In the article titled “The Uses of Poverty: The Poor Pay It All,” sociologist Herbert J. Gans discusses the uncanny alliance between the poor and the rich in American society. He claims that the essentially disadvantaged have held various vocations such as social work, criminology and journalism. These vocations fulfill the double pretense of helping the less fortunate and protecting society from these same individuals. He compares his analogy to that of Richard K. Merton, who applied functional analysis theology to explain the long-standing existence of the political machine in urban areas.

Mr. Merton’s reasoning was that the political machine continued to exist because it served several positive functions in society. Mr. Gans applies this same logic to the existence of poverty in a society that had so much material wealth and concluded that poverty had 13 functions in society that were beneficial to non-poor members. They include: making sure that the menial labor tasks of the society are taken care of, creating jobs that provide help to the poor, and the existence of the poor keeps the aristocracy busy with charity work, thus demonstrating charity towards the less fortunate. and superiority over elites who chose to spend their free time earning more money. He also gives several alternatives to poverty, such as redistributing wealth in society, putting everyone on a more equal playing field, but ultimately concluded that poverty will continue to exist because it disturbs the unequal balance between the poor and the rich in the society would result in being dysfunctional for the affluent and that will not happen.

In a hierarchical society like America’s, there will always be someone at the bottom end of the totem pole.