- ATD Fourth World

“Secular Tendencies In Europe Relating To The Poorest Sections Of Society: Challenges To Be Faced”

I would first of all like to express my pleasure and delight in being able, through speaking here today, to pay tribute to the work of ATD Fourth World, and to those who help human beings in distress, as did Father Joseph Wresinski in his thoughts and work. And, speaking as a historian who specialises in poverty and the poor, I would like to avoid being seen as an antiquarian, dealing solely with how things were in the past. I believe that it is important to recognise the extent to which the questions asked in the past are equally relevant today. It is also important to envisage the Europe of the future without forgetting its past, and to consider our European heritage as a rich source of experience.

One can say that poverty is a constant presence in the history of humanity, that it is part of the human condition, that it has always threatened the human condition. I would like, in one way, to challenge this view because the word “poverty” can be applied to a range of very varied situations: from those which concern differences in quality of life to the tragedy of extreme poverty, destitution. It is very important to look at whether there were tragic periods in Europe's history, when poverty and destitution became a fundamental problem. In order to understand the current situation, we must examine how these crucial periods of the past developed.

When thinking about poverty, one can identify three main aspects: the social, the political, and the moral. A sociologist once said that the social question is an invention of the 19th century - that in fact the social question was born out of the great workers' revolts of 1848 and that it was Parisian workers who introduced the word and the concept into the debate. The word “social” at the time signified the least integrated fringes of industrial society, those on the very edge of industrial society. But one can also argue that the social question was evident much earlier, when, in mediaeval times, it related to the problems of peasants, craftsmen and vagrants. And that the proposed response always followed one of two approaches: that of social aid - the attitude that the poor had to be helped; and that of social repression, the view that repression was a cure for the social disease known as vagrancy, destitution or poverty. The social question, said Robert Castel, represents a concern about society's ability to maintain its cohesion. So the place of people in society is, I think, central to the social question.

Poverty is also a moral problem. Can we accept “the scandal of poverty”, as it was known in the literary works of the Middle Ages? Do we see in St Francis of Assisi's Lady Poverty a lady who is part of our moral universe, or on the contrary, a figure menacing the human condition like Death? Christian charity responds to the need to help one's neighbour, and the notion of salvation forms part of religious teaching. But one can detect, over the course of history, a series of crises in charitable behaviour. In times of accelerating poverty, a discrepancy appears between the demands of daily life and the capacity to furnish assistance. When we read historical texts on poverty, the tone sometimes seems very modern. The report of the Constituent Assembly's Committee For The Eradication Of Begging, which studied these problems at the end of the 18th century, contains this sentence: “One has always thought of giving to the poor, but never of asserting the rights of the poor man over society, nor those of society over him.” I find in these words a pertinent truth. As for the reference to the rights of the poor man, allow me to mention a small observation which is not a trivial detail. While studying one of the criminal justice registers from the 14th century, I found that for all of those men whose lives I tried to follow, the end was almost always the same: the death sentence. But there was one exception. There was a man who had been freed from Chatelet prison in Paris because it was found that, according to canon law, a desperate man could not be punished if he was trying to acquire provisions. And the man had been accused of stealing provisions from a Parisian shop. All the others were condemned to death for crimes of a similar nature, yet this man was able to benefit from a written law which allowed him to steal for reasons of hunger. This observation seems to me to demonstrate the importance of the letter of the law. It is important to find verbal formulations of great principles, but these must be enshrined in written law. The notion of “the rights of the poor man” is revealing and of great significance.

The second part of this problem of poverty at the end of the 18th century is the conviction that it is a problem which concerns the government. The same report by the Committee For The Eradication Of Begging states that “the poverty of peoples is a fault of governments”.

The third part of this meditation on poverty relates to the political dimension. The political ideas circulating at the dawn of the modern age always portrayed the welfare of the poor as an obvious concern: without that element these ideas would garner no serious support amongst the masses. It was necessary to recognise the issues affecting the people if democratic systems were to be introduced. The practical application of these ideas was often disastrous for the weak, but reference to the question of poverty was the norm in political debate. In addressing the problem of poverty, politicians sought to win the support of the electorate. In his lectures on religious morality, Jacques Necker, the great banker and minister of state, questioned the true nature of Christ's concern for the welfare of the most humble. He declares that “this concern on the part of Christ must not be seen only as an expression of perfect goodness, it also represents a political necessity”. Necker, the banker and politician, sees the pursuit of political goals behind Christ's engagement with the cause of the poor - one must not forget that at this time politics was always linked with the notion of the common good.

An historical study of the political treatment of poverty throughout the modern age reveals that the political issues surrounding poverty related to questions of social stability and economics, as well as humanitarian reasons. Taking a simplified view, the political debate on poverty can be separated into three main problems. The first is order: the issue of poverty is addressed because poverty threatens the social order. The second is the problem of usefulness: poverty in a way undermines the notion of the usefulness of human existence, because the poor are of no use to society. In a mediaeval ruling that I was studying, I found a striking turn of phrase in a passage condemning a vagrant to death, and the reason given was very concise: “because he is of no use to society”. Of no use to society: usefulness is the second political concern related to poverty. The third is charity: charity means assistance, a friendly gesture, and a good deed from one human being to another. We know that charity underpins societies, we know the role of charity in all societies, not only traditional but also modern ones: charity forms part of the human condition and is central to religious attitudes.

So the notions of order, usefulness and charity have dominated political thought on poverty throughout the modern age. In contrast, a brief survey of mediaeval history reveals that in mediaeval societies, poverty has a place, and forms part of the division of labour. A saint, a scholarly monk declared that the Good Lord could have created a world in which there were only the rich, but he did not wish to - he created the poor too, because there is a need for them: otherwise the rich would be unable to justify their own existence. So, in a certain way, the pauper has his place in the division of labour. In the simplest terms one can say that mediaeval society, in its official rhetoric, favoured the poor. Modern societies, the societies of the first phase of modernity in the 16th and 17th centuries, condemned begging, locked up the poor and attempted to force the poor into the labour market. One can say that modern societies fear poverty. In English lullabies, sung by mothers to send their infants off to sleep, a frequent theme is the fear of the vagrant, or fear of the pauper. “Listen my child, sleep tight, I'll take care of you, I won't let the pauper into our house”. The fear of the poor is a new feature of modern society. Finally, in contemporary societies, mass unemployment and the crisis of low wages contribute to the exclusion of the poor, or at least to an acceptance of the exclusion of the poor.

Nevertheless, within every society and at any point in time, there exist towards the poor both feelings of charity - sympathy for the plight of our fellow men - and feelings of hate and fear. There was contempt and fear in the mediaeval societies but also the example of St Francis of Assisi. There was the charity of the 16th and 17th centuries (the great brotherhoods dedicated to helping the poor for altruistic reasons) alongside repression. And there is no doubt that in our societies today, the fact that we talk about exclusion, that we are conscious of exclusion as a important phenomenon, that we can think about poverty in the terms of the Fourth World, this is proof of a will to work towards the reintegration of the poor into society.

So it seems to me that it is important to recognise the complexity of the attitudes held by every society, and also to understand that these different attitudes arise out of different historical contexts. It was easier to deal with the problem of poverty in a stable society with limited demographic growth and little immigration. In these stable societies, such as those of the 13th century, for example, there were institutions which met the needs of the poor very effectively. But these institutions were unable to deal with the crises which arose subsequently: the crisis of the 14th century disrupted the balance which had previously been preserved. When there was a crisis, none of the existing institutions was capable of responding. One can therefore observe that, in a normal society, the charitable institutions functioned well while there was no great need for help; it was when there were crises and greater help was needed that these sources of aid proved insufficient, and fear and loathing of poverty gained the upper hand.

In the Christian society of the Middle Ages it was those practising self-imposed poverty that commanded respect. The Church, which made representations to the rich on behalf of the poor, accepted that certain orders advocated poverty as a necessary condition for leading a life of spiritual discovery following the teachings of the Evangelist. Alongside what we might term this “heroic” poverty, there were also the victims of misfortune, who sought help at home - this category contained those ashamed by their poverty, the natural clientele of charitable associations. And there was also the category of the poor who begged: the attitude towards them was ambiguous. People felt obliged by their love of God to help the beggars, but at the same time beggars were feared. Distrust of the begging poor was justified by the view that they shirked their responsibilities and did not work. The mediaeval attitude towards poverty was ambivalent: it was seen both as an affliction, and as something of merit.

In mediaeval society the poor were also seen as a source of social unrest. The poor could revolt against their social condition. William Longbeard, a social agitator in London at the end of the 12th century declared: “I am the saviour of the poor [...]. The time will come when I will separate the humble people from the arrogant and deceitful.” In the face of such revolutionary feeling St Francis of Assisi proposed an alternative model which, while still contesting any social order founded on the pursuit of earthly riches, offered the possibility of choosing to live on the margins. Thus a tame form of poverty emerged alongside the politically dangerous kind.

The fear of the pauper, which appeared at the end of the Middle Ages, was linked to the phenomenon of mass poverty, the Massenarmut studied by the German economist Wilhelm Abel. Mass poverty is tragic, and is accompanied by famine - poverty in its most extreme state.

It was the crises of the 14th and 16th centuries, which prompted an awareness of this new danger. Vast numbers of peasants travelled to the towns in times of scarce food: there were provisions in the towns, none in the countryside. Rural poverty exploded and the institutions in the towns, geared towards occasional help for the needy, were completely overwhelmed. The breakdown of rural society led to an explosive situation. At the end of the 17th century both Vauban in France and Gregory King in Great Britain respectively declared that half the population (nearly 47% according to King; over 40% according to Vauban) lived in poverty. This mass poor had to be helped; they could not survive on their own means. So the question arose of how to deal with this mass poverty. People argued for the secularisation of aid, because while aid remained under the control of the Church, it was impossible both to monitor the use - the correct use - of funds, and to incite the poor to work with the threat of punishment. This change occurred at the dawn of the modern age, before the Protestant Reformation. With the Reformation, the Church found itself deprived of one of the duties, which had been part of its role in society.

In Italian merchants' books of accounts in the 14th and 15th centuries there is always a column marked “for God”, or more precisely an account for “The Lord God” (Conto di messer Domeneddio). In this way the commercial societies of Italy created a source of funds for the poor. By considering the poor as associates, the Italian merchants sought moral justification for their own wealth. The endowments created in this way were used to feed the poor and were managed by the Church, by religious orders, with priority given to beggars. Social aid became secularised, centred on the towns and began to be administered by the state, with responsibility for care of the poor now lying with the civil, secular authorities. This reform of aid established a dedicated organisation, but even from the outset there was an element of exclusion: the poor who asked for help were obliged to wear a sign, a yellow cross or a sign indicating a pauper - it varied from town to town and country to country. Just as lepers, Jews and heretics had to wear signs, the poor were similarly stigmatised. In fact this system was intended to help the poor receive aid by allowing them to prove their poverty, but this means of identifying themselves as paupers also had the effect of stigmatising and excluding them.

Gallows became a feature of the workhouses set up for the poor. Why? So that the gallows served as a constant reminder - “if you don't work, you will be punished”. In the large workshops people were forced to work. Sometimes it was not even for a useful purpose, but purely work for its own sake. One passage from the 17th century describes a house where the poor were locked in as if they were in a workhouse, and forced to work in the cellars where they had to empty the cellars of water. The cellars were always full of water: there were special pipes channelling water into the cellars so that the poor always had work to do.

This practice of shutting away the poor and imposing forced, futile work on them is part of our European heritage, and should take its place alongside the tradition of charity in our collective memory. The problem of the underclass has a contradictory historical dimension.

A doctor, describing the society he lived in at the end of the 18th century, used a very revealing phrase. He said: “The poor are to a state, what shadows are to a painting: they provide a necessary contrast which humanity bemoans from time to time, but which allows us to see Providence in all its glory. [...] It is therefore necessary for the poor to exist, but there should be no place for the destitute: the destitute are merely the shame of humanity, while conversely the poor are a vital part of the political economy. Through them, prosperity reigns in the towns, where all the comforts of life can be found and the arts flourish”. In this society, which was in the first phase of industrialisation, the poor were the proletariats - they were needed, whereas the destitute were dangerous creatures who disrupted the natural order. I think from our perspective 200 years later, we must not focus exclusively on the sense of responsibility which we, as human beings, feel towards our brothers and sisters who find themselves in extreme poverty, but we must also have recourse to this political argument of fear. You know very well that in politics, hope counts for a lot, but fear counts for even more. So we must not hesitate to say that the scandal of poverty - or to use a different language, the language of our century, the scandal of extreme poverty, of destitution - this scandal poses a risk to the whole world, and that is why politics must tackle it.

In recent history the poor were at first the proletariats of our industrial towns. It is significant that there was no hesitation in associating work with crime, or that the “working classes” and the “dangerous classes” were seen as one and the same in the social landscape of industrial Europe in the 19th century. The proletariat gradually evolved into the working classes who became integrated into society. By now it was no longer work, but lack of work which led to exclusion.

In the present day, the problem of extreme poverty is intimately linked with the employment crisis, or more precisely with the new dynamics of the world of work, and the new place of work in modern life: what we call the concept of social disqualification. The fact that men and women can find no place in a society organised around work has social and psychological consequences. The unemployed man is not only someone who has no work, he is someone with no place in society: exclusion is not the result of the will of the government, of the authorities, but the result of a decision taken by society itself. The unemployed man is not responsible for the fact that he cannot find work, it is the collective responsibility of a society which has failed to face up to major challenges.

So, looking at this long history of differing responses to the problem of severe poverty, we find as many acts of kindness to fellow men, as acts of repression. But to my mind, and this also stems from my work as a historian, the real challenge is to return to the notion of the dignity of man, the dignity of the poor, human rights, and the rights of the poor. If we return to these two ideas, I believe we will be on the right track to establishing a programme whereby the difficulties faced by those excluded from society, could disappear from present-day Europe and from the rest of the world.

Thank you.

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Debate

Myriam de Spiegelaere, Observatoire de la Santé et du Social (Brussels)
I would like to know what kind of responses you have been able to observe in history, when the social cohesion of a society is disrupted by the influx of a large number of poor people coming from outside. This is what is currently happening in Europe and one would imagine that similar crises have occurred in the past.

Jean-Jacques Friboulet, Lecturer at the University of Fribourg
...I found much in your talk, which corresponds to current situations in the South. I am talking about some of the sub-Saharan African countries, for example. I would like to ask you how you see this problem. Do you think that certain things you have said about the history of poverty in Europe can be seen happening today in our international relations?

Moraene Roberts, delegate representing Fourth World UK
I believe I can see a connection between what Mr Geremek and what Mr Polen has said. Mr Geremek spoke in particular about people who cannot escape situations of poverty, and who are regarded with fear as a menace to society.
Mr Polen spoke of his mother having had her children taken away from her. A lot of people say, “If poor people lose custody of their children, it's partly their own fault. They just need to manage themselves better to avoid getting into difficult situations”. So some people feel that this gives them the right to neglect the poor. I think that it is very difficult to face up to, but that we must always remember that everyone deserves to be helped. No mother in the world should have to lose custody of her own children.

Unidentified contributor
The fact that worries about persistent poverty leading to revolution are often the reason for political attention being focused on poverty, does not mean that we shouldn't have the courage to say that political engagement on behalf of the very poor is something worth doing for its own sake. Not out of fear of revolution, but because poverty is shameful to humanity, and unworthy of man.
We can no longer accept that some people are worth nothing in the eyes of others.

Jacques-René Rabier, study group “Globalisation and poverty”, ATD Fourth World
Mr Geremek's talk made a deep impression on me, in particular the dual attitude of society towards the poor. I wonder if, since the middle of the 19th century, this dual attitude has persisted up to the present day in terms of the clear discrepancy between “economic” and “social” forces.

Sklavounos Georgios, European Economic And Social Committee
I would like to add an element, which, as far as I can tell, was not mentioned. Within the scope of our work at the Economic And Social Committee, we have approached the problem of social exclusion and poverty not only from a moral standpoint (human rights), but also from the perspective of sustainable development. We have statistics, which indicate that social exclusion incurs huge costs. So working towards inclusion and social integration must be considered as a worthwhile investment. Here are some figures to give you an idea of the situation. Youth crime costs us seven billion dollars per year. Given this figure, we must see social integration as a worthwhile investment in socio-economic terms.

Michèle Grenot, PhD in History
You said that a society's value could be measured according to how it treats its poor and fights against their exclusion. You also said that the poor have a right to history. You cited the Begging Committee from the French Revolution. I believe that it is important for our discussions today, to recognise that at the same moment the members of the Constituent Assembly declared that the poor (the good poor) had a right to aid, they also deprived them of political rights, for they were not allowed to participate in meetings, even those meetings which concerned them directly: they were not allowed to speak for themselves.
As you say in the conclusion of your book “La Potence ou la pitié”, in the name of natural law we must not think of poverty as part of human nature. On the contrary, poverty represents a threat to human nature.
Father Joseph Wresinski, speaking at the Sorbonne, forcefully made the point that history is distorted. What is striking for me since I have been studying history is that we have really misjudged the poor, and the tragic history of the poor is a mistake of our societies, a fault. It is perhaps time in Europe to say sorry, and to recognise that this legacy still inflicts a heavy burden on the poor. The first thing to do, perhaps, is to give them back their history.

Mr GEREMEK'S RESPONSE

I find these questions extremely interesting.
As far as the problem of social cohesion is concerned, it has to be said that things were much simpler when walls surrounded towns. You locked the gate and you didn't let the poor in. Can walls be built around rich societies nowadays? No. So we are faced with a problem, which we are ill prepared to solve. It is the problem of migration. In fact we consider the current mass migrations as one of the great problems of our time, particularly for the whole of Europe.
People forget the demographic crisis facing all of Europe, particularly the rich countries. A look at the demographic forecasts up to 2020 reveals that, without the addition of some 20 million immigrant workers, there will be an imbalance between the working and the non-working population. The ageing of the population creates another problem to be addressed. Migration might create some disruption, but we must understand that we live in a world where this kind of movement of people has become necessary. The problem is primarily cultural. Can European societies, with their long histories and traditions, accept the influx of people of a different religion, a different culture, a different way of life, and a different way of dressing?
We have not yet found an answer to this question. Not because it is beyond the intellectual powers of our generation, but simply because we haven't been asking the right questions.
In fact every solution has its contingent problems and risks. But if we look to the future, we must understand that walls have ceased to be a good form of defence. When I speak of walls, I am also thinking of imaginary ones, the ones we find at airports, where the Schengen Line is very much in evidence. How do we ensure the survival of our societies and maintain a certain social cohesion while facing up to these necessary challenges?
A certain way of thinking about the Third World has exacerbated the problem of severe poverty in the world. It is impossible, when talking about globalisation, not to picture a baby dying of starvation faraway from us somewhere. In fact it is our problem, which affects us all.
Up to now the United Nations has not managed to establish severe poverty as the most pressing issue on the international agenda. However I think that over the last few years, the World Bank's reports and Kofi Annan's statements concerning world poverty are cause for hope that we are getting on the right track.
It must also be said that the problems of sub-Saharan Africa have yet to have their full impact. It is a large part of the world, where hunger is a daily reality, but whose populations, growing at a fast rate, do not possess the economic resources to respond.
Mention must also be made of Bangladesh, one of the poorest countries in the world, which is trying to find its way out of the labyrinth of poverty. The work of banks for the poor, making small loans to families, to women in particular, changes their situation almost overnight. In Bangladesh these small loans must be repaid and they encourage a certain amount of economic activity.
So up to now, we have not managed to face up to a totally new kind of poverty and destitution. We can see the extent of the problem, but we don't know how to solve it.

As for the “deserving poor”, I must say that I am uncomfortable with this notion. I think that in the very idea of the “deserving poor” (the subject of much attention in both mediaeval and modern theological writing), there is not only a sense of paternalism, but also contempt for the poor. I give myself the right to make the arbitrary decision of who qualifies as the good poor, deserving of help. I decide whether to give this charity or not. What gives me the right to do this? When aid is given there is a direct relationship from person to person. So I, as a human being, judge another human being. The notion of the “deserving poor” in effect creates the right to distinguish between the good poor and the bad poor. I believe that there are lessons to be drawn from this tradition, but that there should be no place for the way in which it humiliates the poor.

The problem of society's dual attitude towards the poor is directly related to the divergence of economic and social forces. The Economic And Social Committee knows very well the importance of work in our world. But I would suggest that here we come up against a very important problem: there is not a single organisation in the world, which represents the world of work. The unions represent those who work and who want to avoid losing their jobs. But those without work, the unemployed, are not represented. Who represents the homeless? I am reminded, given my background as a historian of the Middle Ages, of the legal term “no fixed address”, used to designate vagrants in those days. Those “of no fixed address”, those without work, now constitute a huge section of modern societies, and when they are mentioned in political debates it is primarily in relation to the labour market. For a long time the unemployed played a vital role in the labour market, because there effect was to lower wages.
Thus in the 17th century, the thinking went that it was very desirable for there to be people without work, because then those who were working would accept lower wages.
But there is also the social dimension, which is ill defined. It can be seen in a positive way: this is a human being and they must be helped. I think that it is instructive to mention the success of Bernard Mandeville, an English writer of the 18th century, who caused a scandal with his “Fable of the Bees”. In this work he asks: what is charity? Charity is the essence of selfishness. We want to please ourselves when we help others and also win the Good Lord's approval. His ideas were seen as contrary to the ethos of Christian charity, but his critical assessment of our true motives regarding charity should give us cause for thought.
I think it would also be helpful to consider the role of fear. People's selfishness has often led them to do well. So why not accept selfishness alongside generosity? Generosity is beautiful and selfishness is ugly, but sometimes the beautiful and the ugly can together create something effective. Everything must be done to raise the profile of poverty, to strike a chord with people, but the rational argument must not be ignored. All these approaches are justified. If you fear the very poor, if you fear the spread of poverty, you will vote for the politician who says: I've got a plan of action for solving the problem of poverty. But I have no doubt that the most desirable response is the one rooted in compassion for fellow men, in a sense of solidarity.

The fight against poverty is a worthwhile investment. It is very important to do the calculations, to not be afraid of saying: it is worth supporting the poor, because it makes economic sense. This is an argument, which will always be persuasive.

Lastly I come to the problem of the poor who were entitled to assistance, but who were denied the right to participate in political life. I think that the problem of poverty raises questions about democracy itself. Civil democracy is a highly important reference point in the whole debate on poverty. Democratic societies are those, which attain greater and greater citizen involvement in public life. It is not true, as some experts say, that politically healthy societies are those in which less than 25% of the electorate turn out to vote. On the contrary, modern societies demand the highest level of participation by their citizens. But the participation of the poor must be that of citizens who does not feel excluded or frustrated.
I would like to add that the poor have a right to history. The poor have a right to the benefits of involvement in modern societies and must not be victims of social exclusion.