexistent, constitute factual situations that can never be lacking and that, even if apparently isolated and independent, bring about, within a mass of millions of individuals, a continuous phenomenon of a worrisome nature. Naturally, if permanent poverty can assume forms that may be called normal, above all because of their limited scope, it assumes, in certain countries, a quite different character. This depends above all on particularly unfavorable situations presented by the physical and economic environment of the country itself, as well as on the degree of capacity, on the part of its inhabitants, to overcome the resistances that the environment itself presents. Thus a territory that presents itself as poor in natural resources and yet abundant in population will undoubtedly be a country characterized by the existence of a serious permanent poverty. Likewise, a country in which caste or class prejudices have brought about deep divisions within society necessarily sees arise, within the so-called lower castes or classes, frightening phenomena of poverty.
Temporary poverty, on the other hand, is that determined by events or phenomena of an exceptional and extraordinary character and which, as such, normally persists as long as the effects of such events or phenomena last, whether such effects exhaust themselves of their own accord, or whether they are eliminated by external interventions. Such are, for example, wars, economic crises, natural cataclysms (floods, earthquakes, etc.) destructive of every kind of goods. Thus it is easy that, because of economic crises which repeat themselves, as has by now been ascertained, with a determined cyclical frequency, a permanent poverty is brought about which, in turn, can be accentuated by the consequences of a war (see, for example, the period between the two world wars). Likewise, where determined natural cataclysms repeat themselves with notable frequency (as, for example, floods and plagues in certain Eastern countries), it is clear that poverty, even if originally of a temporary nature, is transformed into permanent poverty.
Permanent or temporary, poverty is a phenomenon fraught with notable consequences. First of all, in the long run it brings about a worsening of the physical state of the various categories affected, which in turn causes a diminution of intellectual faculties, as well as frequent imbalances on the moral plane, so that, in the final analysis, there is a general decline of the human personality.
II. STATE INTERVENTION
The consequences for society are also serious. Society, in fact, sees the number of those who become ever less able to contribute to the economic, political and social life of the country increase, and they disturb the internal tranquillity of the country itself by becoming easy prey and a mass of manoeuvre for ideological and political currents that are extremist and subversive of the established order. Hence the problem, in every age, of providing for the elimination or at least the reduction of pauperism.
Naturally, depending on the greater or lesser social maturity of the various political communities, such action was and still is today of a very different nature and effectiveness. Broadly speaking, it is possible to distinguish an intervention of society that tends solely or predominantly to eliminate pauperism without affecting the causes that produced it, from an intervention that, while not ignoring the real and contingent situation, seeks to identify the origins and to study the means to eliminate or preventively attenuate its effects. Historically, one can certainly affirm that society has gradually passed, albeit not always continuously, from a purely repressive conception of pauperism, if not indeed of its consequences alone, to a broader conception by which it seeks to prevent the emergence of the phenomenon itself, or to reduce its scope or, finally, by foreseeing them, to reduce its consequences.
It is clear that when one speaks of society in this case, one refers first of all to politically organized society, that is, to the State, to which indeed belongs the task of protecting those citizens who, by their own forces alone, are unable to provide for the satisfaction of their most elementary needs. And in effect one observes how, from the simple granting of foodstuffs or other primary necessities (for example, the famous frumentationes of ancient Rome), the State passes, in the Middle Ages, and above all in the modern age, in which several factors open the way to new forms of economy that create enormous masses of unemployed, to various types of economic intervention for the purpose of protecting the less well-off categories (for example, the whole policy of price controls and, in general, the grain-supply policy, the laws for the repression of vagabondage, as well as the establishment of centres for the gathering and assistance of the destitute or even of work centres) and, finally, after the not brief interlude of the liberalist period, during which the State returns, with regard to pauperism, to a purely welfare function, to that broad social policy established today by almost all States, directed in large part to the prevention or repression or attenuation of the consequences of pauperism; as well as to the broader economic policy itself when it aims at the creation of environmental conditions such as to render minimal the possibilities of the emergence of pauperism.
III. OTHER INITIATIVES ELIMINATING PAUPERISM
But, besides by means of state organization, society has at all times provided for this task in many other ways: from the initiatives of its individual members, to the broad welfare function carried out first, above all, by the monasteries and then by the medieval guilds of arts and crafts, to charitable and welfare societies, to hospices, etc., there is a whole flourishing of organizations and bodies that directly or indirectly aim to reduce the proportions of poverty. The inspirer of all initiatives of this kind has at all times been the Catholic Church, guided by the higher precept of charity.