You've got the poison, I've got the remedy
Sunday 29 September 2013
I feel like I write terrible essays
"The world has enough for everyone's needs, but not everyone's greed." -Mahatma Gandhi. Is human greed the primary cause of global poverty?
Global poverty is a controversial, highly-debated topic that has plagued the world since the dawn of civilization. Almost no sovereignty in the world is free from the poverty, an insidious presence that remains at the bottom of the societal ladder. With everyone clamouring to overcome their circumstances and move up the ranks, why is it that poverty still prevails over a significant portion of the world's population? Human Greed, perpetuated by the influential and the wealthy, remains one of the largest factors.
With the advent of globalisation, MNCs (multinational companies) and SIs (supranational institutions) are able to cross geopolitical boundaries, planting their roots in all four corners of the globe. Invariably, they choose areas where labour and the workforce are cheap and exploitable to maximize profit and wages: prime examples of "cheap labour" include China and India, where MNCs exploit the local workforce and give out minimum wage to as many workers as possible. In 2010, a court order was filed against an Apple factory in China for mistreating workers and paying them next-to-nothing for exceptionally long hours and inhumane working conditions. In this way, wealth remains locked up in the higher castes of society in the hands of conglomerates while the poverty-stricken, who earn barely enough to scrape through on a day-by-day basis, remain impoverished. Additionally, the outsourcing of labour enables MNCs to produce cheaper products and out-compete local and domestic industries. Women in Kenya who previously wove fabrics by hand were left retrenched and jobless after (cheaper and more manageable) external companies were developed to replace them. Such competition leaves many jobless and without a source of income, slipping from the upper ranks down into poverty.
If these scenarios happen on a global scale (i.e. anywhere where exploitation of cheap labour is rampant and unregulated), the result is the continued propagation of poverty in these areas. As MNCs and SIs expand their insidious reach, poverty will become more and more widespread, leaving many in the dust as the rich continue to claw their way to the top. Corruption becomes widespread as the rich and influential cement their position at the top. Lobbying/regulatory capture occurs as the rich try to safeguard their interests, leading to skewed policies that are geared towards protecting the wealth of the rich. Lobbying occurs under the table, in ways that the general public are unable to fathom or pick up: if corruption occurs the world round, then wealth ends up locked, its mobilisation compromised. Resources are unable to trickle down the societal ladder to the poor, and wealth is unable to cross socio-economic and geo-political boundaries despite globalisation's (so-called) equalising effect in improving international communication and interaction.
Even though human greed has catalysed the inception of the capitalist ideal, these ideologies can be subverted and misinterpreted for personal profit. Although human greed does make the individual strive to escape the clutches of poverty to achieve stable circumstances and environments, with the oppressive power of supranational institutions clamping down on the impoverished, they are devoid of opportunities to even find better paying jobs and have to concede working in conditions that ironically prevent them from improving their lives.
Human greed, in essence, is an extension of one's innate desire for survival and security. There is nothing despicable about being concerned with one's self interests, but as we zoom out, and observe things on a macro-scale, we start to see patterns and changes in wealth due to the self-serving tendencies of the majority to accumulate personal profit. One such example would be (as colloquially stated), "brain drain", a phenomenon that plagues any country whose economy is sluggish and whose population is mostly under the absolute poverty line of US$1 set by the U.N. In Ethiopia, doctors who were previously under the employment of hospitals left their homelands, immigrating to countries which held more prospects for their careers, like the USA or the UK. A dearth of doctors in Ethiopia, is sadly the final result, with some hospitals having a single doctor to care for hundreds of patients. As talented individuals leave the private sector, the economies of such countries experience stagnation as the talents of these individuals could potentially help draw investors and boost economic development. With less investors, the economy stagnates, and locals are unable to find jobs or customers, leading to reduced incomes and unemployment. As this phenomena occurs in landlocked countries round the globe such as Sub-Saharan Africa, it is arguable that the environmental conditions kick-start absolute poverty, but it is brain drain that perpetuates it, eventually leading to poverty on a global scale.
As Mahatma Gandhi once said, "the world has enough for everyone's needs, but not everyone's greed." The world is plentiful in its resources, abundant in its wealth. Unfortunately, due to the insidious effects of human greed, this wealth remains locked in the upper castes of society, leaving the poor scrambling for any scraps left. Exploitation and the rise of desire for personal profit are commonplace round the world; caused by human greed, these phenomena create uncountable pockets of poverty round the globe, eventually propagating poverty on a global level.
You've got the poison,
I've got the remedy.
@03:41