Poverty and Minimum Needs of All - Research Paper Example

Funda Dirlik Poverty In 1948, the United Nations created a declaration for the rights of all individuals. In article 3 of this declaration, it s the security rights of all individuals. Poverty is a leader in killing more then thirty thousand people a day. Is it the fault of these people? These individuals do not have food or a shelter to live in. It is the fault of the government system and the country in they live. The individuals who run these countries are rich, there is a small percentage of the population, which is rich, and the other most percentage is poor. Half of the world lives on two dollars and fifty cents a day. Half of the world makes up about 3 billion people. Fourteen percent live on only a dollar a day. While eighty percent, live on less then ten dollars a day. This leads to people being hungry, adults and children dying from hunger. Pregnant women give birth to underweight children because of malnutrition. This leads to the death of twenty five thousand people a day. Disease is the number one factor that surrounds the poor. Aids and HIV are the diseases that kill most of the people in the third world countries. At the time, 40 million people are living with Aids and HIV infectious diseases. These infectious diseases mostly occur in countries with very poor economic status. Malaria is also a leading disease in poor nations. These diseases are mostly in Africa. In nations with poor economic statues such as Africa, many may believe it is the actual fault of the Individuals living in these poor nations, but it is not. It is the fault of the nation, region and especially because of international neglect. Many have tried to create strategies to introduce global poverty and by introducing these problems, the world can have a part in helping these poor third world countries where many are dying because of neglect. The United Nations created these groups. These groups include UN Millennium Development group (UNMDG), the Basic Income European Network (BIEN) and the Basic income Guarantee (BIG). The goals of the UN Millennium Development Group (UNMDG) is to stop poverty, send every child to school to get an education, to decrease the rate of child birth, bring about equality, equal global trading system, and preventing the spread of infectious disease such as HIV and Aid which are causing many to die. In this case, people may have security to live with no fear, human rights to live as they wish and in this case the United Nations would be stronger then before and the world can be one, helping each other and looking out for one another. The climate change is also causing upheaval in Africa for the fact that they believe the water shortage will cause up to 250 million people to be in a water shortage by 2020. In the world, they are awaiting a human catastrophe because of the poverty. Africa is crying out for help across the world. Across Africa, people demonstrated against desperate social and economic situations and sharp rises in living costs… Some demonstrations turned violent; then authorities often repressed protests with excessive force (Amnesty International Report) The Aids and HIV in Africa is now the most spoken factor in the world. In the 90’s this was not the concern for the wealthy western nations. The Sub-Sahara African HIV/Aids issues did not come about until the United States declared a security threat for the world against AID and HIV. “AIDS policy is now a key world commodity—right up there with shiploads of computers, crude oil and wheat” (Warren). Now that this was a belated notice of the world to the Aid and HIV struggle of Africa because of the worlds neglect to poor nations. The United States began to offer Africa one billions in aid a year for the Aids medication so people do not die from the infectious disease. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Banks believe the developing nations that suffer from poverty should increase in exports and imports in order to increase their economic statues. At this point poor countries cannot really do this kind of trade and believe they will receive money. For wealthy nations, they sell cheap products for a high price and they buy expensive products for a cheaper price. These developing nations are not able to do the same because they would actual do the opposite and gain about nothing. The disease and poverty in Africa and in all poor nations around the world is causing turmoil and about twenty five thousand deaths a day. The United Nations will bring about change in the world with their UN Millennium Development Group plans for Africa and all developing nations for the year 2015. Psychosocial obstacles in meeting the minimum needs of all Payne (2005) has argued that poverty is relative. In his opinion, if every one around us has similar circumstances the notion of poverty and wealth become vague (Payne, p.2). Poverty can be occurred in many forms because of different reasons. Some people take birth in poor families and they get poverty as a hereditary right whereas some others because of their immature activities become poor. For example, most of the people in Somalia and Ethiopia like African countries are getting poverty as generational poverties whereas many people in rich countries like US and UK become poor because of situational poverties. The current recession has made lot of Americans and British people the victims of situational poverty. 80% of the global production of goods and services are consumed by the richest 16% of the global population and 5% by the poorest 40% (at less than $2/person/day), resulting in 30,000 daily global poverty deaths delivered through the global political economy (Institute to Meet the Minimum Needs of All) The above statistics clearly shows that the blame for poverty lies on the shoulders of the rich people. Nature has not made anybody as rich or poor. The stronger ones dominated the weaker one and became rich at the expense of the weaker ones. Nature has provided enough resources to all in order to live prosperously in this world. But selfishness and greedy mentalities forced a minor group (Rich people) to take control of the majority of the natural resources. Sachs (2006) has argued that it is possible to eradicate poverty from the world by 2025 if the global community or the rich countries take little care over the poor people. He has mentioned that around $450 billion is spent by US for war on terror in every year now. If US spent at least $15 billion (1/13 of 450 billion) for the poverty eradication process yearly, poverty could have been wiped off by 2025 from the world (Sachs, p.1). The major obstacle behind poverty eradication is the political, social and psychological problems. All the countries want to dominate in the global activities and they want to preserve the interests of their people at the expense of other’s interest. For example, America wants to dominate the global politics and they are accused of interfering in all the global matters which is going against their interests. They wanted to conserve supremacy in all the aspects of human life. They are spending billions of money for the current war on terror and if they would be able to spend a small portion of it for eradicating poverty, most of the social and political problems could have been ended automatically because of the decreasing poverty. All the people except the poor people have the moral right to help the poor people. Nobody can stay away from their responsibilities citing moral reasons. All the religions and communities teach their believers to help the poor people. Jesus Christ has said that it is impossible for a person to enter the kingdom of God if he fails to help his poor neighbor. Same way Islam, Jews and Hindu religions teach their believers to help the poor in order to get salvation. So it is difficult for a person to stay away from his moral responsibility of helping the poor. God has created human with equal status. He has never allocated any privileges to a particular community or ethnic group. God has given this world and its resources for the human and ask them to find their livelihood from the natural resources. Rich and poor are equally owners of the natural resources. Most of the wars happening not because of the external reasons cited. There are lots of hidden agendas behind all the wars. For example, the reasons for the recent Iraq war cited by America was that Iraq is possessing weapons of mass destruction and Saddam is a threat to global peace. Even after decades of exploration, no nuclear or chemical weapons have been discovered in Iraq and even after the execution of Saddam; no peace is existing either in Iraq or in other parts of the world. Many people believe that the Iraq war was not because for killing Saddam or recovering the weapons of mass destructions; but for exploiting the oil and fresh water resources of Iraq. In other words, America was conserving the interests of Americans at the expense of the Iraqis through Iraq war. Economic, political and cultural violence are also not helpful in eradicating poverty. Bin Laden has declared war against the Americans because of political and cultural reasons. In his opinion, America is the enemy of Islam and there is no harm in killing the enemies of Islam. Such beliefs and thoughts would also not helpful in wiping off poverty. Poverty cannot be tackled either through wars or violence. It should be addressed in a sympathetic manner. Would belief in the property of moral inclusion leading to meeting the minimum needs of all? Moral inclusion consists of who is (and who is not) part of your moral community and therefore subject to the moral rules of the community. Individuals and groups excluded from one’s moral community are outside of one’s scope of justice (Johnsons et al). Many people have the belief that they are obliged to their community alone. In other words, they believe that Christians should assist Christians, Muslims should assist Muslims and Hindus should help Hindus. In short their moral inclusion theory account only for the communities they are belonging to. Such moral inclusions theories are not helpful in eradicating poverty. Poverty has no religion or community. It is a global phenomenon. Payne (2005) has argued that poverty occurs in all races and communities (Payne, p.2 -3). Segregation of poverty and moral rights based on religion or community is illogical. Susan Opotow (2008) has argued that moral inclusion needs to occur in political, legal, economic and social spheres of society if it is to be sustained (Opotow). No moral inclusion theory would be effective if it fail to address the issues on a global basis or integrated basis. Role of belief, faith and practice of moral inclusion in delivering the minimum needs Adamant belief and faith will prevent people from delivering the minimum needs to the poor people. Belief and faith should be an integrated one. Treating a person from other community as enemy is not a good or logical belief. When God created human, he created only the male and female. He never attempted to create religions like Muslims, Hindus or Christians. It is the duty of the human to accept others as his brothers and sisters irrespective of their religion or community. There are no differences in moral rules for persons based on religions. It is difficult to define morality based on religion or beliefs. Security, mental health, freedom from poverty etc are basic needs of all and faith, beliefs etc should not serve as a barrier in achieving it. People should realize that the basic needs of all the people are almost same. If these life-enhancing outcomes are desirable, how shall we work towards securing the necessary belief? Poverty seems to be the basic reason for all the conflicts in the world. Ordinary people give priority to their basic needs rather than their beliefs. Beliefs come only at the secondary place. Globalization is an important concept with respect to eradicating poverty. Poor countries even though have enough resources, they fail to utilize or mobilize it because of lack of infrastructure facilities. Rich countries can help such poor countries in mobilizing their resources and thus poverty in these countries can be tackled through globalization. Mutual respect between religions and beliefs is another way of avoiding conflicts between countries and religions. We should remember that all the people have equal rights in believing in their own religion and to spread their beliefs across the world. Beliefs cannot be enforced though force. It should be developed automatically in the minds of the people. Nobody knows from where we come and where we go after death. In other words, this great uncertainty about human life makes all the claims of religions meaningless. It is impossible to bring all the people across the world under a common belief. Man has the ability to interpret things based on his intelligence and this intelligence might be different for different people. Moreover, this intelligence development depends on many other parameters. In short, it is difficult to bring people on a common platform with respect to their beliefs. At the same time, it is possible to work towards spreading the mutual respect between people and also their beliefs. Liberty, equality, human rights etc are not the monopoly of some particular community alone. All the people have equal rights in leading their life as they like. U.S. basic income Guarantee Network (USBIG) The basic income guarantee (BIG) is a government insured guarantee that no citizens income will fall below some minimal level for any reason. All citizens would receive a BIG without means test or work requirement. BIG is an efficient and effective solution to poverty that preserves individual autonomy and work incentives while simplifying government social policy. Some researchers estimate that a small BIG, sufficient to cut the poverty rate in half could be financed without an increase in taxes by redirecting funds from spending programs and tax deductions aimed at maintaining incomes (Basic Income at a Time of Economic Upheaval: A Path to Justice and Stability?) The US basic income guarantee Network ensures minimum income to all the US citizens. Such a policy is a conscious effort from the part of US government to wipe off any chances of poverty in US. It is a fact that socialism like communist principles are difficult to achieve in a capitalist country like United States. At the same time following democratic means itself United States was able to eradicate poverty from its soil though policies like basic income guarantee. Conclusions Poverty is a global phenomenon and no country seems to be free from it completely even though United States like countries have lower poverty rate. Poverty has different forms like situational and generational. Some people take birth in poor families whereas some others face poverty due to unexpected natural and artificial calamities. In any case, poverty eradication is the responsibility of the rich. Religion, beliefs and moral rules should never act as a barrier in the process of poverty eradication. Live without poverty is a fundamental right to all and nature has given its resources to all for survival. Controlling the natural resources using muscle power and denying it to the poor is immoral and illogical. Works Cited 1. Amnesty International Report. May 28, 2009. “Economic Crisis Reveals Deeper Human Rights Problems. 26 April 2010. 2. “Basic Income at a Time of Economic Upheaval: A Path to Justice and Stability?”. 2009. 27 April 2010. 3. “Institute to Meet the Minimum Needs of All”.2008. 27 April 2010. 4. Johnson David W., Johnson Roger T.& Holubec Edythe. 2007. “Cooperative Learning And Moral Education”. 27 April 2010. 5. Nell Warren, Patricia. 2000. “AIDS and the World Bank: Global Blackmail” A&U Magazine, 26 April 2010. 6. Opotow, Susan.2008. “Not So Much As Place to Lay Our Head...”: Moral Inclusion and Exclusion in the American Civil War Reconstruction”. 27 April 2010. 7. Payne, Ruby K. 2005. “A Framework for Understanding Poverty”. Publisher: aha Process, Inc.; 4 edition (May 15, 2005) 8. Sachs, Jeffrey. 2006. “The End of Poverty: Economic Possibilities for Our Time”. Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics); 1St Edition (February 28, 2006) 9. Shah, Anup. 2008. “Global Issues”. 26 April 2010. Annotated bibliography 1. Payne, Ruby K. 2005. “A Framework for Understanding Poverty”. Publisher: aha Process, Inc.; 4 edition (May 15, 2005) The author in this book argues that poverty is not just a condition of not having enough money. In his opinion, poverty is the land of rules, emotions, and knowledge that overrule all other ways of building relationships and making a life. With carefully researched and packed with charts, tables, and questionnaires, frameworks documented with the facts of poverty, this book provides practical strategies for addressing poverty. 2. Sachs Jeffrey. 2006. “The End of Poverty: Economic Possibilities for Our Time”. Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics); 1St Edition edition (February 28, 2006) This book suggests some specific strategies to eradicate poverty by 2025 if the major powers are eager in it. This book also provides some tips for overcoming poverty through nine steps described by the author. The author also outline why international institutions such as the United Nations, International Monetary Fund, and World Bank need to play a strong role in eradicating poverty. The author established his claims based on a tremendous amount of data and his own experiences working as an economic advisor to the UN. He has argued that nations should take the moral, economic, and political responsibility to battle against poverty with the same commitment and focus normally they reserved for wars. Read More