Productivity and Virtue: Elite Categories of the Poor in Bangladesh

Based on research into elite attitudes toward poverty, this paper explores the political significance of elite categories of the poor in Bangladesh. While Bangladeshi elites do not divide the poor according to moral desert, they prioritize support for those among the poor viewed as potentially productive. The implications of these attitudes to the poor are explored through the example of a pension program for the elderly poor, and in a discussion of how elite categories of the poor influence the urgency and manner in which poverty is treated on the domestic political agenda.