Poverty Anywhere Is a Threat to Prosperity Everywhere

The 21st century is being considered as a “golden age” by the experts in the field of prosperity and economic development.

The world has seen huge rise in number of billionaires worldwide, rise in per capita, standard of living and huge investments.

Today, we have developed technology to the extend that we are audacious enough to dream beyond Earth, to look beyond our solar system and to live on other planets.

When we think of holidaying, we think international, when we think of shopping we browse multinational brands and when we think of our friends on other side of the world, we video chat them!

That’s how much advanced our modern living has gone. This, innocently we call “prosperity”.

Are we truly prosperous?

Prosperity has a deeper meaning, individual prosperity will not ensure societal prosperity.

On surface, based on above examples it looks like a healthy picture, but when one looks closer one sees the fractured lines of poverty running across our glowing globe of prosperity.

If we have billionaires rise on one hand we have poverty rise and thus rise in inequality on other.

If we have new business ventures and technology advancements, we have rising unemployment due to mismatch in skill sets required today due to automation.

If we have Internet of things based houses on one side, we have huts with no water supply, electricity and sanitation facilities on other side.

We aim for peace, tranquility but we dust such fractured mandate crippling our society under the carpet.

If one can ponder on questions like-

Q. Can one’s prosperity remain in isolation, bubbled from the society that is poverty stricken?

One will be forced to face the reality that, today’s poverty of someone somewhere will be a threat to one’s prosperity everywhere.

However, before pondering on this question, it’s important to understand what poverty is?

According to UN, poverty entails more than the lack of income and productive resources to ensure sustainable livelihoods. It’s manifestation include hunger and malnutrition, limited access to education and other basic services, social discrimination and exclusion as well as the lack of participation in decision making.

According to most recent estimates, in 2015, 10% of world’s population lived below poverty line (less than $1.90 a day).

One out of five children live in extreme poverty and the negative effects of poverty and deprivation in the early years have ramification that can last a lifetime.

Consequences of poverty that resonate worldwide

1. On education and Unemployment:

It is a vicious cycle, difficult to blame the culprit, whether it’s one’s poverty that hinders them from basic learning loss, lack of formal education and ultimately lack of employment or its lack of education and rising unemployment that’s pushing more people into poverty?
The COVID induced lockdown showed us vividly how loss of employment and livelihood pushed more people below poverty line (World Bank reported pandemic led to 97 million more people being in poverty in 2020) and how poor children found it difficult to keep online education going when they barely had internet connectivity and smart phones.

2. Health and Hygiene:

Poverty prevents people from investing in primary health care, daily nutrition requirements, clean drinking water and simultaneously it makes difficult for poor families to bare the brunt of hospital expenses in case of illness. Also, slum areas end up becoming breeding ground for many diseases.

Either ways, humanity witnesses loss of human capital and a society with weakening demographic potential.

3. Rise in crime, violence and abuse rates:

Our stereotype thinking, blaming poor for committing crime prevents us from seeing the larger picture. A person having no access to basic necessity of food, water and shelter choose to loot, burglary, etc. as a self defence and lack of alternate choice.

It is rightly said, a hungry man doesn’t think from head but from belly.

It is their mental state that force them to refuge their dissatisfaction through violence and abuse.

There are number of studies showing direct co-relation between rise in poverty and rise in crime.

Venezuela, with above 90% household living under poverty records highest crime rate (as per World Population Review).

4. Climate Change:

We always say, with climate change and rising of natural disasters, more people will lose livelihood and the vulnerable one’s will be pushed below poverty line.
However, poverty itself contributes to climate change.

With lack of employment, alternate ways to farming, poor farmers take up methods like slash and burn farming, excess use of fertilisers, others indulge in manufacturing products of low quality and generating pollution, etc. to meet their immediate needs.

This short term benefit has ramifications which encircle the whole planet.

For instance, the farmers in Amazon rainforest are depending on slash and burn farming, depleting rich biodiversity and causing deforestation due to lack of better livelihood support.

5. Rising inequality:

With rising inequality, the demand pool will shrink, production cost will increase, investment will decrease, small businesses will sink, there will be rising monopoly, all this severely disturbing economic growth cycle in long run.

Similarly, inequality will lead to rise of injustice and discrimination, damaging our socio-politico setup.

6. Loss of culture and heritage:

The underprivileged, especially tribals and backwards who are finding it difficult to meet their ends meet are gradually disappearing, taking their folk culture along with them to graves.

This, in long run, if remained unchecked will severely damage our polychromatic society image.

Linking Poverty and Prosperity

One’s prosperity will lack sustainability if the world is losing demographic potential to poverty, if the economy has huge illness and mortality burden, consumer pool is shrinking, if crime rates are rising, if the air one breathes and water one uses is polluted and the effects of climate change hover over ones head and if as a collective society one failed to ensure protection of its diverse culture and social life.

Thus, poverty anywhere will have ripple effect everywhere. Just like cancerous cells, which damage all the healthy cells too if not treated at the right time.

Treatment of Cancerous Cell named “Poverty”:

It is true, for a complex problem such as “poverty”, which has “poverty trap”, “vicious cycle”, social exclusion, injustice, lack of access as its doppelgängers, a linear solution or a short term approach will hardly have any impact.

Thus, a multipronged approach and strategy at each level is needed-

Government:

As Karl Marx showed, capitalist society itself being ready recipe for poverty stricken society, therefore, governments have to play their “welfare state” role more strongly today.

Expanding government expenditure, bringing poverty alleviation programmes like SHG (Self Help Group) empowerment, MSMEs role enhancement, Priority Sector Lending, financial inclusion, Direct Benefit Transfer, PMJAY, skill development programmes,etc will play major role.

The Prosperous Ones

As Gandhi ji has highlighted in the trusteeship model, the role of riches’ duty towards their society and fellow citizen, it is their responsibility to give back society on whose backing they successfully accumulated their wealth.

Here also, as Gandhi has said, “Work, not charity”, it is the duty of prosperous ones to provide work opportunity and skill development to their fellow citizens.

Philanthropy alone will not ensure prosperity of all.

We need to remind ourselves, there is no king and queen doing charity to their masses, but here, we are all equals, one helping others not only by feeding them but also by lifting them so that they can stand on their own and further lift other fellow citizens.

At international level, SDG goals 1 & 2 (poverty reduction and hunger), goals 3 & 4 (promotion of health& education), goal 10 (reduced inequality) and goal 16 (reduction of violence, peace and justice) have been set. Worldwide governments are taking steps but everything will be effective only if people recognise deep roots and effects of poverty, speak about it, coming together acknowledge their own prosperity stands on shifting sands as far as society as a whole is plagued with poverty and its consequences.

Poverty will not be limited within one’s own four walls or one’s own country’s border, rather one or other poverty led consequences will make their way into your wallpapered walls or into your smart fenced territorial borders and will damage the hard earned prosperity.

Thus, poverty cannot be and should not be sidelined in our own mad race of individualistic prosperity gain.

—

This post was previously published on medium.com.

***