Positive Functions Of The Undeserving Poor

In this article, Herbert J. Gans talks about the things that poor people living in poverty do, their effect on society, whether its in a positive and negative way and societies reaction to them. Gans talks about issues that poor people have and are often ignored, how they are treated unfairly and explains how poor people are a threat to society due to their behaviors that are often associated with them, things such as crimes to others (mugging, robbing, etc.). After all mugging only occurs with poor people. He also mentions how most poor people violate the norms of our society and how they are often looked down upon and the stereotypes that are associated with being poor (things like they are lazy and undeserving.) I found this article to be very interesting when it came to explaining certain points on how our society views these people.I have a strong belief after reading this that not only does our society rely and view poverty as beneficial to the rich and the middle class but also encourages this to continue by refusing to help/change this. I personally feel that we all benefit from poor people whether we want to believe it or not. And probably the most 'true" line in the article is the last one where Gans says is "the only certain way to eliminate both this notion and the functions is to eliminate poverty altogether".  Probably the most important thing in the article is Gans 5 set of functions, which include 13 specific functions. The five set functions include Two Micro-Social Functions, Three Economic Functions, Three Normative Functions, Three Political functions, and 2 Macro-Social Functions.