La pobreza como categoría moral. Por qué la riqueza no es suficiente para dejar de ser pobre
One of the reasons given to explain poverty is the supposed inability of poor people to manage their money properly. Many countries have introduced financial education projects in an attempt to remedy this “problem”. Rather than seeking to find out how poor people manage their money and whether they...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | Spanish |
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Institut Français d'Études Andines
2015-11-01
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| Series: | Bulletin de l'Institut Français d'Études Andines |
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| Online Access: | https://journals.openedition.org/bifea/7675 |
| Summary: | One of the reasons given to explain poverty is the supposed inability of poor people to manage their money properly. Many countries have introduced financial education projects in an attempt to remedy this “problem”. Rather than seeking to find out how poor people manage their money and whether they do so efficiently, this article reflects on the prejudices underlying the premises of financial education, as well as some academic arguments and popular opinions with regard to the financial practices of certain groups of people. Using miners and prostitutes in Bolivia as examples, the article shows that their relationship with money can be seen as symptomatic of a mismatch with the hegemonic values of civilization. Caught up in culturalist and moral paradigms, the suspicion of economic irrationality ultimately traps the poor in their subaltern status, regardless of their economic situation, and becomes a strategy of domination. This is the reason why, even when they accumulate capital and consume in the same way as rich people (in other words, even when they are economically successful), some people are unable to escape from being stigmatized. Workers in mining cooperatives are a case in point, as their social ascent may be thwarted by being assigned to what used to be known as the “culture of poverty”. Prostitutes are a similar example, as the moral impossibility of thinking of prostitution as a profitable activity and, therefore, an effective strategy, contributes to their being discredited. |
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| ISSN: | 0303-7495 2076-5827 |