The article presents the main aspects treated in the book Les Pauvres [1907], by Georg Simmel, on the poor and poverty. The author starts from the intersubjective relations of the obligation of giving, in the action of giving/receiving, advancing in ampler theoretical propositions, such as: the relations between ethics, morals and society; the articulation between the particular and the general, based in the dependence position of the poor regarding the collectivity; the passage from the abstract notion of poverty to the regulatory forms of the assistance and its social objectivation in the form of public and/ or private institutions of assistance. At the end the author establishes some connections between Simmel's analysis and the contemporary perspective of theory of giving in relation to social protection, especially on the minimum citizenship income. When analyzing the situation of poverty, Simmel directs, in the theoretical and analytical plan, a fertile analysis about social structuring.
social theory; Georg Simmel; poverty; theory of the giving; citizenship