What is Poverty ?

“Poverty is the worst form of violence.”… Mahatma Gandhi

The state of being poor is referred to as poverty. It is about not having enough money to meet the basic needs including food, clothing and shelter. However, poverty is much more than just not having enough money.

Around the world, in rich or poor nations, poverty has always been present. In most nations today, inequality—the gap between the rich and the poor—is quite high and often widening.

There is no one cause of poverty, and the results of it are different in every case. Poverty varies considerably depending on the situation. Feeling poor in Canada is different from living in poverty in India or Zimbabwe. The differences between rich and poor within the borders of a country can also be great.

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Permalink Reply by Muhammad Khurshid on April 25, 2009 at 5:46pm

My dear friend, Mahatma Gandhi was right. Yes poverty is the worst form of violence. I have been seeing with my own eyes that the poor children have been blowing up themselves. Actually most of the people in Bajaur Agency, tribal areas situated on the Pak-Afghan border are poor. Now after losing the hope they have been resorting to violence. I remained the poorest man during my whole life and know the pain of all the poor. If your children are dying of hunger and other related problem and you can do nothing then what the option is left with a man. I know as several times I have considered the option of selling my kidney for earning money to feed my wife and my children. Several times I have considered the option to become suicide bomber as in this way at least I shall be able to earn something. I have been opening my heart to you because I want to bring some facts into your notice. Rulers of Pakistan are corrupt to the core. They never think of the people. They are just busy in filling their pockets with ill-gotten money. At the momen I am a good example as the state has been making me the target. I am victim of state terrorism.
A lot of thanks for initiating this thread.

Permalink Reply by Janos Abel on April 25, 2009 at 7:22pm

What is poverty? People are poor when they have no access to resources that would enable them to support themselves and their dependants.

In poor countries this is lack of access to fertile land. In rich countries it is lack of a living income.

Employment is no substitute for poverty because it is based on subservience---serving someone else as a precondition of your right to the means of life i.e. income to live on.

The answer to abject poverty is simple.

In rich countries, where unemployment is always a huge---although largely hidden---problem, it is a guaranteed living income whether people have jobs or not.

In developing countries it is sufficient land for people to make a living on for themselves and family. This means, for example, that multinational food companies can not take the best land away from the people of the host country.

To show the feasibility of these solutions we have to understand how current economic thinking justifies the existence of poverty. Out of such understanding arises the modern alternative to replace an economic practice that is essentially exploitative towards both nature and the human individual.

That alternative is (natural) resource taxation, as part of the science of sustainable economics called in some quarters geonomics.

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