Measuring absolute poverty: shame is all you need
Measuring absolute poverty: shame is all you need
As a heuristic polemic, it is proposed that, while poverty is objective, multidimensional and inherently relative, it should be quantified using a single, absolute and subjective measure: namely, poverty-related shame. The concepts of poverty and absolute poverty is first interrogated before, following Amartya Sen, arguing that shame is an absolutely essential component of poverty and, moreover, that poverty-related shame offers a measure of poverty that is universal in the sense that it is evidenced in all countries irrespective of their level of economic development. Manifestations of poverty-related shame are then considered before exploring its potential value as a universal measure of poverty. Its universality is considered with respect to conceptual, functional, metric and political equivalence.
Keywords: poverty, shame, measurement, equivalence
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