The Centre for Independent Studies Occasional Papers series provides an opportunity for authors to present personal perspectives on broad issues of public policy.
This definitive examination of the long debate on poverty, by Professor Max Hartwell, is the second in a series of published studies from the Centre’s Social Welfare Research Program.
The political economy of poverty is a matter of universal concern and inquiry, but to imagine that this is a new phenomenon, the preoccupation of our age, is to ignore history. The debate on poverty has continued from early Greece, through ancient, medieval and early modern societies, and was particularly intense in the 19th century.
In The Long Debate on Poverty, Professor Hartwell analyses the debate on poverty and its historical roots; demonstrates the remarkable similarity between earlier and modern discussions on the subject; and suggests that today’s welfare policies should be reformed- for much the same reasons as the English Poor Laws were reformed in the 19th Century.
