Class Discrimination

“The mother of revolution and crime is poverty” Do You Agree?

Revolutions are significant changes that usually occur in a relatively short period of time, which have been happening throughout human history and might result in a socio-political change in the socio-political institutions, or a major change in a culture or economy. Crime is seen as deviant behaviour that violates prevailing norms, specifically, cultural standards prescribing how humans ought to behave.

I agree to a large extent that the mother of revolution and crime is poverty. In an article by Wayne Arnold, in the International Herald Tribune, it was clearly stated that even though the average wages in Singapore were rising with the economy, the incomes among the bottom 30 percent of households had fallen since 2000. This implies that the income gap between the populations of Singapore had widened. While the rich are getting richer, the poor are also getting poorer. If the poorer population starts having financial difficulties in order to survive, they might become desperate and end up resorting to crime and even forming up revolutions. Another example would be from the article by Geert De Clercq, under Yahoo! News Singapore, it states that one in three students on government scholarships came from wealthy families, which only make up 13 percent of Singapore households. Whereas, students from households of incomes less than $2,000 only make up 7 percent of scholarship winners, this further amplify the problem of income disparity, and thus resulting in the same problems as stated above.

Even though I agree to a large extent that poverty is the root of revolution and crime, there are also other causes to those. Crimes might be committed out of greed, fun or revenge, it might also be a tool for attracting attention of others, and poverty does not necessary leads to crime as even the wealthy commit crimes. Revolutions may have come about due to propaganda or formed by a group of displeased people, whom might not necessary come from families with poor backgrounds.

On the whole, I conclude that crimes and revolutions are mainly brought about due to poverty, desperation can cause people to do things against their will, all for the sake of survival. Moreover, I am sure that once the issue of income gap have been minimized or resolved, the number of crimes and revolutions will certainly decrease too.