what is poverty

[peaccenicked]

"Appearances can be Deceptive

Many people when they hear or read the word poverty will automatically think of poverty as being simply a lack of money. This is partly true but for a better understanding of poverty it is necessary to go beyond this simple, or commonsense, definition of poverty. Poverty is much more than a simple lack of money. For example, if you were stranded on a desert island and you had several thousand dollars or pounds in cash, while those around you had things such as food, clothing and shelter who would be in poverty? You could not eat your money, nor could you go to the local grocery store and buy some food. Your fellow inhabitants might not even want your money, particularly if they believe that a rescue is not eminent. In such a situation a lack of money need not equal poverty. This is, however, only part of the story with regard to poverty yet in order to understand poverty, and inequality, we must probe beneath surface reality and go beyond the commonsense explanation which is simply another word for cliché.

Defintions of Poverty

There are two different ways in which researchers define poverty: absolute poverty and relative poverty.

Absolute poverty refers to the situation in which a person lacks those things that help to sustain human life. The lack basic human needs, such as food, shelter and clothing. This form of poverty was once quite common in countries such as Britain and America but has since declined, particularly since the introduction of the Welfare State. This form of poverty is still prevalent in many Third World countries.

Relative poverty refers to the situation in which a person lacks the necessary resources to enable them to participate in the normal and desirable patterns of life that exist within a given society at a given time. For example, if you cannot afford to have a cooked meal then you may not be in absolute poverty but you are certainly in relative poverty."
*

Socialism is about ending poverty(absolute and relative)
If there is no poverty
How can people be equally poor.

[Capitalist]

Q: What is poverty?

A: Communist Cuba, Vietnam, North Korea, Former Communist Countries, ect.

[poncho]

In terms of dollars I would agree Cuba is in poverty but in terms of family and community its the wealthiest nation on earth.

[Moskitto]

Q: What is poverty?

A: Communist Cuba, Vietnam, North Korea, Former Communist Countries, ect.

You forgot Africa, India, Latin America infact quite a few countries.

[MindCrime]

Since Amerikka controls most of the worlds wealth, then by deffinition everyone else is relativly poor. So then all nations except the Great Impirialist $tate have poor economic systems, even those capi countries. So, capitalism cant be the answer either!

[Supermodel]

Take a look at the World bank's stats on poverty and wealth of nations. The US is 8th behind such countries as Saudi, Oman, Japan, Switzerland, Finland, and others on a per capita basis.

All the top 10 poorest countries are in sub-saharan africa.

I agree about absolute poverty and relative poverty and it has not much to do with money, but available resources and most importantly freedom. If my freedom was taken away I would consider myself the poorest of the poor.

[vox]

"If my freedom was taken away I would consider myself the poorest of the poor."

Easy to say for those in the "haves" rather than the "have nots."

Fact is, you can BUY freedom, whereas others cannot. Your money gives you options that others do not have.

Do not pretend for one second that you are like the poor, SM. Do not pretend for one second that you can understand the restrictions of the poor.

If your freedom was taken away, but you could still feed yourself, you would have the LUXURY of feeling like the "poorest of the poor," as long as you don't see people STARVING to death in the streets.

Your Idealism doesn't hold truck with the starving, baby.

vox

[Supermodel]

Duh, vox, I do know what it's like to be starving, I only became a first world resident as an adult.

Buy freedom? What, post bail?

[poncho]

Take a look at Puerto Rico they live under a so called "democratic" U.S. colony. Why are they not a state? Why can they not be independant? If they became a state the U.S backed corporations would not be tax except from duties and corporate income taxes but most of all it would be harder for "them' to hide there income offshore in other tax haven countries.

The people of Puerto Rico have to pay taxes since the American run corporations pay nothing and take the profits out of the country from all industry, the people are left holding the bag to support the infastructure of the country that is designed for corporations benifit. Infation is high along with unemployment, Minium wage has not increased in a decade. Medical and schools cost money that the people do not have.

School is more than learning to write and read it is the cornerstone of teaching civility without this the people of Puerto Rico have the highest murder rate in the Western world. They also have the highest rate of aids. The people of Puerto Rico have no way of improving themselves unless they turn to crime. Mix in high costs of medical care the only way for the majority to get it is through crime. This has become there culture.

This is a country with a GDP of 39.4 billion with a population of 3,900,000 people. Yet only 20% of the people can read and write. Even less have access to medical and even more go hungry. Where does this money go? Into the pockets of American corporations.

[AgustoSandino]

Puerto Rican's don't pay taxes huevon, furthermore, name one US corporation that is HQ'ed there?

[Supermodel]

My stats differ from yours poncho:

source: CIA country file, Puerto Rico...

Economy - overview: Puerto Rico has one of the most dynamic economies in the Caribbean region. A diverse industrial sector has surpassed agriculture as the primary locus of economic activity and income. Encouraged by duty-free access to the US and by tax incentives, US firms have invested heavily in Puerto Rico since the 1950s. US minimum wage laws apply. Sugar production has lost out to dairy production and other livestock products as the main source of income in the agricultural sector. Tourism has traditionally been an important source of income, with estimated arrivals of nearly 5 million tourists in 1999. Prospects for 2001 are clouded by a probable slowing down in both the construction and tourist sectors and by increasing inflation, particularly in energy and food prices; estimated growth will be 2%.
GDP: purchasing power parity - $39 billion (2000 est.)
GDP - real growth rate: 2.8% (2000 est.)
GDP - per capita: purchasing power parity - $10,000 (2000 est.)
GDP - composition by sector: agriculture: 1%

industry: 45%

services: 54% (1999 est.)
Population below poverty line: NA%
Literacy: definition: age 15 and over can read and write

total population: 89%

male: 90%

female: 88% (1980 est.)

[poncho]

They privatized schools and hospitals. They have high inflation in both energy and food. Minimum wage laws are the same as U.S. what they leave out is that its not set to that of what is "enjoyed" in the U.S. Notice they also left out the number of people living below the line of poverty. Overall literacy of 89% that means only 11% can read. A country of only 3.9 million that generates that kind of wealth should not have unemployment of 14% percent. The people should be able to support a school system without it being private therefore you have to pay to send your kids to school.

Your stats are therefore worse! The very little of what you show. Tells how American company's are stealing the wealth off the backs of the people of Puerto Rico.

The people are U.S citizens yet they cannot vote for president. The second half of why Americans cannot travel to Cuba, the people of Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin islands would see how a "peoples" government would treat them!!!!!

[poncho]

"Puerto Rican's don't pay taxes huevon, furthermore, name one US corporation that is HQ'ed there?"

No they do not pay U.S. federal income taxes but they do have taxes that are high in other forms that U.S based company's are except from.

U.S companies would be foolish to HQ there its easier to pull money out of a subsiduary and its easier to hide and create phantom losses for the American mainland based company so they can gain more right offs so less taxes on the income earned at home.

[peaccenicked]

THIRD WORLD POVERTY A DIRECT RESULT OF COLONIAL MISRULE

Amitabh Pal
(November 1, 1997)

At the 50th anniversary of India's independence, it's time for former colonial overlords like Britain to acknowledge their role in creating the crushing poverty prevalent in the Third World.

When India and Pakistan gained their independence on the midnight of August 14 and 15, 1947, it initiated the dismantling of once-invincible colonial empires. But the colonial legacy did not end for former subject nations. The widespread misery that is visible in much of the Third World is a direct result of colonial rule.

Let's take India, for instance. The country (once comprised of present-day India, Pakistan and Bangladesh) was supposed to be the "jewel in the (British empire's) crown." Yet, the region is ranked near the bottom today in terms of socio-economic indicators. This is a direct consequence of the systematic underdevelopment of the area by the British in their nearly two centuries of rule. The effect of British rule in India was so destructive that per capita food availability actually declined by 25 percent between 1900 and 1947.

At the time of independence, a mere 14 percent of the Indian population was literate. Though India has nearly quadrupled its literacy rate over the past 50 years, half its population is still illiterate. At the time of independence, Indian life expectancy was barely 30 years. Since independence, life expectancy has doubled -- to a mere 60 years.

Before the British came to India, the standard of living was generally higher than that of Europe. Robert Clive, who led the British conquest of India, remarked that Murshidabad, a city in the Bengal region (now Bangladesh) was "as extensive, populous, and rich as the city of London, with the difference that there are individuals in the first possessing infinitely greater property than the last."

The British took a society that was relatively prosperous and a thriving center for manufacturing, and turned it into a poor agricultural society where, to quote a report from the British Governor-General of India in 1834, "the misery (of the peasants) hardly finds a parallel in the history of commerce."

As Jawaharlal Nehru, the first prime minister of independent India, wrote, "Nearly all our major problems today have grown up during British rule, and as a direct result of British policy: The lack of industry and the neglect of agriculture; the extreme backwardness in the social services; and, above all, the tragic poverty of the people."

The damage that Britain did was not only limited to India. It brought misery and underdevelopment to nearly all of its colonial territories. For example, in 1961 when Britain left Tanzania, one of its bigger African colonies, the country only had 13 college graduates.

Nor was this legacy just a mark of the British. The other colonial masters were even worse. When the Belgians left the Belgian Congo in 1960, there was barely a single college graduate in the country. The French left two of their biggest colonies, Algeria and Vietnam, after bitter wars that killed hundreds of thousands of people.

Perhaps the colonial overlords can start atoning for all this harm by formally acknowledging that they are partly responsible for the agony that much of the Third World is in today.

There are precedents. British Prime Minister Tony Blair apologized in May for the Irish potato famine of the mid-19th century in which 1 million people died due to British apathy and neglect. In contrast, Blair has yet to express remorse for the Bengal famine under British rule in India in the early 1940s that killed more than 3 million people. A U.N. Development Program report a few years ago called the famine one of the biggest man-made disasters in history. Nor was this an isolated phenomenon under British rule. An estimated 29 million people died in recurring famines in India in the second half of the 19th century.

Queen Elizabeth II is due to visit India in mid-October as part of India's 50th anniversary celebrations. Perhaps she can use the occasion to acknowledge the destructive legacy of British rule throughout its empire. Western nations should admit the role they played in bringing the Third World to its present condition -- and help these countries to improve their current situation.

[Supermodel]

peace, how does that explain the former british colonies of the USA, Canada and Australia?

[CheGuevara]

Wrong tense there Supermodel. You DID know what it was like to be starving. Seems you've forgotten.

[Supermodel]

Hi, Che, long time no see. Actually I'm hungry right now so I'm leaving.

Seriously, though, you are right. It is my disillusionment with materialism that makes me hang out and chat with you fine folks. See ya tomorrow.

[peaccenicked]

In the USA, Canada and Australia the colonialists
by genocide and theft managed to marginilise the indigenous peoples and achieve an independent
control over resources.
Take the example of tea,
Tata Tea acquired Tetley Group of Britain two years ago,
and the company ranks as the world's No. 2 tea company, after Unilever Group.
This is the background.
"Background


Tata Tea was incorporated in 1962 as Tata Finlay Ltd, and commenced business in 1963. Initially the company started with a instant tea factory at Munnar, Kerala and blending/ packaging unit at Bangalore. The Company entered into a technical and financial collaboration with James Finlay & Co Glasgow, UK. Tata Tea's business profile changed with significant expansion of operations and move into plantations, In 1976, it acquired from James Finlay & Company and its 7 associates, sterling tea companies. The consideration of about Rs115mn was paid through issue of equity shares (Rs19.8mn) and Rs95mn was retained as unsecured loans at 5% p.a. interest. The foreign holdings by James Finlay and Mcleod Russell were acquired by Tata Industries in Dec '82. The company's name was changed to Tata Tea Limited in 1983. "
The history of the company here indicates the pattern
"Founded in 1750 in Glasgow where its head office is still situated, Finlays became a public company in 1924 and in October 2000 became a wholly owned subsidiary of John Swire & Sons, whose main centre of business is in Hong Kong.

Originally spinners and weavers of cotton imported from the US, Finlays started its long association with tea in the 1870s, following the disruption of the supply of cotton as a result of the American Civil War. Sir John Muir, Provost of Glasgow in the 1890s and Finlays' senior partner, led the company into tea, making frequent visits to both north and south India. When coffee was wiped out by blight in Sri Lanka in the early years of the 20th century, it was replaced by tea and Finlays became involved in ownership and management of tea estates in that country.

Finlays moved into tea plantations in Kenya in 1927 and in Uganda, alongside the Commonwealth Development Corporation, in 1993. The tea estates in Sri Lanka were nationalised in 1973 and the groups interests in India were sold to Tata Tea in 1977. On privatisation, estates in Sri Lanka were bought in 1998. At the turn of the 20th century Finlays invested in tea plantations in Bangladesh."
Here is the companies view of its present operations.
http://www.finlays.net/plantations.htm
Here is a version of what happened at the Boston Tea party and shows something of America's anti imperialist struggle against Britain and independent control over resources, an independence it
denies to other peoples alongside Britain and the other imperialist countries

http://campus.northpark.edu/history/WebChr...A/TeaParty.html (http://campus.northpark.edu/history/WebChron/USA/TeaParty.html)






(Edited by peaccenicked at 1:51 pm on Mar. 1, 2002)


(Edited by peaccenicked at 2:04 pm on Mar. 1, 2002)


(Edited by peaccenicked at 2:09 pm on Mar. 1, 2002)