View source for Poverty consciousness

__NOTOC__
Poverty consiousness denotes a fundamental attitude towards one's means of livelihood. Poverty consiousness stands in direct opposition to prosperity consciousness, and is formulated here as an antidote thereto.

==Prosperity consciousness==
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prosperity_consciousness Prosperity consciousness] is a [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Age new age] philosophy which holds that opening one's mind to the financial opportunities in the world will bring financial wealth into one's life. It is based on the idea that our "thoughts create the reality we see" and that to become wealthy one must first "think wealthy." Such promised "wealth" may be in terms of love, self-esteem and so on, as well as in purely material terms. Prosperity consciousness is to be developed by the  practice of [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affirmations_%28New_Age%29 affirmations], a method of repeating formatted statements (such as "I am becoming richer every day") in order to promote positive thinking and produce results by a supposed [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_Attraction Law of Attraction.]

==Poverty consciousness==
Prosperity consciousness is a striving to be someone else than one is now, with a different amount of wealth, however such wealth may be defined. It is a cultivated dissatisfaction with, and refusal to accept, one's current status. It is moreover an unrealistic and ultimately futile practice. There are steps one can take to improve one's lot in life, but simply trying to "change one's thoughts" or repeating "I am getting rich" are particularly ineffective ways to achieve anything.

In direct opposition to such a futile flight from reality, poverty consciousness is an attempt to acknowledge one's present misery. Life is hard for most of us who work for a living, or who struggle to get by as best we may, and very few of us win the lottery or manage to create a successful startup. Moreover, in a class society, usually only the rich get richer. The more privileged members of society, instead of sitting around repeating "affirmations," are busy putting to use their acquired know-how and social connections to hustle and bustle. Thus poverty consciousness, as the recognition and acceptance of social reality, is close to [[class consciousness]].

But poverty consciousness also has a spiritual dimension. Notice how many religions associate poverty with holiness. We are born with nothing and we take nothing with us when we die. In a sense, poverty is the human condition: we always lack something, and strive to have what we lack, in perpetual frustration, no matter how well off we are. Poverty consciousness is thus the acceptance of this existential lack, and the attempt to be satisfied with what we have.

==Links==
*Wikipedia article on Prosperity Consciousness: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prosperity_consciousness
*Prosperity consciousness on the richbits website: http://www.richbits.com/Money/Acqprospcon.pdf#search=%27prosperity%20consciousness%27
*Prosperity consciousness on the wikihow website: http://www.wikihow.com/Develop-Prosperity-Consciousness

==See also==
*[[Danton's politics]]

[[Category:Psychology]]
[[Category:Politics]]