Rich and Poor By Dr. June Terpstra
Today, across the world, 1. 3 billion people live on less than one dollar a day; 3 billion live on under two dollars a day; 1. 3 billion have no access to clean water; 3 billion have no access to sanitation; 2 billion have no access to electricity
• For the 1. 9 billion children from the developing world, there are: – 640 million without adequate shelter (1 in 3) – 400 million with no access to safe water (1 in 5) – 270 million with no access to health services (1 in 7)
The richest fifth of the world's people consumes 86% of all goods and services while the poorest fifth consumes just 1. 3%.
Indeed, the richest fifth consumes 45% of all meat and fish, 58% of all energy used and 84% of all paper, has 74% of all telephone lines and owns 87% of all vehicles.
The three richest people in the world have assets that exceed the combined gross domestic product of the 48 least developed countries. • • William H. Gates III Age: 43 Nationality: American Martial Status: Married Children: 2 Education: Harvard dropout Worth: $90 Billion • Warren Edward Buffet Age: 68 Nationality: American Marital Status: Married Children: 3 Education: Columbia Worth: $36 Billion • Paul Gardner Allen Age: 46 Nationality: American Marital Status: Single Children: 0 Education: WSU dropout Worth: $30 Billion
Americans spend $8 billion a year on cosmetics--$2 billion more than the estimated total needed to provide basic education for everyone in the world.
Americans and Europeans spend $17 billion a year on pet food--$4 billion more than the estimated annual additional total needed to provide basic health and nutrition for everyone in the world.
It is estimated that the additional cost of achieving and maintaining universal access to basic education for all, basic health care for all, reproductive health care for all women, adequate food for all and clean water and safe sewers for all is roughly $40 billion a year--or less than 4% of the combined wealth of the 225 richest people in the world.
• Hunger persists in the U. S. 38. 2 million people—including 14 million children— live in households that experience hunger or the risk of hunger. This represents more than one in ten households in the United States (11. 9 percent). This is an increase of 1. 9 million, from 36. 3, million in 2003. 1
Following years of decline, participation in the Food Stamp Program has been on the rise over the past two years. In August 2005, over 25. 7 million people participated in the food stamp program. 6
• World’s 100 richest earned enough in 2012 to end global poverty 4 times over • • The world's 100 richest people earned a stunning total of $240 billion in 2012 – enough money to end extreme poverty worldwide four times over, Oxfam has revealed, adding that the global economic crisis is further enriching the super-rich. “The richest 1 percent has increased its income by 60 percent in the last 20 years with the financial crisis accelerating rather than slowing the process, ” while the income of the top 0. 01 percent has seen even greater growth, a new Oxfam report said. For example, the luxury goods market has seen double -digit growth every year since the crisis hit, the report stated. And while the world's 100 richest people earned $240 billion last year, people in "extreme poverty" lived on less than $1. 25 a day. Oxfam is a leading international philanthropy organization. Its new report, ‘The Cost of Inequality: How Wealth and Income Extremes Hurt us All, ’ argues that the extreme concentration of wealth actually hinders the world’s ability to reduce poverty.
Nearly a billion people entered the 21 st century unable to read a book or sign their names
Less than one per cent of what the world spent every year on weapons was needed to put every child into school by the year 2000 and yet it didn't happen. source 4
The poorer the country, the more likely it is that debt repayments are being extracted directly from people who neither contracted the loans nor received any of the money.
Consider the global priorities in spending in billions • • • Cosmetics in the United States 8 Ice cream in Europe 11 Perfumes in Europe and the United States 12 Pet foods in Europe and the United States 17 Business entertainment in Japan 35 Cigarettes in Europe 50 Alcoholic drinks in Europe 105 Narcotics drugs in the world 400 Military spending in the world 780
Costs to achieve universal access to basic social services in all developing countries in billions Basic education for all 6 Water and sanitation for all 9 Reproductive health for all women 12 Basic health and nutrition 13
Acute causes of poverty WARFARE
There are nine soldiers for every one doctor and three soldiers for two teachers
Warfare: The material and human destruction caused by warfare is a major development problem. For example, from 1990 to 1993, the period encompassing Desert Storm, per capita GDP in Iraq fell from $3500 to $761. The drop in average income, while a striking representation of the drop in the well-being of the average Iraqi citizen in the aftermath of the war, fails to capture the broader affects of damages to the infrastructure and social services, such as health care and access to clean water. Can you imagine what it is today?
• Colonial Histories: Europe and the USA got rich off the backs of slaves and peasants. Colonial history is an important contributor to the current situation of poverty and devastation in the Fourth world. In most countries with a history of colonization, the colonizers developed local economies to facilitate the expropriation of resources for their own economic growth and development.
When Racism Is Law & Prejudice is Policy. Dr. Edward Rhymes • The "triple p" paradigm • Individual perception(s) generates public opinion which creates and supports governmental policies. The longer the inequitable policies stay in place, the more they create conditions which seem to justify the prejudicial perceptions (these perceptions, by and large, are created by another "p": propaganda).
Centralization of Power: In many developing countries, political power is disproportionately centralized. Instead of having a network of political representatives distributed equally throughout society, in centralized systems of governance one major party, politician, or region is responsible for decision-making throughout the country. This often causes development problems. For example, in these situations politicians make decisions about places that they are unfamiliar with and care little for, lacking sufficient knowledge about the context to design effective and appropriate policies and programs.
Corruption: Corruption often accompanies centralization of power, when leaders are not accountable to those they serve. Most directly, corruption inhibits development when leaders help themselves to money that would otherwise be used for development projects. In other cases, leaders reward political support by providing services to their followers.
Environmental degradation: The negative impacts of environmental degradation are disproportionately felt by the poor. Throughout the developing world, the poor often rely on natural resources to meet their basic needs through agricultural production and gathering resources essential for household maintenance, such as water, firewood, and wild plants for consumption and medicine. Thus, the depletion and contamination of water sources directly threaten the livelihoods of those who depend on them.
Social Inequality: One of the more entrenched sources of poverty throughout the world is social inequality that stems from cultural ideas about the relative worth of different genders, races, ethnic groups, and social classes. Ascribed inequality works by placing individuals in different social categories at birth, often based on religious, ethnic, or 'racial' characteristics. In South African history, apartheid laws defined a binary caste system that assigned different rights (or lack thereof) and social spaces to Whites and Blacks, using skin color to automatically determine the opportunities available to individuals in each group.
Agricultural Cycles: People who rely on fruits and vegetables that they produce for household food consumption (subsistence farmers) often go through cycles of relative abundance and scarcity. For many families that rely on subsistence production for survival, the period immediately prior to harvest is a 'hungry period. ' During these periods of scarcity, many families lack sufficient resources to meet their minimal nutritional needs.
Droughts and Flooding: Besides the immediate destruction caused by natural events such as hurricanes, environmental forces often cause acute periods of crisis by destroying crops and animals.
• Natural Disasters: Natural disasters such as hurricanes and earthquakes have devastated communities throughout the world. Developing countries often suffer much more extensive and acute crises at the hands of natural disasters, because limited resources inhibit the construction of adequate housing, infrastructure, and mechanisms for responding to crises.
CAPITALISM—AN ECONOMIC SYSTEM OF GREED
CAPITALISM The accumulation of the means of production (materials, land, tools) as property into a few hands; this accumulated property is called "capital" and the property-owners of these means of production are called "capitalists. "
Profit before people
IMF & WORLD BANK For poor countries, the IMF and World Bank's emphasis on exports is to a considerable extent an entreaty to exploit cheap labor as a "competitive advantage. " But with countries around the world all forced to follow the same strategy, relying on cheap labor becomes a race to the bottom -- with countries forced into a de facto race to the bottom to offer foreign investors the lowest wages and least substantial labor protections.
Structural adjustment is a term used to describe the policy changes implemented by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank (the Bretton Woods Institutions) in developing countries. These policy changes are conditions (Conditionalities) for getting new loans from the IMF or World Bank, or for obtaining lower interest rates on existing loans. Conditionalities are implemented to ensure that the money lent will be spent in accordance with the overall goals of the loan.
Structural Adjustment—a Major Cause of Poverty Cutbacks in health, education and other vital social services around the world have resulted from International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank-prescribed structural adjustment policies as condition for loans and repayment. In addition, developing nation governments are required to open their economies to compete with each other and with more powerful and established industrialized nations. To attract investment, poor countries enter a spiraling race to the bottom to see who can provide lower standards, reduced wages and cheaper resources. This has increased poverty and inequality for most people. It also forms a backbone to what we today call globalization. As a result, it maintains the historic unequal rules of trade.
• Debt is an efficient tool. It ensures access to other peoples’ raw materials and infrastructure on the cheapest possible terms. Dozens of countries must compete for shrinking export markets and can export only a limited range of products because of Northern protectionism and their lack of cash to invest in diversification. Market saturation ensues, reducing exporters’ income to a bare minimum while the North enjoys huge savings. The IMF cannot seem to understand that investing in … [a] healthy, well-fed, literate population … is the most intelligent economic choice a country can make. • — Susan George, A Fate Worse Than Debt, (New York: Grove Weidenfeld, 1990),
Addressing the Causes of Poverty
End Capitalism
End Imperialism
Share
Rout corruption
Broaden access to education and technology.
Provide universal access to essential goods and services, , . . including potable water, affordable . food, primary health care, education, housing and other social services
Sources • Ignacio Ramonet, The politics of hunger, Le Monde Diplomatique, November 1998 • The State of the World’s Children, 1999, UNICEF • State of the World, Issue 287 - Feb 1997, New Internationalist • The Corporate Planet, Corporate Watch, 1997 • Debt - The facts, Issue 312 - May 1999, New Internationalist • 1998 Human Development Report, United Nations Development Programme
