All Souls: Is Poverty a Choice?

In some cases poverty can be a choice, but in most cases it isn't. Obviously, being born into poverty isn't a choice, and that's how most people are placed into a situation of poverty. In the case of the MacDonalds in All Souls, poverty is verging on being a choice. Michael's mother could have had fewer children, finished school, and gotten a good job. She definitely had the potential at one point to lift her family out of the projects, more than most of the other families, but overall they enjoyed that lifestyle. It was more of an unconscious decision, but it wouldn't have been too hard to predict that that's where they'd end up. It may be sort of an unconscious decision for others too.  If someone is born into an impoverished family and community, that is all they know. Maybe they have the ability to lift themselves or their families out of poverty, but they just don't know how because no one in the community has done so. These people are not to blame for their situation, but it's possible that it's not as hard for some people to get out of poverty as it might seem.