Townsend on poverty definition, and the Adam Smith poverty fallacy

Seebohm Rowntree’s three studies of York, England in 1899, 1936 and 1950 set the scene for Townsend’s intervention on poverty definition. Townsend (Reference Townsend1954) noted the disparity between Rowntree’s (Reference Rowntree1901: 86) absolutist definition (lacking “the minimum necessaries for the maintenance of merely physical efficiency” – and his empirical work’s use of working-class standards specific to time and place. Indeed, from 1936 the budgets he based his poverty lines on allowed for the purchase of a “wireless” (radio) (Rowntree, Reference Rowntree1941: 28). Moreover, Rowntree’s detailed assessments of human needs recognised that people’s optimal calorie requirement varies according to their social role, and that the type and cost of food they tend to eat varies according to social context (see Rowntree, Reference Rowntree1937: 53-85).

Veit-Wilson’s (Reference Veit-Wilson1986) influential article showed that Rowntree deployed his absolutist poverty definition to ensure his individualist critics could not claim real poverty did not exist; because Rowntree neither qualified nor elaborated upon his definition (poverty definition was not widely debated at the time) his empirical work has not been widely recognised as “relativist” (Veit-Wilson, Reference Veit-Wilson1986: 70). Veit-Wilson (Reference Veit-Wilson1986: 91, 93) cited Townsend’s comparison of Rowntree’s “narrowly relativistic” empirical work (see Townsend, Reference Townsend1979: 38) with his own “thoroughgoing relativism” (see Townsend, Reference Townsend1979: 33). Townsend’s characterisation of the two’s work has gone unchallenged, as it is accepted that Rowntree “did not try to argue that the poverty line itself should automatically move upwards in line with the general standard of living” (Harris, Reference Harris, Bradshaw and Sainsbury2000: 77). As Townsend (Reference Townsend and Townsend1970: 12-13) observed, Rowntree’s upward revisions to his poverty line “fell midway between price and wage increases and, accordingly, he found smaller proportions in poverty at successive dates than he would have found if a strictly relative standard had been used”.

In his early critique Townsend noted that Rowntree had not explained why some items necessary for social participation, such as “newspapers”, were included in his budget calculations but not others, such as “cosmetics” (Townsend, Reference Townsend1954: 131). Townsend at first appeared to merely advocate incorporating a more complete and generous understanding of working-class people’s needs into what poverty means:

However, his subsequent definition asserted that people “are in poverty” if they “fall seriously short of the resources commanded by the average individual or family in the community in which they live” (Townsend, Reference Townsend1962: 224).

Townsend’s focus on the entire community’s standards was a clear departure from Rowntree’s work. When Townsend later referred to this difference between them, he alluded to having a broader sociological canvas. Citing Seebohm Rowntree as an example, he observed that “Much of the British liberal tradition in social sciences involves the portrayal of the poor relative to the secure working class, rather than the full range of social stratification”; he contrasted this tradition with Friedrich Engels’ (Reference Engels1892) ‘Condition of the Working Class in England’ which “perceives so clearly the structural relationship between privilege and want” (Townsend, Reference Townsend1975: 32). Because Townsend sought to include all social ranks’ living conditions in his poverty analysis, he favoured ‘mean’-based income poverty lines – a “low” line set at 80 per cent of mean income and a “very low” line at 50 per cent (Townsend, Reference Townsend1979: 248); he explained that if the “median” (i.e. one based on the incomes of the 50^th/51st percentile) were used “the income ‘capacity’ of a country might be concealed in cross-national comparisons if a tiny percentage of the population have exceptionally high incomes” (ibid: 248).

Despite Townsend’s early socialist writing railing against the post-war cross-party political consensus view that pursuing economic growth should take precedence over reducing economic inequality (for example, Townsend, Reference Townsend and Mackenzie1958), he portrayed his poverty definition as a development of earlier contributions by non-socialists. When offering justification for shifting the meaning of poverty, he quoted the following comments by Adam Smith and Alfred Marshall (see Townsend, Reference Townsend1962: 219):

Townsend stated that “In our own day there is everything to be said for returning unashamedly to the broad theoretical outlook of these early economists” (Townsend, Reference Townsend1962: 219). The same connection between Smith’s work and Townsend’s purely relative definition has been made countless times since, including in landmark poverty publications (such as Atkinson, Reference Atkinson1970: 17; Coates and Silburn, Reference Coates and Silburn1973: 36; Mack and Lansley, Reference Mack and Lansley1985: 26-7) and when a Conservative Party think tank was converted to Townsend’s definition (Clark and Franklin, Reference Clark and Franklin2006: 6). These citations continue (Lister, Reference Lister2021: 30; Portes, Reference Portes and Tucker2020: 31). Until now no author has argued that Smith and Marshall’s position is not consistent with Townsend’s purely relative definition but is consistent with the more narrowly relative view of poverty that prevailed before Townsend’s work first appeared.

There is no evidence that the way poverty was investigated before Townsend’s intervention was inconsistent with Smith’s view. Smith (Reference Smith2012 [1776]: 871) restricted his ‘necessaries’ to what “nature…renders necessary” plus time-and-place specific basics which, if absent, would publicly shame the “lowest rank of society”; thus, he deemed “sugar”, “tea” and “ale” non-necessaries (p.872). Smith’s oft-cited (including by Townsend, Reference Townsend1979: 32) example of a “linen shirt”, which labourers in most of Eighteenth Century Europe needed despite it being unavailable to ancient Greeks and Romans (2012 [1776]: 871), is echoed in Rowntree’s (Reference Rowntree1901: ix) “workmen’s budgets”, which allowed for the cost of “clothing” appropriate for “obtaining respectable employment” (Rowntree, Reference Rowntree1901: 108).

The measurement of poverty was an uncontroversial topic before Townsend’s time, with Rowntree following Charles Booth’s empirical approach and Arthur Bowley merely refining Rowntree’s methods (Veit-Wilson, Reference Veit-Wilson1986). As Townsend (Reference Townsend1954: 131) noted after referring to Rowntree’s 1899 survey, “studies that followed in the next forty years” used “standards…for measuring poverty” that “were broadly the same”. If poverty authors had all contradicted the view of the era’s most notable British economist (and founder of neoclassical economics) Alfred Marshall, who described Smith as a “genius” (Marshall, Reference Marshall1946: 626), this contradiction might have been documented before Townsend’s time. Yet there is no evidence of this in surviving papers, such as correspondence between Marshall and his friend Bowley (see Pigou, Reference Pigou1925, 427-30).

A key premise of Townsend’s purely relative poverty definition, and perhaps his writing’s most striking characteristic (see, especially, 1958; 1970; Reference Townsend1975), opposes a key theme of Adam Smith’s ‘Wealth of Nations’ – that a rise in real national average income (per se, and even if resource distribution remains unchanged) improves the lives of a nation’s poorest citizens. The theme is emphasised in its ‘Introduction’ (2012 [1776]: 3-5) and returned to numerous times; for example, in a less known reference to linen he enthuses about capitalist (what he called ‘commercial’) society’s “great improvements in the coarser manufactories of both linen and woollen cloth” which “furnish the labourers with both cheaper and better clothing” (2012 [1776]: 83). The theme surfaces in Smith’s other major works (see Gilbert, Reference Gilbert1997); he claims that commercial society’s economic growth will eventually deliver an “opulence” that “extends to the lowest member of the community” (Smith, A, 1978 [1762-66]: 564), whereby “poverty is easily avoided” (Smith, A, 1976 [1759]: 205). Furthermore, Townsend’s support for large-scale redistribution contrasts sharply with Smith, who was entirely uncritical of class structure and saw income inequality as an essential stimulant to the economic growth that helps all (see Baum, Reference Baum1992; Smith, C., 2020: 176). Even authors seeking to rescue Smith from some of his right-wing admirers’ portrayals have not challenged these assertions (examples include Fleischacker, Reference Fleischacker2004; McLean, Reference McLean2006).

Marshall shared Smith’s view that distribution-neutral increases in real national income per head improve people’s lives. Rowntree’s biographer Asa Briggs (Reference Briggs1961: 24) discovered that “among Rowntree’s surviving papers are copies of a bundle of Marshall’s early letters to the press”, including one entitled “Wealth and Want: Do They Increase Together?” This supposed ‘letter’ appears, in fact, to have been an 1883 lecture, given in Bristol, England, and published in local newspapers the following day (see Marshall, Reference Marshall1969). As its title suggests, it was written in opposition to Henry George’s (Reference George1879) book. In the lecture, Marshall (Reference Marshall1969) pointed to improvements in working class life caused by capitalism, such as “railways”, “gaslight in towns” (p.188), and the value of working-class London wages increasing from “two pecks of wheat” in 1730 to “about five” at present (p.186). Rowntree’s retention of this lecture by Marshall (who Briggs [Reference Briggs1961: 24] described as an “outstanding guide” to Rowntree), shows his awareness of counter-arguments to Townsend’s.

Townsend on socially created need, and Wilhelm Schulz on ‘relative poverty’

Amartya Sen prompted Townsend’s only published response to criticism of his ‘purely relative’ definition for its implication that society-wide, distribution-neutral increases in real income do not improve people’s lives:

Townsend’s (Reference Townsend1985a) reply acknowledged no merit in these points, and it appeared to imply that such ‘gains shared by all’ are nullified by a corresponding increase in socially created need. The following assertion, interpretable as responding to Sen’s points, expresses his view that the extent of poverty should be understood (and measured via detached scientific observation) as needs society has created but failed to satisfy:

This was a reiteration of Townsend’s (Reference Townsend1979: 917) structuralist view that he quoted in response to Piachaud’s (Reference Piachaud1981) point that poverty cannot be measured objectively (Townsend, Reference Townsend1981: 477). Both replies mentioned sociology. Townsend’s (Reference Townsend1985a: 659) “sociological” reply to Sen attributed the latter’s underestimation of socially created need to “individualism which is rooted in neo-classical economics” (ibid: 668). Townsend’s (Reference Townsend1981: 477) reply to Piachaud connected his own work to “the material and often radical basis of much present sociology”.

Yet Townsend’s (Reference Townsend1979) major work did not name sociologists who shared his view on the extent of socially created need. Its index did not feature ‘need/s’, and his discussion of manufactured needs was limited to mentions of the role of advertising (p.58-59) and the influence of the rich on prevailing lifestyle preferences (p.366-67). These two points chime with his extended poverty definition’s reference to “activities and living conditions” that are “widely encouraged and approved” (p.31), but he connected neither point to any relevant academic publications, such as Marcuse (Reference Marcuse1964). Only in his later review of Mack and Lansley’s (Reference Mack and Lansley1985) book, when reiterating his view of the general public’s “socially conditioned” and hence “severely limited conception of need” (Townsend, Reference Townsend1979: 914), did Townsend invoke Engels’ term (see Starks and Junisbai, Reference Starks, Junisbai and Ritzer2007: 1568) “false consciousness”, noting that individuals might not be “aware of their enslavement” (Townsend, Reference Townsend1985b: 44). Indeed, Townsend’s account of socially constructed need is similar to Karl Marx’s.

Marx probably developed his position on need from Hegel’s (Reference Hegel1975) [1820] view that human needs tend to multiply (see Lebowitz, Reference Lebowitz2003: 31). As Lebowitz (Reference Lebowitz2003: 32-44) notes, Marx split human needs into ‘necessary needs’ (the costs of maintaining labour, which are satisfied) and ‘social needs’ (further needs created by expanded production, which are not satisfied). Reminiscent of Townsend, Marx saw the gap between these satisfied and unsatisfied needs as demarcating the depth of workers’ ‘immiseration’. With production and needs expanding in parallel, workers are therefore no nearer to satisfying their social needs, yet they have been sucked further into a system that exploits them both as workers and consumers (see also Coates and Bodington, 1976):

Marx’s purely relative understanding of human needs (see also chapter six of ‘Wage Labour and Capital’ [see Marx, Reference Marx1970: 82-4]), is matched by the following passage he quoted:

Wilhelm Schulz not only used the phrase ‘relative poverty’ (“relative armuth” in the original German [1843: 66]) which Smith did not, he established the following idea that was central to Townsend’s work: because material needs grow with economic output per head, the extent of a person’s poverty is determined by her/his position in relation to national average income (though, in the quotation, perhaps Schulz meant that the worker had become poorer by a quarter, not a third). Therefore, Wilhelm Schulz, not Adam Smith, must be considered the originator of the purely relative poverty idea Townsend later developed.

Marx’s ‘Wages of Labour’ book (2011 [1844]: 12-23), which included the Schulz ‘relative poverty’ quotation, appears to have been provoked by Smith’s similarly titled ‘Of the Wages of Labour’ (2012 [1776]: 69-92). In it, Smith had contrasted growing economies with “stationary” economies such as China, commenting that “The poverty of the lower ranks of people in China far surpasses that of the most beggarly nations in Europe” (p.76). Marx quoted Smith’s view that “No society can surely be flourishing and happy, of which the far greater part of the members are poor and miserable” (2012 [1776]: 83) and replied (2011 [1844]: 15): “according to Smith, a society is not happy, of which the greater part suffers – yet even the wealthiest state of society leads to this suffering of the majority”. This captures their opposing views on the condition of the working class in a growing capitalist economy: for Marx it is immiseration, for Smith improvement. Indeed, this article’s separation of Marx, Townsend and Schulz’s purely relative views around poverty and need from the more narrowly relative positions of Smith, Rowntree and Marshall has served to highlight an accompanying difference of opinion about whether a distribution-neutral increase in an unequal society’s real average income delivers actual social improvement.

Despite the gap Townsend noted between his and the British public’s view on the extent of need (see above), and despite British Social Attitudes surveys “consistently” finding that “fewer than one-third…accept a thoroughgoing relativist definition of poverty” (Lister, Reference Lister2021: 40), Townsend’s view of what constitutes poverty is nevertheless said to be consistent with evidence of what people in Britain and elsewhere have classed as necessities. In the next part this evidence is re-examined.

Empirical evidence and the purely relative definition

In a rare discussion of possible evidential justifications for a purely relative measure/definition of poverty, Ravallion (Reference Ravallion2016: 107-9) insisted it must satisfy at least one of two assumptions: 1. The relative cost of social inclusion is the same in any society; 2. Human wellbeing is unaffected by absolute material resources at a given relative position (as implied by Marx). Ravallion suggests the first is invalid because the relative cost will be lower in richer countries (see p.108). He dismisses the second as “a very strong assumption” (p.109); like Sen’s (Reference Sen1983), Ravallion’s expertise is “rooted in third world economies” (Townsend, Reference Townsend1985a: 663), where suffering is often seen to be alleviated by rising prosperity. For example, India’s extreme (or ‘absolute’) poverty rate (measured as below $1.90 per day at 2011 prices, at Purchasing Power Parity [PPP]) declined from 46 per cent (1993) to 21 per cent (2011), almost entirely due to economic growth (see Bourguignon, Reference Bourguignon and Atkinson2019: 223). Conversely, in the richest countries the comparative infrequency of emergency material conditions serves to highlight the impact of relative disadvantage upon, for example, subjective wellbeing (see Frey and Stutzer, Reference Frey and Stutzer2002). Evidence of what the world’s publics consider to be necessities can shed light on the validity of Ravallion’s first assumption; it will be supported if differences between what publics in different countries (and eras) regard as necessities are broadly consistent with respective differences in real national income per head.

Mack and Lansley’s Reference Mack and Lansley(1985) ‘socially perceived necessities’

Research on publicly determined necessities, often called the ‘consensual approach’, was pioneered by Joanna Mack and Stewart Lansley. They defined poverty as “an enforced lack of socially perceived necessities” (Mack and Lansley, Reference Mack and Lansley1985: 45). Lists of possible necessities are developed among focus groups, but findings avoid group dynamic effects because they require endorsement by a majority of survey respondents. Respondents are asked to distinguish ‘necessities’ from items that “might be ‘desirable’ but [are] not necessary” (Mack and Lansley, Reference Mack and Lansley1985: 52).

Mack and Lansley’s approach incorporated Piachaud’s (Reference Piachaud1981) criticism that Townsend’s (Reference Townsend1979) ‘deprivation indicators’ included items that people might consider unimportant or choose to go without. Mack and Lansley (Reference Mack and Lansley1985: 36-7) rejected Townsend’s “concept of ‘need’ that is outside people’s feelings and experiences”, suggesting that, therefore, his work “tells us a great deal about inequality…But it tells us nothing about poverty”.

Nevertheless, PSE authors claim that Townsend’s “notion of poverty” finds “strong public support” from research using the “consensual deprivation approach” (Bramley and Bailey, Reference Bramley, Bailey, Bramley and Bailey2018: 344), and Lansley and Mack (Reference Lansley and Mack2013: 23) maintain that “surveys in poor, middle income and rich countries” show people are “committed relativists”. Arguing against Niemietz’s (Reference Niemietz2011: 108) rejection of Ravallion’s first assumption, Lansley and Mack (Reference Lansley and Mack2013) noted that “Niemietz produces no real evidence” (p.5) before pointing to Breadline Britain/PSE items voted necessities in 1999 but not 1983 (“a telephone” and “an outfit for special occasions”, p.6). Until now the extent to which socially perceived necessities evidence is consistent with Townsend’s purely relative view of poverty and material need has not been explored in detail. This review draws upon all known surveys that followed Mack and Lansley’s approach. Its main question is: are countries’ socially perceived necessities at least broadly proportionate to their purchasing power per head?

The Breadline Britain/PSE studies

Breadline Britain/PSE surveys offer a unique opportunity to monitor changes over several decades to a country’s socially perceived necessitiesFootnote ² . Since 1999 the project has included a specific children’s study; so for better comparability only adult necessities are discussed here, and this applies to all research reviewed below. To aid comparison, Table 1 collates all years’ findings.

TABLE 1. Percentages who voted items a ‘necessity’ for adults, and percentages who indicated they did not have a ‘necessity’ because they could not afford it

Source: Breadline Britain/PSE findings, (from Mack and Lansley, Reference Mack and Lansley1985: 54, 89; Gordon and Pantazis, 1997: 297; Gordon et al., Reference Gordon, Levitas, Pantazis, Patsios, Payne, Townsend, Adelman, Ashworth, Middleton, Bradshaw and Williams2000: 14-15; Lansley and Mack Reference Lansley and Mack2015: 19, 42).

Evidence indicates that socially perceived necessities’ value has not increased by as much as either the 77 per cent (median) or 88 per cent (mean) that real disposable income increased between 1983 and 2012 (ONS, 2020: 3). Only once was an item which was voted a necessity in 2012 voted a non-necessity in one of the earlier surveys (a telephone, which scored 43 per cent in 1983); yet on 14 occasions a 2012 ‘non-necessity’ was earlier voted a necessity. The 13 items that were not included in 1983 yet voted necessities in 2012 were not ‘new’ – all were available in 1983 (neither a mobile phone nor internet access was voted a necessity in 2012, although both votes were considerably higher than in 1999).

The PSE team suggest that the 2012 fall in the number of socially perceived necessities reflects “reduced public expectations” due to harsher economic times, pointing out that “median incomes in 2011/12 were almost identical to those in 2001/02 in real terms” (Bailey and Bramley, Reference Bailey, Bramley, Bramley and Bailey2018: 10). Yet real median incomes were 11 per cent higher in 2011/12 than in 1998/99 (Carr et al., Reference Carr, Councell, Higgs and Singh2014: 3). Furthermore, real median income growth of over a quarter between 1983 and 1990 did not produce a spike in items voted necessities; only the two Lansley and Mack (Reference Lansley and Mack2013) mentioned in response to Niemietz (Reference Niemietz2011) passed 50 per cent, increasing their votes by just 13 and six percentage points.

Thus, Breadline Britain/PSE evidence does not support the view that socially perceived needs grow broadly in parallel with real national income per head. This conclusion sits well with UK aggregate savings (and hence mortgage demand) being much larger during periods of growing prosperity; the Department of Housing, Communities and Local Government (2018: 7) estimated that, because of this savings effect, between 1991 and 2016 each one per cent increase in real disposable income precipitated a two per cent rise in real house prices.

Two Comparative studies: West Africa and Europe

This section asks if two groups of countries’ socially perceived necessity lists vary as much as their average incomes. Pomati and Nandy (Reference Pomati and Nandy2020) compared five similar surveys from Gabon in 2005, Benin in 2006, Mali in 2006, Guinea in 2007, and Liberia in 2010 (Guinea is excluded from discussion here because few items were voted on). The list of necessities voted on in all four remaining countries was: a home, at least two pairs of shoes, a change of clothes, radio, tables and beds, being able to buy a TV, meat or fish every day, three meals every day, cereals or tubers every day, body care (soaps, hair styling etc.), able to take a taxi in an emergency, and having access to water and electricity. All were voted necessities by more than 75 per cent in Benin, Liberia, and Mali, and all scored over 50 per cent in Gabon except cereals/tubers at 40 per cent (see Pomati and Nandy, Reference Pomati and Nandy2020: 114-15). In comparing these findings to Britain’s, note countries’ Gross National Income (GNI) per head at PPP at 2017 prices in the surveys’ years: Benin ($2596), Gabon ($14164), Liberia ($1293) and Mali ($1914)Footnote ³ . Britain’s in 2012 was $42362. The fact that electricity, a radio and a TV were all voted as necessities in four countries with a combined GNI per head at PPP of less than half that of Britain’s indicates that countries’ socially perceived necessity lists vary much less than their average incomes. One other study from a poorer nation is consistent with this view, while another is not. ‘Having a radio or TV’ was voted a necessity in Bangladesh in 2000 (Ahmed, Reference Ahmed2007: 59) which had a GNI per head at PPP of $2002 then, but neither TVs nor radios were voted necessities in the Solomon Islands in 2016 (Fifita et al., Reference Fifita, Najera, Gordon and Nandy2017) where it was $2225 in 2017.

To indicate the European comparative study’s (see Eurobarometer, 2007 Footnote ⁴ ) overall findings (from 27 EU states plus Croatia, which joined shortly afterwards), here are the 14 adult necessities voted for by over 50 per cent of all respondents: medical care when needed (77 per cent), buying medicine when needed (74), indoor flushing toilet (69), no leaking roof or dampness (68), bedding for everyone (68), hot water (67), medical equipment when needed (67), warm winter coat (65), own bath or shower (63), warm home (62), medical and dental checks (62), refrigerator (58), two pairs of shoes appropriate to the climate (58), no risk of eviction from home (57). Items below 50 per cent include new (not second hand) clothes (30), colour TV (19) and a car (17). Considering both comparative studies, findings from one of the world’s richest regions and one of its poorest do not differ anywhere near enough to give support to the view that socially perceived need is proportionate to national average purchasing power.

Studies of unmet socially perceived need

The more a country’s level of unmet need matches its level of relative poverty, rather than its national income per head or its ‘absolute poverty’ rate, the more socially perceived necessities are consistent with a purely relative definition. Findings from all known surveys that asked respondents if they wanted but could not afford their country’s socially perceived necessities are included in Table 2. ‘Unmet need’ figures are produced by aggregating the percentages lacking each socially perceived necessity due to being unable to afford it, and then dividing this aggregated figure by the total number of necessities. Relative poverty data is scarce outside the OECD, so Gini coefficient measures of income inequality are used. While this is a limitation of the review, income inequality is a good proxy as it correlates very strongly (0.8-0.9) with relative poverty rates (see Karagiannaki, Reference Karagiannaki2017: 11).

TABLE 2. Absolute poverty, inequality, national income per head and unmet need in various countries

Sources: World Bank/various publications - Australia - Saunders and Wong (Reference Saunders and Wong2010: 14-18); Benin - Nandy and Pomati (Reference Nandy and Pomati2015: 699); Britain - Mack and Lansley (Reference Mack and Lansley1985: 54, 89); Gordon and Pantazis (1997: 297); Gordon et al. (Reference Gordon, Levitas, Pantazis, Patsios, Payne, Townsend, Adelman, Ashworth, Middleton, Bradshaw and Williams2000: 14-15); Lansley and Mack (Reference Lansley and Mack2015: 19, 42); Hong Kong - Wong and Saunders (Reference Wong and Saunders2012: 26-34); Romania – Stănescu and Dumitru (Reference Stănescu and Dumitru2017: 16-17); Solomon Islands - Fifita et al. (Reference Fifita, Najera, Gordon and Nandy2017: 4-10); Sweden - Hallerod (Reference Hallerod1994: 11); South Africa - Wright and Noble (Reference Wright and Noble2013: 153-54); Notes: ¹Derived using ONS economic growth figures, mid-1983 to mid-1990 ² Estimate from Oxfam: https://www.oxfam.org.hk.

The four countries with easily the highest rates of unmet socially perceived need are the four with the highest levels of absolute poverty and lowest national incomes per head (Table 2). Inequality is not consistent with levels of unmet need, although it appears to influence them; Sweden’s exceptionally low unmet need (3.1 per cent) can be attributed to not only its economic success, but also the low economic inequality of a country governed from 1932 to 1976 by a Party linked to trade unions (Gould, Reference Gould1988). Differences in countries’ perceived necessities appear to stem from differences in material conditions; washing machines and refrigerators were considered necessities in the richest six countries but not the poorest two. Nevertheless, evidence in Table 2 is not consistent with a purely relative definition of poverty, as levels of unmet need are more associated with absolute material conditions than they are with economic inequality.