Description
Why are there so many poor people in America? Why, in a country with twenty trillion dollars, do eight million American children live below the poverty line of $27,000? The answer, provided in Matthew Desmond’s remarkable book, Poverty, By America, is that Americans are poor because we want them to be–the poor are an exploited class, and both political parties, businesses, banks, and landlords have created a system intended to keep millions of Americans living in poverty. George Ovitt recommends reading the book before the lecture, but it is not required.
George Ovitt has been teaching at Albuquerque Academy since 2000. Before that he taught at Sidwell Friends School and Drexel University. He is the author of eight books, the most recent a collection of short essays on literature and politics, Trotsky’s Sink, written with his colleague, Peter Nash.