The End of Poverty?
July 23, 2011 in Daily Bulletin
It’s a simple question. How many people in the world are poor? Yet the answer isn’t as straightforward as it would seem. In 2005 The World Bank estimated that there were 1.37 billion people who live on less than $1.25 a day but since then emerging economies have expanded by 50%. The Brookings Institution updated that number for 2010 and estimated that the number of poor had fallen by half to 900 million. Other interesting points in the report include:
- The fall in the poverty rate is unparalleled in the entirety of human history
- By 2015 they estimate that fewer than 600 million people will be below the poverty threshold
- The First Millenium Development Goal (to half global poverty levels) was probably met in 2007, 8 years ahead of schedule.
Read the (exceedingly short) two page summary over here and find out where the poor will be concentrated and the strategies that aid donors must now pursue.
Source: Brookings
Via: NOTAS MARGINALES
If we mean to end poverty, we must not nibble at the leaves, or chop at the branches of it. We have to go to the root: the structures which create poverty. The best understanding of those structures I’ve found is not a new one; it comes from an 1879 book entitled “Progress and Poverty” by the American economist and social philosopher Henry George.
We have permitted the establishment and growth of structures which funnel the earth’s bounty and labor’s productivity into the pockets of a relative few. Looking for solutions that seek to “fix” the victims of these structures strikes me as pointless and cruel; we have to seek out the root, and eradicate the problem.
I commend to you the writings of Henry George, including P&P and Social Problems — both online — and of Mason Gaffney (masongaffney.org), if you would like to see an end to poverty.