Abandoning jubilee: The structural causes of poverty

The jubilee law of Leviticus 25 is a radical economic plan that requires a leveling of real assets every fifty years, thus providing an economic structure that regularly dissolves large economic inequalities. Following the letter of the jubilee law in a modern non-agrarian economy is not possible, but this fact should not free us from the responsibility of adhering to the spirit of the law. A survey of social structures in the United States reveals an economy that is contrary to the spirit of jubilee—one that not only makes inequalities possible, but also makes escaping from poverty nearly impossible