How should global poverty be tackled? (if at all)

[-:Undertaker:-]

How should global poverty be tackled? (if at all)

In terms of global poverty (ignoring the concept of relative poverty) many attempts since the late 1700s have been tried at solving the problems of the worlds poor, mainly on the African and Asian continents. The first attempt was under the European countries global Empires - mainly the British, French, Belgians, Dutch, Portugese and Spanish who established worldwide Empires which gave much sway to the Roman Catholic Church and national churches on missionary missions - resulting in the first modern hospitals and schools in Africa.

The second method was during the post-imperial age, from 1945 onwards when the Empires were dismantled and keynesian economics were the dominant school of thought; the idea that western government and national governments themselves should engage in large building and infrastructure projects (such as dams, motorways, ports) which would lead to economic growth. This approach many believe, including myself, resulted in failure as many of the governments misspent funds (corruption and badly allocated funding) which was to be expected in non-Anglo countries.

The third approach, and a much more recent approach is simple - that the models the Asian Tigers (Singapore, Taiwan, Hong Kong) and mainland China have followed since the 1970s is rabid free marketism.. opening up domestic economies to investment while the governments of those countries focus primarily on political stability, anti-corruption drives and relatively low state spending and regulation. Proponents of this idea argue that this method has lifted hundreds of millions out of poverty, whilst others say this approach has led to the mass acceptance of sweatshops in the far-East as acceptable.

So what do you think? do you favour foreign aid? direct reconstruction as in Empire form (or post-2003 US reconstruction of Iraq) or do you favour the more recent free market approach that the likes of India and China have taken?

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The debate is open to you.

[Grig]

It's funny, because in my view countries should invest more on projects locally- local companies, not governments. One such cause for poverty and this is a pretty well know fact, is that these poorer governments want to make a quick buck, and thus bring in these huge multinationals who often exploit the people and landscape for their own profit and leave, with the people benefiting very little. This process does not help.

Empire, as much as you know I have said fascinated me, yet is the thing of the past and will not happen (unless you count conquest for oil by the Americans in Iraq as an imperial conquest). In the world today, I think the much more realistic option is to do something that China has done, which is your third option here. You note that, this led to "mass acceptance of sweatshops in the far-East as acceptable". Well yes, you can't have it perfectly can you, I see no harm in opening sweat shops, as long as there is no child labour and a minimum wage set. Now, interestingly, is step two for China. They are moving away from a solely manufacturing economy and are increasingly becoming consumers as well. But people, needed the money in the first place in order to consume, thus I'd view it as kind of a natural cycle.

Edit: To add to the above point, Hong Kong used to be the biggest manufacturer of toys and also produced a lot of textile, and now that people had more consuming power, the mantle has been passed on to another country where cheap labour is the norm.

[Yawn]

not enough food to go around and i would rather they starve than me

[Ardemax]

not enough food to go around and i would rather they starve than me

There is actually a surplus of food. It's just incorrectly distributed. And of course you would, because you are the centre of everything :rolleyes:.

[Oleh]

I know this may sound one sided and selfish but.

We should retract all aid from Africa and similar areas. The area isn't a sustainable living environment. IN MY OPINION.

[FlyingJesus]

Global poverty can't be solved, for anything to work properly there will always need to be a "slave" and "master" type relationship between countries, and the corporations that essentially own these countries won't allow for that to ever change.

[Explorator]

In my very biased and one sided opinion:

The world has already been decided. Rich countries are rich and poor countries are poor. And too be honest, it's probably going to be stuck like that. I understand their is some exceptions, aka Brazil and the Middle east who are becoming rich now, but generally, we can't solve world poverty or hunger.

We cannot solve poverty really because of the amount of people in those countries. In India and China combined, their is 2.5 billion people. That'a about 1/3rd of the world. And i'm sure 80% of people living in those countries are poor. My reason being is, It's too expensive. It would bankrupt a lot of countries and it would also cause a lot of inflation in those countries.

Also, world hunger cannot really be solved.

My reasoning is because their is 900,000,000 people in Africa and about 60% of Africa has such bad land its impossible to grow food on. I do remember seeing some adverts saying "Their is enough food for everyone, but people are still starving". It's upsetting knowing that people are starving, but we couldn't really do much about it. To feed the whole of Africa, it would be a rather daunting task. First of all, the transport. A lot of the food now is grown and produced in the Americas. It would cost a lot of money to distribute food over the Atlantic to people in Africa, and in the long term, this would have no chance of working.

Sorry.

Basically if you don't want to read all of that, here's a summary:

It would cost too much money for us to get all of the food and help there. Most of Africa is a wasteland and the dry landlocked countries wouldn't be able to grow food too well.

[-:Undertaker:-]

The world has already been decided. Rich countries are rich and poor countries are poor. And too be honest, it's probably going to be stuck like that. I understand their is some exceptions, aka Brazil and the Middle east who are becoming rich now, but generally, we can't solve world poverty or hunger.

I'd disagree in that and agree more with Tom in that the balance can shift, and i'd also disagree with the notion that with the free market there must be a master and slave position - aka that somebody must benefit at somebody elses expense. I think with the free market it is possible for both trading partners, whether individuals or countries, to benefit - just simply that one will always be wealthier than the other.

[AgnesIO]

not enough food to go around and i would rather they starve than me

Typical uneducated, idiotic and small minded view from subo!

I know this may sound one sided and selfish but.

We should retract all aid from Africa and similar areas. The area isn't a sustainable living environment. IN MY OPINION.

"And similar areas"..? So on the basis you don't feel that the (entire? :S) continent is not a sustainable living environment you think people should just be left to what? Die?

Show Hide

Now, obviously the images in the spoiler have huge variations, so the idea that one cannot live sustainably in Africa is completely uneducated. Also, stating "IN MY OPINION" as if to try and fend of any response is a little odd in a DEBATE, particularly when the opinion is presented as a fact that is incorrect.

Global poverty can't be solved, for anything to work properly there will always need to be a "slave" and "master" type relationship between countries, and the corporations that essentially own these countries won't allow for that to ever change.

Definitely a believer in Andre Franks Dependency theory then :L I think you are spot on that a slave master relationship does have a huge role, and I have said myself many times that ultimately having poor underpaid people benefits everyone in more developed states (including me) hugely. However, I do think that people can be comfortably pulled out of poverty (certainly above the line) and companies can still make huge profits. This has been shown in the food industry (Green and Blacks being a prime example), although whether the majority of companies are simply boasting about the fair trade stuff for their CSR report, or whether they are genuinely ethical is a totally different matter.

In my very biased and one sided opinion:

The world has already been decided. Rich countries are rich and poor countries are poor. And too be honest, it's probably going to be stuck like that. I understand their is some exceptions, aka Brazil and the Middle east who are becoming rich now, but generally, we can't solve world poverty or hunger.

We cannot solve poverty really because of the amount of people in those countries. In India and China combined, their is 2.5 billion people. That'a about 1/3rd of the world. And i'm sure 80% of people living in those countries are poor. My reason being is, It's too expensive. It would bankrupt a lot of countries and it would also cause a lot of inflation in those countries.

Also, world hunger cannot really be solved.

My reasoning is because their is 900,000,000 people in Africa and about 60% of Africa has such bad land its impossible to grow food on. I do remember seeing some adverts saying "Their is enough food for everyone, but people are still starving". It's upsetting knowing that people are starving, but we couldn't really do much about it. To feed the whole of Africa, it would be a rather daunting task. First of all, the transport. A lot of the food now is grown and produced in the Americas. It would cost a lot of money to distribute food over the Atlantic to people in Africa, and in the long term, this would have no chance of working.

Sorry.

Basically if you don't want to read all of that, here's a summary:

It would cost too much money for us to get all of the food and help there. Most of Africa is a wasteland and the dry landlocked countries wouldn't be able to grow food too well.

Well you've referred brilliantly to one of the BRICS (Brazil), which straight away minimises the idea that countries cannot grow in their own style industrial revolutions. Perhaps the biggest example of that is China, with a hugely population of 1.2Bn. You are certainly right about China, and it has benefitted hugely from cheap labour - but at the same time, there is an ever growing middle class - which IS down to its industrial revolution.

We manage to get bananas, computers, water and all sorts from other countries.. it doesn't bankrupt us? I am impressed that you have some genuine figures though (unlike an earlier poster who happily told us the entire continent is unsustainable blah blah blah haha).

----

I will post my own views in the morning, pretty shattered after work already!

EDIT: Sorry Grig, I'll reply to you in the morning too as I am knackered and realised I hadn't replied in the first place!

[Oleh]

Yawn... I said "in my opinion" to detract from schmucks asking for evidence to back up my entitled opinion. MMK

Edited by Dilusionate (Forum Moderator): Please stay on topic, thanks!