Global Poverty Essay

Poverty is a serious issue that has been going on for centuries. Every day there are people who die due to hunger but there are solutions to reducing, and even stopping, poverty. Global poverty comes in an abundance of shapes and sizes. One of the main sources of poverty is the lack of investment in the future at all levels. The manufacturer outsources to China because he does not want to invest in long-term employees. The government does not want to invest in quality employees through education, infrastructure, health care, etc. The potential employee does not want to invest in his future through education or training, but would rather have immediate gratification of leisure. A second main source is the lack of certain basic government functions. The government needs to be able to provide stability, through laws and establishing property rights. Without these basic things, there is little incentive for the people to develop new products, or work hard, because it will just be taken a way by someone more powerful. I don’t think government is the solution to everything, but it is necessary for a few basic functions. Another main source of poverty (and economic inequality) is because we are very selfish and self-destructive. We are a species that cannot exist without soiling our own nest and devouring our own weak until we ourselves are devoured. We all want to have more stuff for the amount of wealth we have to give up. That means we all are demanding that someone generate more wealth for less than it is worth. Unfortunately, we are willing to take this to extremes. We are more than happy to see all of our neighbours lose their jobs in the mill next door because the super center gets the same item made by slave labour in China. The people at the top are merely making a profit on what we demand they do for us. Poverty hits children the most because they are our future generation and they need to grow up healthy and prosper but most children don’t have this advantage. They should have food and education so they can grow up and become something, push the world forward, but unfortunately those living in poverty don’t have the luxury of this. More than 80% of the population dies of hunger every single year and 22,000 of them are children. There are solutions to ending poverty but if we don’t stop it now it will only get worse. The percentage will double and there won’t be children to bring the world forward because they would have died due to poverty. The infant mortality rate will increase and so will the amount of homeless people.In the political sense there could be an increased risk of war as well as genocide and terrorism. There’s also the possibility of the population migrating to places that are doing economically better than their community. The reason inequality exists is because of the devaluing middle-class workers. No matter how hard they work and how many hours they work; almost all of the profit goes to the executives and shareholders. Until middle-class workers are at the same level as corporations, the income gap will keep widening. There’s also the fact that women get paid less than men in most work places. This just makes matters worse. Unemployment also plays a role because those who are unemployed aren’t making any money at all and the rate for unemployment just keeps rising. It’s these people who are being discriminated against when it comes to the working class and that’s why economic inequality exists and why it’s on the rise. A major effect economic inequality could have is the increase in unemployment. And if unemployment increases then the demand and supply will decrease, thus causing the economy to go down. If people lose their jobs they have no money to pay for certain goods and services and some might not even be able to afford putting food on the table. This will also increase poverty. A possible solution for poverty is getting rid of capitalism. We need to get rid of all forms of physical force being the win/lose system of government, taxation, income redistribut ion and regulation and central banking and have a society based on the division of labour, individual rights and private property. Also, it’s not education or income redistribution that will do it either. The level of invested capital per worker, both foreign and domestic, thus raising the productivity of labour in an unhampered free market government free capitalist system, Prior to the industrial revolution, 95 percent of children died before the age of 5, and since then the world’s population has exploded more than 10 fold. The Chinese economy since 1978 has grown 90 times since the introduction of † a freer more capitalistic market society,† Literally lifting 100’s of millions out of abject poverty and misery. Poverty can probably never be completely eliminated but this could be one possible solution. Another solution could be allowing free trade with these developing countries, and maybe even give them some trade protections for a short time while they develop their comparative advantage. You could probably argue who benefits from poverty from many different angles. I would  tend to say that no one benefits from poverty. Sure, if you can pay some people much less than the natural market rate to produce a good, some people will benefit by receiving some products at a lower price, but this actually isn’t all that beneficial. By paying these people less, they have less money to contribute back to society, so from an economic standpoint, I would say no one really benefits from poverty in the long run. If instead, all countries had free markets, the world would be better off. One more possible solution for ending poverty is helping each other out, especially those living in third world countries. Countries that are developed, like the US, spend all their money on war when they could be focusing on helping other countries out, even helping their poor communities. Children living in poor areas need a quality education. They need to go to school to gain knowledge and life skills and how to reach their full potential which will help them out in the long run. There needs to be new schools built and the barriers that are preventing children from going to school (especially girls) needs to be broken. Without the proper education, these countries won’t be able to improve their situation. Countries living in poverty also need health care and safe drinking water. If we can help provide these things for these countries they could eventually come out of the poverty because it’s hard to start a business or provide for a family when they’re busy looking for their next meal and some water. We can also help these countries by letting them come out of it themselves. We can lend them financial aid but having people from over here go over there to build the schools and hospitals only hurts the country. They need to be provided with jobs and they need to learn how to help because that is the only way they will get economically stronger. There needs to be access to food, water, health facilities, transportation, roads, education, daycare and many more infrastructures in each community to allow people in those communities to work effectively and productively. We have tried this in countries such as Africa and nothing came of it but that’s because we weren’t doing it right. We believed that we were helping them when, in fact, we’ve only made their situation worse. We need to be more conscious of what’s going on and how to help properly instead of trying to throw money around. We need to participate and push for change if we really want to make a difference and reduce poverty as well as economic inequality. It won’t be easy but it will definitely be worth it.