ABSTRACT
Poverty is even consistent with rapid growth, if the growth is of recent origin'. Currently, poverty is worsening everywhere, in underdeveloped countries recently having embarked on 'the path to material progress' as well as in those which began the process at an earlier date. The reason for this poverty is that technological modernization produces growing social and economic disparities. The proliferation of Third World shanty towns coincides with the growth of urban poverty and the acceptance of imported consumption models. Poverty and the lower circuit are locked together in an indisputable relationship of cause and effect. Upward social mobility is selective and discriminatory, putting a more acute pressure on the wage-levels of the lower classes. The present pattern of economic growth is responsible for an increasingly unequal income distribution and hinders both employment expansion and the development of a domestic market for modern products.
