Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 10.djvu/354

 342 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

The third division has so far to do with the causes of indi- vidual poverty as certain circumstances can be foreseen which render the individual, either for a time or permanently, incapable of earning his bread. Such especially are disease, accident, dis- ability, age, widowhood, and orphanage. The most important measures in this division are those comprised under the different forms of labor insurance, divided into sick, disability, old-age, accident, out-of-work, and survivors' insurance. Such insurance may rest chiefly on the basis of legal compulsion, as in Germany and Austria, or on the basis of friendly societies, as in England and America; which, however, are to be found in the first- mentioned countries also. Labor insurance stands in its effects next to poor-relief, in that in single cases it removes or mitigates the consequences of penury. It has this difference, however, from poor-relief that here the claim is based on the ground of an acquired right. On a similar basis rest the claims on the state, church, and corporations for pensions, retiring allowances, or maintenance of widows and orphans.

Sharply divided from these measures for the advance of general prosperity, of self-help, and of social prophylaxis, there exist, in the last place, the measures against poverty which consti- tute poor-relief proper. The man whom these general measures for the public good have not been able to prevent from falling into poverty; who, in the case of lost capacity to earn his living, or want of work, cannot fall back on the help of those upon whom he has some special claim, nor has the right to claim help from insurance such a man has no other resource than to accept out- side help, which is offered by poor-relief and charity a help which has this peculiarity that it stands outside the compass of that reciprocal service which determines and sets definite bounds to all other economic relations. The results of this peculiar rela- tionship are plainly recognizable on the side of both giver and receiver. The giver is inclined to limit his gifts to what is only absolutely necessary, because he gives without return ; the receiver is humiliated by the gift, because he can do nothing in return. Hardness on the one side, bitterness on the other, are conse- quently in great measure bound up with the exercise of poor-