Evolution of the Global Economy, 1800 to the 21st Century - Essay Example

?Topic of the Is the poverty of poor countries in any way due to the wealth of the rich? Thequestion is too complex to have an outright definite answer. The concept of poverty is a confluence of social, cultural, political and economic paradigms which may have marginalized a minority group, deprived a populace, or are unable to economically empower a nation, or are suffering a dysfunctional government, or maybe of social injustices brought by disparity in the access of resources and governance. The father of communism, Karl Marx, once opined that the evolution society is characterized by the Hegelian nature of conflicts burnt of poverty and social inequalities that are reflected in the disparity of access to the production and distribution of resources that are evident in low salaries and wages. In this case, poverty refers to the deprivation of access and opportunities to resources and denial of the enjoyment of their rights and privileges due to social stratification and inequalities of wage system (Alam, 2000, p. 215). Researchers however tried to quantify the nature of poverty to make it more understandable. Under the Human Development Report of 2012 reported that there are 50% of the world populace or about 3 billion people are earning less than $ 2.50 per day (Statistic Brain, 2012, p. 1). There are also about 80% of the world populace are surviving in less than $10 a day and same percentile of 80% where income (Statistic Brain, 2012, p. 1). Moreover, there are 22,000 children that are dying each day due to poverty while there are 1.1 billion of people in emerging country with inadequate access to water (Statistic Brain, 2012, p. 1). Reports further bared that there are 443 million of school days that are lost due to water related illness (Statistic Brain, 2012, p. 1). Research likewise showed that of 2.2 billion of children since 2012, 1 billion of them live in poverty; 640 million of them live without adequate shelter; 400 million of them have no access to potable water; 270 million have no access to health services; and there are 1.4 million of children that die yearly due to poor health, sanitation and lack of safe drinking water (Statistic Brain, 2012, p. 1). In a comparative wealthy ratio statistics, there were 3 poor people per 1 ich person in 1820 but this increased to 72 poor people per 1 wealthy person (Statistic Brain, 2012, p. 1). DoSomething. Org (2013) likewise reported that 70 million people do not have enough food to eat (p. 1). There were 2 million children that have died of preventable illnesses such as diarrhea and pneumonia due to absence of access of medication (DoSomething. Org, 2013, p. 1). Since 2011, there were 19 million children that were recorded as unvaccinated and 1.6 billion people that are still living in darkness due to absence of access to energy or electricity (DoSomething. Org, 2013, p. 1). In Asia, reports bared that there are 44% of Indian peoples that are struggling to lie life at US$1/day and so is in Nepal, Pakistan and Bangladesh which has only similar subsistence level (Chronic Poverty Research Centre, 2007, pp. 71-78; Aggarwal & Chowdhr, 1991, p. 142; Adil Khan, 1996, p 144). This is also true to the peoples of Bhutan and Afghanistan where people live at a rate of $ 1/day (Chronic Poverty Research Centre, 2007, pp. 71-78). High illiteracy is more felt in South Asia, especially for women and children (Chronic Poverty Research Centre, 2007, pp. 71-78). The region has also high child mortality rate. Although there are indicators that certain levels of development are attained certain improvement but the disparity of income and opportunities to resource remained scarce (Chronic Poverty Research Centre, 2007, pp. 71-78). They are also the same regions that is lead with undemocratic or less democratic systems and where conflicts are abound in multifarious ways—meaning, it covered issues on terrorism, rebellion, labor disputes, women rights violations and militarism. World Bank (2013), a financial institution that served 145 countries opined that the Millennium Development Goal was the global direction for all emerging or developing countries, to reduce extreme poverty by 2015 by providing more access to education and opportunities for jobs for a better life, however, there are still 1.2 billion people living below poverty line and 2.4 billion of people earning $ 2 per day—hence, suffer much of extreme deprivation from social services, medical support, and access to opportunities (p.1). World Bank (2013) further reported that the developing countries are so situated within a wide gap or social disparity and thus, much challenged to confront the problems on economic shocks, shortages of food, severe malnutrition of children, and are usually subject to the ill impacts of climate change such as flooding, extreme droughts, increase level of seawater and the like (p. 1). As such, reducing poverty is indeed a gargantuan task because the issue is complicatedly intertwined to varied dimensions (World Bank, 2013, p. 2). WB proposed that poverty should be addressed by creating opportunities to strengthen the economic advancement and to correlate this to income generation for all families (World Bank, 2013, p. 2). It also proposed that for economically-challenged communities, they should be taught to be resilient and to avail of disaster management to ascertain that they are able to recover immediately and be able to transcend from the shocks (World Bank, 2013, p. 2). Resiliency should also cover issues about establishing community-based economic mechanism that could support them against the odds of inflation of goods in the market (World Bank, 2013, p. 2). On matters pertaining to inequality, World Bank have also noted the disparity of income between the rich and the poor, including the disparity of quality education, health services, and infrastructure development (World Bank, 2013, p. 2).Economic opportunities needs to be expanded to ensure that gender-based development and care for the elderly be made inclusive in development plans, including the need to scrutinize the policies of the countries where poverty is felt (World Bank, 2013, p. 2). Such examination of policies will cover concerns on how the resources of the country are maximized; how opportunities are developed; how the budget are allocated for developmental agenda; and the determination on how the projects are translated into realities at the community level (World Bank, 2013, p. 2). It was therefore suggested that all poverty reduction strategies of the country should be measured by better indicators to mitigate potential areas of corruption, mismanagement of funds, malversation and the like that could weaken safety nets of developments (World Bank, 2013, p. 2). This is where performance measures and evaluations are deemed essential to ascertain that resource use were aligned to the track of poverty reduction strategies and if policies developed or legislated are strategically responsive to the needs of the peoples (World Bank, 2013, p. 2). Investments must therefore be implemented in a collaborative and coordinated effort to ascertain that poverty is ended on its targeted period (World Bank, 2013, p. 2). Thus, it cited some examples of the intervention done by the institution thus far to reduce poverty in some regions of the world. Using the Poverty and Social Impact Analysis (PSIA), the institution targeted to empower governments and its stakeholders about addressing inequalities and income disparity through laws and creation of jobs or opportunities (World Bank, 2013, p. 3). It also covered programs on social reform that prioritizes education for children and out of school youths (World Bank, 2013, p. 3). Some economic activities were also started with trading of goods and services at the territorial boundaries between neighbouring countries (World Bank, 2013, p. 3) or the establishment of cost-effective transport system to hasten the delivery of farm produce to the market (World Bank, 2013, p. 3). Other reforms associated to poverty reduction are the development of the impact on changing energy subsidies for Middle Eastern countries or that program dedicated to climate change impact mitigation in Mexico to assist people adapt to the changing weather patterns and to be resilient too in adopting reform agenda based on equitable social programs (World Bank, 2013, p. 3). Of course, this entails collaboration with existing governments and working with them to improve transparency level in the enforcement and implementation of development agenda (World Bank, 2013, p. 3; Walker, 1993, p. 204). But there also dimension of poverty. Even advanced countries admit that they have certain number of populace that are suffering from homelessness, lack of food, lack of social services and the anent discrimination evident in racial prejudice especially for those who migrated to seek for greener pasteur in developed countries. Experts opined that poverty, experienced by marginalized communities here, and are burnt by policies that have historical and contemporary implications which consequentially caused broader scale of deprivation. In this issues, poverty is being viewed from the vantage of some principles such as, “conditional welfare for the few, minimum rights for the many; and distributional justice for all (p. 62). Each of these brings with its implications to social structure and to industrial organization (Giddens, 1973, p. 63). Britain has this conditional welfare for the few that are reflected in the legislation of Poor Laws which is for instance, present in the Report of the Poor Law Commission of 1832-4 (Giddens, 1973, p. 63). The rich, otherwise coined as social elites, perceived that poverty is essential otherwise the poor will not be motivated to work in lieu of certain level of affluence (Giddens, 1973, p. 63). Critics however pointed that this is pauperism which is actually an evidence of moral bankruptcy rather than an issue of poverty; an issue of fatalism that extol the evils of improvidence, vices, drunkenness and the like, subjected people to poverty (Giddens, 1973, p. 63). Sociologists pointed that these view is rooted from patriarchal values that blames persons of their choices and their misfortune as deserving for being poor (Giddens, 1973, p. 63). Other experts proposed that priorities should be developed to address poverty and marginalization. This include suggestions on the need to identify the (a) division or allocation of resources and income of the a nation; (b) adoption of methods , principles, approaches, structures and systems where resources are produced and distributed; (c) lifestyle check of all peoples, including its leaders to assess where they are deprived; (d) development of social cohesion to loosen the social classes and to improve their relations, systems, and methods used in the production and distribution of goods in the market that ought to base on economic standards of living; ( e) and, the widening of opportunities for marginalized sectors for them to enjoy an equitable share of wealth and resources (Goldthorpe, 1969, pp. 180-191). Hence, it can be inferred that poverty in not just caused by the rich that put people to abject poverty but that it’s also caused by social factors such as governance, legislation, geographic location, level of education of national human resources and by some developmental policies at the international scale that is affecting the domestic economic relations of communities (Goldthorpe, 1969, pp. 180-191). In Asian region where poverty is more felt by minorities and tribal communities, there is also a need to understand how their culture and social system made it possible to develop a caste system which perpetuated poverty. The caste system has structurally espoused the concept that there are datus and there are slaves and that the role of the slaves are to work for the datus (CPRC, 2007, pp. 71-78). The system also considered the role of women as secondary and hence, not quite privy to decision-makings especially on matters involving economy and politics (CPRC, 2007, pp. 71-78).These practices are still evident in remote villages where foreign cultures are not yet introduced where they could appreciate the values of equality, liberty, freedom of expression, women participation, and gender rights (CPRC, 2007, pp. 71-78). Hence, many of the workers are indeed so situated in a circumstance that makes them chronically poor (CPRC, 2007, pp. 71-78). These workers consist of the poor people that are engaged in hard labour in agricultural and in industry. In this system, poverty is perpetuated by social culture that made the rich live a better life and the poor to accept their fate as landless or near-landless dependents to leaders or datus under the caste structure. They certainly needed some cultural revolution to transform their society to reduce poverty. References Alam, S. M. (2000). Poverty from the wealth of nations: integration and polarization in the global economy since 1970. London: MacMillan Press, p. 215. Aggarwal, J.C. & Chowdhr, N.K. (1991). Indian economy: crisis and reforms. Delhi: Shipra, p. 142. Adil Khan, M. (1996). Economic development, poverty alleviation and governance. Aldershot: Avebury, p. 144. Chronic Poverty Research Centre CPRC, (2007). Understanding Chronic Poverty in South Asia, eSocialSciences, pp. 71-78. DoSomething. Org (2013). 11 Facts About Global Poverty, Dosomething,org, p. 1 Retrieved: http://www.dosomething.org/tipsandtools/11-facts-about-global-poverty# Giddens, A. (1973). The Class Structure of the Advanced Societies, Hutchinson, London, 1973, pp. 1-105. Goldthorpe, J. H., (1969). Social Inequality and Social Integration in Modern Britain, Advancement of Science, p. 180-191. Statistic Brain (2012), World Poverty Statistics, Global Issues, The Human Development Report, Statiscticbrain.com, p. 1. Retrieved: http://www.statisticbrain.com/world-poverty-statistics/ Walker, C. (1993). Managing poverty: the limits of social assistance. London: Routledge, p. 204. World Bank (2013). Poverty Overview, WorldBank.org, p. 1, Retrieved: http://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/poverty/overview Read More