What is the Opposite of Poverty?

"The opposite of poverty is not wealth; its justice."

I was watching television when I heard this comment, and my first reaction was to dismiss the statement because everyone knows that poverty and wealth are at the opposite ends of the socioeconomic spectrum. Wealth even helps define poverty by allowing the context which permits poverty to be noticed. As far as data and facts go, these two conditions are joined at the hip. Of course they are opposites... There you have it: case closed. After I had internally dismantled this argument in my head, I felt it was time to solve other existential problems so I went to my kitchen, fixed a sandwich, and began focusing my powers on world peace and the Pittsburgh Steelers inability to get into the playoffs.

But something was troubling me so I postponed utopia and the Super Bowl.

Maybe I had been too quick to render judgment on this idea. On the surface, the argument seems like simple logic: poverty and wealth are viewed as opposites because they are so far apart on the same sliding scale. However, the more I thought about it, the more I changed my mind. Poverty and wealth might not be opposite as much as they are indicators for a system that produces both. They are symptoms, not structures. Perhaps it is fair to argue that justice is the opposite of poverty because if every person has the same rights it is unjust for people to live a life of not having enough (impoverishment) to meet their basic needs.

Please allow me some leeway. I am not declaring everyone deserves to be wealthy because morally obtained wealth often derives from hard work and effort. Inherited wealth must be maintained, which also requires some amount of work. My point is not to rail on hard-working people who have earned wealth. I am happy for them. But I do believe it is unjust for so many men, women, and children to live in a country where there are structures and obstacles in place that keep them in poverty. In a just society, people would have equal opportunities to not be prisoners of poverty.

Housing, education, health care, employment. These are not privileges. They are tools needed to survive and in a just world, no one would be deprived of access to any of them. Now, whether an individual chooses to refuse them is an entirely different matter. But my experience working with the homeless has shown me that most people living in poverty want more than just having these things: they want the opportunity to earn them. They want to participate in the same structure that provides wealth because it has been shut off to them for various reasons, some of which are results of self-destructive behavior, but more often than not, the reasons are not their fault. Circumstances too often dictate who is the recipient of harshness and deprevity.

Opportunity is everything for our residents. Justice is served every time they are allowed to improve their lot by hard work and the chance to participate in the community by working, living, and contributing like everyone else. Justice is demonstrated when people can make a living and earn wages that allow them to do more than survive week to week. Poverty is the opposite of justice because it stands for everything justice seeks to eliminate: opportunity.