Problem dzisiejszej Ameryki: ubóstwo pośród obfitości

The article deals with analysis of socio-economic contraditions characteristic for capitalist economy. The authors focus their attention on only one protolem being perhaps the most painful and paradoxical expression of these contradictions, namely on the problem of poverty. This problem is analyzed against the example of the US ecqnomy. The article contains first of all: a brief history of recognizing poverty as a social problem and of attempts made by the state to curb this phenomenon, problem of definition of the state of poverty, scope of the discussed phendmenon and dynamics of its changes over last few years as well as structure of poverty in different cross-sections. Analysis of sources of poverty, constituting the next and last part of the article, proceeds in direction of polemics with bourgeois thesis about "poverty of one’s own choice".