Límites de la historia social clásica de la pobreza y la asistencia en España

Abstract

In the context of the four stages of Spanish historiography on poverty and aid, this paper analyses the purposes which have driven every generation of historians. These are the underlying purposes of the global systems of every historical moment, which depend on the ideology of each stage of historiography, from providentialism to post-modernism, including liberalism and historical materialism. Its strongest constraints were imposed by the classical and patriarchal reasoning applied to the economy and society, as it is system and not people-oriented, it is restricted to the dialectic method, and focuses on abstract, collective and institutional subjects of the favoured, the Crown, the State or social class. The final effect was the weak presence of the cognisant individual and the dehumanization of social history.