In great monarchies, and in early parliamentary democracies, the poor were regarded as an enduring problem. Historically, they were categorized into different groups including vagrants, paupers, migrants, the sick, the old and the able bodied poor. An important distinction arose between the ‘deserving’ and the ‘undeserving’ poor. As early as 1531, an Act of Parliament officially differentiated between the ‘able-bodied’ vagrant and those vagrants that could not help being in the position that they were in because of disability or sickness (Kumar 1984). This coincided with the expansion of towns and cities in which an earlier form of capitalism (described as mercantile capitalism) expanded from the sixteenth century onwards. The able-bodied poor were identified as ‘sturdy beggars’ and were seen as not wanting to work for a living. They were regarded as being a threat to the moral, religious and political order of the day. Begging for example, was considered a threat to public order and legislation made slothfulness a crime punishable by flogging. Ill-health was regarded suspiciously and seen as an excuse for laziness. Sir Thomas More for example, condemned the work-less as ‘Sturdy and valiaunte beggars cloaking their idle lyfe under the colours of some disease or sickness’ (Garraty 1978: 28). There was however, some recognition that, in certain circumstances, the able bodied might not be in a position to work because no work was available. Thus, for example, another Act was passed in 1572 recognizing some groups, such as redundant soldiers, as being genuinely unemployed, thus exempting them from the penalties of the extreme vagrancy laws.

Since the Elizabethan Poor Laws of 1597, official attitudes to the poor in Britain have been embodied in a series of Acts. Legislation reflected the general reluctance of government to take responsibility for the poor and infirm. It was widely held that official actions to help the poor would simply encourage idleness and thus make matters worse. Historically, relief from poverty was regarded as a matter for the family, sometimes with the assistance of the church. Rather than being seen as socially caused, poverty was seen as an individual matter, due to personal misfortune, or to character or moral defect.

Although the poor law provided basic relief from hardship and deprivation, its primary function was not charitable; rather it ensured that the poor were effectively managed. The legislation provided for a harsh system of public provision for the poor and destitute. The New Poor Law Amendment Act of 1837 marked a new approach to poverty coinciding with the growth of industrial capitalism (see Chapter 4). The aim now was to exert greater discipline on the able bodied poor by forcing them into workhouses if they wished to obtain relief.

It was these Acts that guided official attitudes towards the poor for the rest of the nineteenth century and arguably up to the present day ‘welfare to work’ policies (see Chapter 4). By the middle of the nineteenth century, workhouses were common throughout Britain. One of the effects of the harshness of this legislation was that it encouraged workers and their families to become geographically mobile in search of work. Official attitudes to the poor continued to link poverty to a pathology of the poor person; a moral defect rather than a defect in the social, political and economic environment in which that person lived. In other words, the focus was on the individual rather than the way society was organized and it was individual failings that were perceived as the cause of poverty.

Marx believed that these circumstances were the result of exploitation and uncontrolled capitalism where the poor were tied into cycles of poverty. Thus, poverty reproduced itself with successive generations. Marx and Engels viewed social class in terms of a theory of social change and also believed that it was important to understand society in order to change it.

An important contribution to this debate is the work of Peter Townsend. Townsend’s concept of ‘relative poverty’ argues that absolute definitions of poverty do not take account of the fact that people’s requirements do not stay the same as society changes. In Poverty in the United Kingdom (1979), Townsend argues that absolute definitions of poverty are inappropriate and poverty rather than being defined in absolute terms should be defined in relation to the general living standards in society at a given point in time. In other words, a person should be regarded as being in poverty if they cannot afford those things which are regarded as basic to everyday life by most people. This approach suggests that in modern society poverty is regarded as not having what are deemed to be basic necessities. More recently, Mack and Lansley (1985) have used public opinion surveys to show that there is actually public consensus as to what are regarded as necessities.

Our discussion so far has illustrated the fact that social differentiation has existed throughout history but has been dynamic and changing. With the rise of modern capitalism, societies stratified into a hierarchical system, based primarily on economic status and social prestige. The consequences of such a dramatic reordering of British and other industrial societies intensified the harsh conditions of the poor, especially the ‘labouring poor’. Marx in particular was concerned with early industrialization and with its effects on social structure and social class.

Marx was particularly interested in the mechanisms that produced and reproduced class inequality and what he called ‘class consciousness’. He argued that a person’s chances of living, surviving and providing for themselves and their family were linked to the relationship to what he termed ‘the means of production’. Capitalists and industrialists appeared to profit under capitalism since they owned and controlled the means of production (i.e. the factories and mills that the workers laboured in, and the raw materials of production such as cotton and steel).

However, the working poor (who had only their labour to sell to survive) were exploited. For Marx the distinction was clear. There existed two social classes – those who own the means of production (the wealthy bourgeoisie), and those who must sell their labour to survive (the proletariat). His outlook was critical. He argued that the nature of the relationship was antagonistic and based on exploitation. For Marx, wealth determined life and health chances and an economic definition was therefore crucial as a measure of social position or class.

Marx believed that the rich would accrue more and more wealth since they not only owned finance but also controlled the mechanisms of finance. Marx predicted that this would eventually lead to a concentration of capital among the rich. This would ultimately lead to a class revolution since capitalism was based on exploitation and thus the interests of the bourgeoisie and the proletariat were diametrically opposed. The theory behind this was the idea of a dialectic (after the German Philosopher, Hegel). This was the idea that the struggle of opposites will eventually lead to progress and the creation of new conditions.

Central to Marx’s ideas was his theory of alienation (see also Chapter 3). Workers perceived themselves being subjected to market forces of supply and demand, i.e. constrained by the market which was beyond their control. The net result of this was that workers became alienated and estranged from what they produced. This is the sense of loss of control of one’s life and one’s destiny. Marx believed that only with the end of capitalism would humans be free to fulfil their truly social nature.