Why Poverty Persists

Mathew Desmond’s New York Times piece, “Why Poverty Persists,” written in anticipation of his more-comprehensive book, highlights an important fact: Government anti-poverty measures and spending of the past 50 years have done little to reduce poverty. Something is preventing entrepreneurs from removing the last vestiges of involuntary misery, despite their massive success in reducing poverty from 90% before 1800 to 10%, by building the modern world. But Desmond offers no explanation of what is stopping them. Instead, he blames a system of exploitation.