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| Wednesday, 1 September 2004 |
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Poverty: causes are structural imbalances, not increasing prices by Dr. Mervyn D. de Silva
"Poverty is still the gravest insult to human dignity. Poverty is the scar on humanity's face". These are the words of one of Norway's former Prime Ministers, Harlem Bruntland, when she addressed 116th world leaders at one of the United Nations World Social Development Summits. That was not all, for, having a crystal-clear understanding of the main causes of poverty coupled with a sensitivity to the pain it inflicts on human beings, she added, "Our history dealing with poverty is an epic of protracted stalemate, indifference, bureaucracy, and empty rhetoric." Increases in prices of food and related items required for satisfying basic human needs undoubtedly have their severest impact on the poor, the marginalised, and the aged, but it is not the main cause of poverty. To understand the reality of poverty and attempt to change it, it is absolutely necessary to see the world or the country from the perspective of those who experience it and suffer it. To design methods and strategies for solving it, it is absolutely necessary to engage in systematic fact finding exercises, and then, apply scientific effort systematically and purposefully on strategies evolved, based on the needs and interests of the poor. The main cause of persistent poverty all over the world is the direct result of the rather unjust situation where mankind has become sharply divided into rich and poor, between countries, and within countries. In fact, the real depth of the problem of poverty arises from the reality that the man who is rich has power over the man who is poor and similarly the nation that is rich has power over the resources and policies of those that are not rich. More importantly, the current economic, social, and political systems, both international and national, support this division and regularly introduce newer structures that only increase the disparity and drive more and more people into the ranks of the poor. Since the early 1980s the world economy has been characterised by rising inequality with the income gap between the industrialised Western countries (20% of the world population but enjoys a gross global GDP of US $ 18 trillion) and Third World countries (80% of the world population left with the balance gross global GDP of US$ 5 trillion only) continuing to widen. Mountain debt related net transfers and negative transfers has heightened the situation. Thus, while the average per capita income of the G-7 countries stood at about 20 times that of the world's poorest seven countries in 1965, it rose to 39 times, almost double by the year 1995. Polarisation was taking place not only between nations but also within nations. The income share of the richest 20% had risen almost everywhere since the early 1980s and in more than half the developing countries, the richest 20% receives over 50% of the national income (53% in Sri Lanka). Those at the bottom had failed to receive any relief, leave alone and gains and many continue to endure conditions of poverty unabated. Even the Western industrialised countries are not immune to poverty and the social disintegration it brings, so very apparent in many of the Third World countries. There is serious poverty, homelessness, joblessness, destitution, crime and drugs in pockets in these societies. As a result many questions are beginning to be asked. Why do not market forces respond to some of the urgent common needs however well these forces allocate resources? What can be said about the assumption that only market forces can unlock the human potential to create new wealth to eradicate poverty? The poor should not be regarded as a mere statistic because they are like anyone else but in whose haunting faces are the features of suffering inflicted by their own kind. They lack the most basic and elementary material goods and their numbers are growing rapidly although masked in official documents. The whole social group designated the poor are a wide range of human beings: Children damaged by poverty before they are born and sold after they are born; vagrant, abused, and exploited children of the cities; unemployed and confused, educated and frustrated youth; peasants who are deprived of land and access to credit and inputs; workers who are lowly paid and over worked; women workers who work for multinationals and have to be 'competitive' - which means bidding for the lowest possible wage internationally; the slum dwellers in the inner city and shanty towns; the under employed, the pensioner and the old who do not have a regular source of income; the widow cast aside by modern society; women who are marginalised and turned into "consumer" objects. All these categories are also the indirect victims of bad governance, waste, state squandermania, State extravagance, luxury life styles of elected politicians, bribery and corruption. Poverty is best understood by the poor themselves. They do not have enough to eat and go to bed hungry; they wear clothes that are torn ill-fitting, and outdated; they live in places of squalor; they face old-age without a fixed income or charity allowance; their childhood was characterised by misery, degradation, and failure. Although they can pose a serious threat to the system, their voices are hardly heard in the corridors of power. The disparities are continuing on a globalscale without any prospect of lessening and there is a real threat of a political backlash. All forms of violence and terrorism cannot be discounted and it could wipe out several of the benefits of economic progress gained in both the developed and the developing countries alike. It could even lead to a roll back of the achievements of economic integration now in progress. John F. Kennedy whose country in full measure benefitted from all the economic paradigms it promoted from time to time and is today the richest country in the world with 9 million dollar-millionaires, once warned, "If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich." Similarly, at a much earlier period in modern history a far sighted British Civil Servant, Allan H. Hume, who incidentally founded the Indian National Congress, appalled by the inequities he observed warned; "You cannot have separate and unequal people living alongside one another in great riches and deep poverty, without inviting catastrophe". That, Sri Lanka did twice, once in 1971 and again in 1987-89, when the political establishment became dangerously disconnected from the real economic and social conditions prevailing. Human poverty it is worth remembering is more than income poverty it is the denial of choices and opportunities for living a tolerable life. Those who have to face it for too long, now, have within their reach the power to bring to nought whatever gains that may have been made in the past. Such gains will remain utterly fragile unless they are buttressed by genuine pro-poor policies and growth strategies. For this to happen, the tragedy and urgency of the problem of poverty must touch the hearts and minds of those in power. "We have grasped the mystery of the atom and rejected the Sermon on the Mount. Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ETHICAL INFANTS. We know more about war than we know about peace, more about killing than we know about living". - General Omar Bradley, USA. |
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