Introduction

What does it mean to be poor? How is poverty measured? Third World countries are often described as “developing” while the First World, industrialized nations are often “developed”. What does it mean to describe a nation as “developing”? A lack of material wealth does not necessarily mean that one is deprived. A strong economy in a developed nation doesn’t mean much when a significant percentage (even a majority) of the population is struggling to survive.

Successful development can imply many things, such as (though not limited to):

• An improvement in living standards and access to all basic needs such that a person has enough food, water, shelter, clothing, health, education, etc;
• A stable political, social and economic environment, with associated political, social and economic freedoms, such as (though not limited to) equitable ownership of land and property;
• The ability to make free and informed choices that are not coerced;
• Be able to participate in a democratic environment with the ability to have a say in one’s own future;
• To have the full potential for what the United Nations calls Human Development:

  Human development is about much more than the rise or fall of national incomes. It is about creating an environment in which people can develop their full potential and lead productive, creative lives in accord with their needs and interests. People are the real wealth of nations. Development is thus about expanding the choices people have to lead lives that they value. And it is thus about much more than economic growth, which is only a means—if a very important one—of enlarging people’s choices.

  — What is Human Development?, Human Development Reports, United Nations Development Program

At household, community, societal, national and international levels, various aspects of the above need to be provided, as well as commitment to various democratic institutions that do not become corrupted by special interests and agendas.

Yet, for a variety of reasons, these “full rights” are not available in many segments of various societies from the richest to the poorest. When political agendas deprive these possibilities in some nations, how can a nation develop? Is this progress?

Politics have led to dire conditions in many poorer nations. In many cases, international political interests have led to a diversion of available resources from domestic needs to western markets. (See the structural adjustment section to find out more about this.) This has resulted in a lack of basic access to food, water, health, education and other important social services. This is a major obstacle to equitable development.

Inequality and Health

A Canadian study also suggests that the wealthiest nations do not have the healthiest people; instead, it is countries with the smallest economic gap between the rich and poor.

Poverty has also been described as the number one health problem for many poor nations as they do not have the resources to meet the growing needs. Yet, it is not beyond humanity:

To satisfy all the world’s sanitation and food requirements would cost only $13 billion, hardly as much as the people of the United States and the European Union spend each year on perfume.

— Ignacio Ramonet, The Politics of Hunger, Le Monde Diplomatique, November 1998 (see the article for many more statistics).

Inequality fueled by many factors

In some countries, a combination of successive military governments and/or corrupt leadership, as well as international economic policy have combined to create debt traps and wealth siphoning, affecting the poorer citizens the most (because the costs such as the debt gets “socialized”).

Nigeria is one often-mentioned example, as Jubilee 2000 highlights. Indonesia is another example as part of this Noam Chomsky interview by The Nation magazine reveals. Latin America on the whole is another.

Latin America has the highest disparity rate in the world between the rich and the poor:

• Internal, regional and external geopolitics, various international economic factors and more, have all contributed to problems. For example, the foreign policy of the US in that region has often been criticized for failing to help tackle the various issues and only being involved to enhance US national interests and even interfering, affecting the course and direction of the nations in the region through overt and covert destabilization. This, combined with factors such as corruption, foreign debt, concentrated wealth and so on, has contributed to poverty there.
• Much of the above was written around early 1999. Unfortunately, well into 2003, the World Bank reported that the Latin American rich-poor gap is widening. There has been progress in closing the gender gap in income, and girls and young women had overtaken their male counterparts in education. However, inequality is very high. For example:
  • Income inequality in the region had worsened with the richest one tenth of the population earning 48% of its total income, while the poorest tenth earns only 1.6%
  • Race has also been a factor where “Indigenous and Afro-descended people are at considerable disadvantage with respect to whites, with the latter earning the highest wages in the region.”

The U.S. itself also has the largest gap and inequality between rich and poor compared to all the other industrialized nations. For example, the top 1% receives more money than the bottom 40% and the gap is the widest in 70 years. Furthermore, in the last 20 years while the share of income going to the top 1% has increased, it has decreased for the poorest 40%.

Introduction

What does it mean to be poor? How is poverty measured? Third World countries are often described as “developing” while the First World, industrialized nations are often “developed”. What does it mean to describe a nation as “developing”? A lack of material wealth does not necessarily mean that one is deprived. A strong economy in a developed nation doesn’t mean much when a significant percentage (even a majority) of the population is struggling to survive.

Successful development can imply many things, such as (though not limited to):

• An improvement in living standards and access to all basic needs such that a person has enough food, water, shelter, clothing, health, education, etc;
• A stable political, social and economic environment, with associated political, social and economic freedoms, such as (though not limited to) equitable ownership of land and property;
• The ability to make free and informed choices that are not coerced;
• Be able to participate in a democratic environment with the ability to have a say in one’s own future;
• To have the full potential for what the United Nations calls Human Development:

  Human development is about much more than the rise or fall of national incomes. It is about creating an environment in which people can develop their full potential and lead productive, creative lives in accord with their needs and interests. People are the real wealth of nations. Development is thus about expanding the choices people have to lead lives that they value. And it is thus about much more than economic growth, which is only a means—if a very important one—of enlarging people’s choices.

  — What is Human Development?, Human Development Reports, United Nations Development Program

At household, community, societal, national and international levels, various aspects of the above need to be provided, as well as commitment to various democratic institutions that do not become corrupted by special interests and agendas.

Yet, for a variety of reasons, these “full rights” are not available in many segments of various societies from the richest to the poorest. When political agendas deprive these possibilities in some nations, how can a nation develop? Is this progress?

Politics have led to dire conditions in many poorer nations. In many cases, international political interests have led to a diversion of available resources from domestic needs to western markets. (See the structural adjustment section to find out more about this.) This has resulted in a lack of basic access to food, water, health, education and other important social services. This is a major obstacle to equitable development.

Inequality and Health

A Canadian study also suggests that the wealthiest nations do not have the healthiest people; instead, it is countries with the smallest economic gap between the rich and poor.

Poverty has also been described as the number one health problem for many poor nations as they do not have the resources to meet the growing needs. Yet, it is not beyond humanity:

To satisfy all the world’s sanitation and food requirements would cost only $13 billion, hardly as much as the people of the United States and the European Union spend each year on perfume.

— Ignacio Ramonet, The Politics of Hunger, Le Monde Diplomatique, November 1998 (see the article for many more statistics).

Inequality fueled by many factors

In some countries, a combination of successive military governments and/or corrupt leadership, as well as international economic policy have combined to create debt traps and wealth siphoning, affecting the poorer citizens the most (because the costs such as the debt gets “socialized”).

Nigeria is one often-mentioned example, as Jubilee 2000 highlights. Indonesia is another example as part of this Noam Chomsky interview by The Nation magazine reveals. Latin America on the whole is another.

Latin America has the highest disparity rate in the world between the rich and the poor:

• Internal, regional and external geopolitics, various international economic factors and more, have all contributed to problems. For example, the foreign policy of the US in that region has often been criticized for failing to help tackle the various issues and only being involved to enhance US national interests and even interfering, affecting the course and direction of the nations in the region through overt and covert destabilization. This, combined with factors such as corruption, foreign debt, concentrated wealth and so on, has contributed to poverty there.
• Much of the above was written around early 1999. Unfortunately, well into 2003, the World Bank reported that the Latin American rich-poor gap is widening. There has been progress in closing the gender gap in income, and girls and young women had overtaken their male counterparts in education. However, inequality is very high. For example:
  • Income inequality in the region had worsened with the richest one tenth of the population earning 48% of its total income, while the poorest tenth earns only 1.6%
  • Race has also been a factor where “Indigenous and Afro-descended people are at considerable disadvantage with respect to whites, with the latter earning the highest wages in the region.”

The U.S. itself also has the largest gap and inequality between rich and poor compared to all the other industrialized nations. For example, the top 1% receives more money than the bottom 40% and the gap is the widest in 70 years. Furthermore, in the last 20 years while the share of income going to the top 1% has increased, it has decreased for the poorest 40%.