Article Summary: The Uses of Poverty: The Poor Pay All

Running head: ARTICLE SUMMARY
ARTICLE SUMMARY
Name of the Student
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Author Note

1ARTICLE SUMMARY
The following paper attempts a summarization of the article by Herbert J. Gans entitled
“The Uses of Poverty: The Poor Pay All”. The following paper aims to highlight the major
points that have been discussed within the article from the social viewpoint. The article that was
penned down by Gans deals with the issues that have been arising from the urban political
machine that have been demonstrated to be improper in its functioning. The author points out the
fact that the poor people who have been involved in the society tend to provide sources of a
greater number of functions for the members of the affluent classes of the society. The essay
would attempt to shed light on the exploitation of the poor by the other affluent members of the
society.
In his article entitled “The Uses of Poverty: The Poor Pay All”, Gans (1971) argues that
the deprivation of a certain section of the society provides for the implementation of the issues
that are presented within the social conditions of the United States of America. The author argues
that the poorer sections of the society tend to remain oppressed in a majority of the ways
including the political, the social and the economic factors that are present within the society
(Gans, 1971). The existence of the poverty within the given society tends to have been one of the
major factors that help in providing a labor pool that accepts a lower amount of wage thereby
leading to the conditions wherein the people belonging to the affluent sections of the society tend
to grow more affluent (Gans, 1971). The increase of the poverty within the given society tends to
push the poorer sections of the society into deeper chasms of the poverty. The major economic
activities that lead to the deterioration of the poorer sections of the society refer to the activities
that are undertaken by the various restaurants, the various hospitals, the various departments that
are present within the garment industry as well.