Abstract

BOLTVINIK, Julio. Concepts and measurements of poverty: The need for a broader view. Pap. poblac [online]. 2003, vol.9, n.38, pp.9-25. ISSN 2448-7147.

The article sustains that when the study of poverty is located from the very beginning in the axis of the living standard, as most authors do, the constitutive elements of this axis cannot be properly identified. The option is to adopt a broader perspective and start within the axis of human flourishing (where the total human being is the object of study) and reduce its content to arrive atthe axis of the living standard. It is in the axis of human flourishing where reflections onhuman needs and human capacities can take place, which should be founded on a theory of human essence. The identification of the poor is a cutting operation within the axis of the living standard, where only the economic elements of human needs and capacities are considered. These are the themes developed in the first part of the essay, on the bases, among other authors, of Marx (as interpreted by Giörgy Markus) and Abraham Maslow. In the second part of the essay a preliminary version of the determinant elements of human flourishing is presented.