On being Poor‐by‐Choice: A Philosophical Critique of the Neoliberal Poverty Perspective

Neoliberalism is an economic, social, and political philosophy that derives, but significantly deviates, from classical liberalism. It has supreme trust in the marketplace and in the omniscience of market forces. It postulates that poverty is an objectively knowable social phenomenon. It theorizes that poverty's causal explanation is grounded in the inappropriateness of the hopes, aspirations, and goals of those living in poverty. It moralizes that the poor have a moral obligation to critically assess the consequences for themselves and others of their decisions not to work even when work is available, for which they should be held responsible. It concludes that the work‐shy poor‐bychoice — the undeserving poor — cannot be trusted not to abuse tax‐finance welfare support. The paper explicates, briefly, the philosophical underpinnings of neoliberalism as a social science paradigm, so as to facilitate, secondly, the exploration of its perspective on human nature, which informs, thirdly, its perspective on poverty. It concludes that neoliberalism is unable to speak with any certainty about the nature, causes, and consequences of poverty and its solution. The neoliberal poverty discourse is, essentially, a discourse on human nature. It asserts that the poor can choose not to be poor. This gives rise to an ideologically informed, assumption‐based approach to anti‐poverty policy.