Poverty as Ideology: Rescuing Social Justice from Global Development Agendas (International Studies in Poverty Research)

Poverty has become the central focus of global development efforts, with a vast body of research and funding dedicated to its alleviation. And yet, we continue to lack a fundamental understanding of the actual origins and causes of poverty itself. How is wealth created and divided among societies? To answer that question, Andrew Fischer argues that we need to rethink how we have conceived of poverty and poverty policies to begin with.
 
Poverty as Ideology shows how our approach to poverty studies has, in fact, served to reinforce the prevailing neoliberal ideology while ignoring the wider interests of social justice, which are fundamental to creating more equitable societies. Instead, our development policies have created a poverty industry that only perpetuates, rather than ameliorates, economic despair. Developing an effective and lasting solution to global poverty requires a comprehensive critique of the research methods within the field, and Fischer here upends much of the received wisdom within poverty and development studies and offers a radical new direction.