Condition of Existence

The on-going creation and re-absorption of a surplus population--a process always accompanied by insecurity, poverty and misery for those who inhabit it--is one of the "conditions of existence" (in Marx's words) of the capitalist accumulation process.41 Without it, economic development in a capitalist society would not be possible. Canadian sociologist W.E. Mann observes that:

Any serious student of economics or sociology... realizes that the roots of poverty in Canada and the U.S. reach down into the depths of our social system .... In fact, as long as our economy is dominated by monopoly capitalism or any other form of such enterprise, and our society is permeated by values of personal gain, the primacy of private property and the protection of the wealthy, a great deal of poverty will be inevitable.42

Similarly, Canadian economist Cy Gonick asserts that:

However much capitalism has changed in modern times one thing seems certain: it has not yet relegated poverty to a residual position in Canada or in any other western economy. Nor...is it likely to.43

He asserts that the "root condition that generates poverty" in a capitalist society like Canada is "capitalism itself". 44

Clearly this conclusion is in direct conflict with the view of adherents of the liberal perspective, who locate the principal cause of the unemployment and poverty of the 1950's and 1960's period in the low level of educational attainment of the workforce. As we discovered in a previous section, the low educational attainment of hinterland workers before 1950 was itself a consequence of the same economic structure that after 1950 proceeded to impoverish them. Therefore, for the liberal perspective to place the onus on workers--i.e. their low level of educational attainment--is to indulge in "blaming the victim".