Over time I came to see that Marxist worldview assumptions do far more to harm the poor than to help them. It did not see the poor as fully human, created in the image of God, with dignity, responsibility, and the capacity to create new wealth and new opportunities. My former Marxist-influenced worldview saw them largely as helpless victims, dependent upon the actions of beneficent Westerners to overcome poverty. This fostered a destructive sense of paternalism and guilt on one side, and a damaging sense of dependency and entitlement on the other.
