... irrelevant, due to the welfare system and societies development, this has instigated materialistic needs and desires. This leads us to the second definition known as relative poverty. Relative poverty exists in most modern societies today. It refers to a general standard of living, which is acceptable individually to our social and cultural needs, it exceeds basic biological need and incorporates materialistic desires through socialisation. This definition appears more relevant to British society today, as it takes into account development of changing societies. However, this definition is very difficult to determine, how do we decide at what point in time necessity includes, for example, a home computer, was it year 2000 or is it today in 2005? Although relative poverty features in societies today, during the period of 1601 to 1834 Britain suffered widespread absolute poverty. Throughout pre industrial times Britain was a feudal state, whereby the population operated under a ...

See this essay or coursework document in full right now