 Although the first chapter of Addams’ Democracy and Social Ethics is ostensibly a critique of charity workers and their preconceived notions of the needs of the destitute, it also reveals Addams’ disposition toward the poor and the oppressed. She decries the historical position of blaming the victim: “Formerly, when it was believed that poverty was synonymous with vice and laziness and that the prosperous man was the righteous man, charity was administered harshly with a good conscience; for the charitable agent really blamed the individual for his poverty, and the very fact of his own superior prosperity gave him a certain consciousness of superior morality” (DSE 11–12). Such a judgment serves to separate the wealthy from the poor. Accordingly, the rich can make progress intellectually, materially, technologically, etc., while the poor are thought to be left behind primarily due to their own actions. Addams argues that the poor are often victims of circumstance and that it is society’s responsibility to first understand marginalized people and then develop means for their participation in lateral progress.