"The mother of revolution and crime is poverty"(Aristotle) Do YOu Agree?

Revolution is a drastic and far-reaching change in ways of thinking and behaving. Crime is an action or an instance of negligence that is deemed injurious to the public welfare or morals or to the interests of the state and that is legally prohibited. While poverty is a state or condition of having little or no money, goods, or means of support; condition of being poor; indigence. Aristotle states that poverty exercise control and influence to both revolution and crime. Poverty causes a great impact on the society. Poverty has shown its effect in terms of employment, living standards and even housing. However there are other factors of revolution and crime.

Studies have shown that the poor are caught in a cycle of poverty due to income stagnation in their jobs. In Singapore this situation is still valid. An article reports that Madam Aishah Mohamed Yunos, 30, due to a poverty left school at primary 6, and because of her lack of education in today’s meritocracy system, she is assigned to blue collared jobs or manual labour. She keeps the neighbourhood spick and span, but paid only a very small sum of $400, without any pay rise in two years of job. However she feels that people who are illiterate should be satisfied with what they have, thus they do not ask for more. Also with the influx of foreign workers people like madam aishah will receive tougher competition, which just results in her having an even lower pay. Therefore someone who is poor is unable to afford good education, causing one to be doing the blue collared jobs with miserable pays. Thus one will always remain in the cycle of poverty. As Singapore globalize, there would always be this group of people which remains in the cycle of income stagnation. This would only result in the poor always thinking that just because of their lack in education, they should be happy with what they have and have no right to disagree to this situation.

As these people living in poverty just have to accept their fate with a job that pay crumbs, they have to live with these small sum that only allows them just enough to eat. In an expanding economy in Singapore, all starting salaries of all occupational groups rose except one – the cleaners and labourers. With lower living standards as the society improves it would cause these poor people to desire to be like the rich or sometimes they just have insufficient money to afford living in this economy, thus it results in people turning to crime. Thus poverty also leads to crime because research has shown a mother who is a cleaner earns only about $500 per month, which is hardly enough to feed herself not mentioning the family.

As a result of the economic upswing recently, prices of housing have rose significantly.
With a rise in housing prices, it makes it harder for the poor to maintain their house, or even buying one that is of better condition. With income stagnation, this group of people would always live in poverty, causing housing to be a problem. When house prices rise to a really unaffordable range, these people will just have to live in slums or sleep in gardens. Therefore as the country aims to prosper and globalize, the majority will improve their standards of living together with the country, but there would still be this group of minority that are seen without proper housing. This problem could be solved with help from the government as they give subsidies to the needy in terms of the housing development board (HDB). However, as the economy continues to improve the government cannot continue to provide help in monetary terms, thus it is crucial to solve the root of the problem: helping these needy to get a good education, which allows them a better life.

However, there are other factors that lead to revolution and crime. For example, race, gender or religion discrimination. All these might cause a revolution, as seen from Hitler’s acts back then. Also, from a long time ago till a few years back, china wasn’t a very developed country because of mild xenophobia. They did not open up their market to foreigners. Today’s china is no longer like the past; it is becoming more and more similar to Singapore, especially the cities like Shanghai. All these just prove that discrimination or getting rid of discrimination can also cause a revolution.

Moreover, studies have shown that some people who rob do not do it because they cannot afford it. On the contrary, they are quite well off. The mother of crime is not only poverty that might be one of the factors but definitely not the only one. People sometimes turn to crime due to peer pressure, where bad influence of friends encourage them to rob or steal. Sometimes they just want to enjoy the trill of doing something against the law and escaping punishment. The idea of resorting to unscrupulous means to achieve one’s goal is due to greed. Therefore, I agree that poverty are one of the sources of crime but its mother is definitely greed instead.

On a whole, poverty could cause revolution and crime, but poverty is definitely not the only ‘mother’ and neither the main one. Revolution and crime are both the cause of men actions, thus the mindsets of men definitely play a very crucial role.