Eradicating Poverty: Moving Forward As One
We all know that all around the world rich are getting richer. Nearly thirty years ago, the richest 1 percent of Americans got 9 percent of total national income in the United States, By 2007, they had 23 percent. In 2009, new census data show, the rich-poor income gap was the widest on record. (David R. Francis - Christian Science Monitor).
According to Timothy Noah of Slate, the United States now has a more unequal distribution of wealth than some of the third world countries like, Nicaragua, Venezua and Guyana. Timothey writes, “All my life I've heard Latin America described as a failed society (or collection of failed societies) because of its grotesque maldistribution of wealth. Peasants in rags beg for food outside the high walls of opulent villas, and so on. But according to the Central Intelligence Agency income distribution in the United States is more unequal than in Guyana, Nicaragua, and Venezuela, and roughly on par with Uruguay, Argentina, and Ecuador. Income inequality is actually declining in Latin America even as it continues to increase in the United States. Economically speaking, the richest nation on earth is starting to resemble a banana republic. The main difference is that the United States is big enough to maintain geographic distance between the villa-dweller and the beggar.”
Elimination of extreme wealth and poverty is one of the teachings of Baha'u'llah, the Founder-Prophet of the Baha'i Faith, that is very near to the hearts of Baha'is. I have known many Baha'is who have become deeply involved and committed to many grass roots Social and Economic Development projects with the aim of improving the conditions of mankind.
Published on Bahai Faith | Baha'i Faith (http://www.bahai.us)
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, in the United States, roughly 13 to 17% of Americans (approximately 35.9 million adults and 12.9 million children) are living below the federal poverty line at any given point in time, and roughly 40% fall below the poverty line at some point within a 10-year time span. To bring attention to this national crisis, the Catholic Campaign for Human Development (CCHD) has designated January as “Poverty in America Awareness Month.”
To observe this month, the Baha’i International Community has published a statement titled Eradicating Poverty: Moving Forward As One, which calls for a coherent, principle-based approach to the eradication of global poverty. Here are a few excerpts from the statement:
To read the entire statement, please visit the website for the Baha’i International Community’s United Nations Office. Excerpts from Eradicating Poverty: Moving Forward As One
The Baha’i International Community’s Statement on Poverty
February 14, 2008
“The mechanisms of poverty eradication have long been defined in primarily material terms. Indeed, the central pillar of the international community’s poverty alleviation efforts has been the transfer of financial resources…Tragically, the aid, far from ushering in greater self-sufficiency, has often had a detrimental effect on recipient communities: increased dependency on foreign assistance, subservience to externally dictated priorities, misappropriation of funds and decreased pressure for governance reform.”
“…poverty can be described as the absence of those ethical, social and material resources needed to develop the moral, intellectual and social capacities of individuals, communities and institutions. …the goal at hand is not only to remove the ills of poverty but to engage the masses of humanity in the construction of a just
global order.”
“Individuals and institutions must work in tandem to take up this task. [The individual] must be helped to reclaim his dignity and sense of self-worth, must be encouraged to gain confidence to improve his condition and strive to realize his potential. Beyond the achievement of personal well-being, he must be nurtured to become a source of social good—of peace, happiness and advantage to those around him. [The institutions] at every level of society, must serve as channels through which the talents and energies of individuals can be harnessed in service to humanity.”
“It is in this context that the Bahá'à International Community would like to offer two principles as guides for efforts in the realm of poverty eradication: justice and unity…Justice provides the means capable of harnessing human potential to eradicate poverty from our midst, through the implementation of laws, the adjustment of economic systems, the redistribution of wealth and opportunity, and unfailing adherence to the highest ethical standards in private and public life. Unity asserts that progress is systemic and relational, that a concern for the integrity of the family unit and the local, national, and global community must guide poverty alleviation efforts.”
Governance
“Effective leaders must not only exercise an impeccable ethic but also work to strengthen the character of the nation’s economic, social, legal and educational institutions, to improve the regulatory framework, and to manage scarce resources effectively.”
Justice and human rights
“Human rights, as endorsed by most governments of the world, must now enter into the community and legal culture and be systematically incorporated into domestic legislation. They must be translated into all languages and made accessible through media and educational institutions.”
Individual responsibility
“A large share of the responsibility for poverty eradication rests with the individuals themselves. While poverty is the product of numerous factors: historic, economic, political and environmental, there is also a cultural dimension, which manifests itself in individual values and attitudes.”
Gender
“… women’s agency in the arenas of law, politics, science, commerce and religion, to name a few, is still grossly deficient. In areas where women have gained access to education, employment, and ownership opportunities, dramatic effects have been observed at many levels…Yet, the gradual transformation of attitudes has required much more than legal measures, it has required a fundamental change of belief about roles of men and women and courage to challenge traditional gender norms.”
Economic activity
“Today, much of economic activity and its institutional context is at odds with environmental sustainability, the advancement of women, the well-being of the family, the engagement of young people, the availability of employment, and the expansion of knowledge…The economic theories of impersonal markets, promoting selfcentered actions of individuals, have not helped humanity escape the extremes of poverty on the one hand and over-consumption on the other. New economic theories for our time must be animated by a motive beyond just profit.”
Extremes of wealth
“In an interconnected world, where the wealth of many of the world’s richest individuals exceeds the Gross Domestic Product of entire nations, extreme poverty and extreme wealth exist side by side. While much of the focus of remedial efforts is directed towards the poorest, it is the concentration of wealth in the hands of the few that is in urgent need of attention.”
Sustainable development
“On an institutional level, a global entity with a strong scientific advisory capacity is needed to streamline reporting and decision-making processes, including the voices of non-state actors. It must coherently link environmental issues to social and economic priorities, for none of these can advance in isolation. At the educational level, curricula must seek to develop a sense of responsibility towards the natural environment as well as foster a spirit of inquiry and innovation so that the diversity of human experience can be brought to bear on the challenge of creating an environmentally sustainable development pathway.”
Agriculture
“…poverty is often concentrated in rural areas. Damage to natural resources, poor information and infrastructure often result in food insecurity, premature deaths and mass migration to urban areas in search of a better life. The farmer must be accorded his or her rightful place in the processes of development and civilization building: as the villages are reconstructed, the cities will follow.”
Employment
“Whether tilling the soil or selling goods, one’s work should not be reduced to a means for acquiring more goods or as an expendable cost of production. One’s work is the means of developing one’s craft, of refining one’s character, and contributing to the welfare and progress of society. Indeed, the fight against underemployment must begin with the dignity and value of all human labor, even if it is humble, insecure, unprofitable or unremunerated.”
Knowledge
“…the long-term goal…[is] namely to create a society in which the production, diffusion and application of knowledge infuses all facets of human activity. This requires interventions at all levels including child-rearing practices that foster questioning; equal educational opportunities for boys and girls; development of independent media sources; translation of texts from other cultures and the promotion of innovation and scientific research. In order to be free to innovate, to devise solutions to complex problems, the human mind must be free to know.”
Religion
“To encompass the spiritual dimension and its expression in the religions of the world is not to return to superstition or fanaticism or to denounce rational inquiry in any way. Rather, it is to build into poverty alleviation efforts, in an integrated manner, recognition of all the dimensions of human experience and an understanding of how poverty manifests in the material and spiritual dimensions of human life.”
The unity of humankind foreseen by Bahá'u'lláh is unity based on justice. One of the most striking examples of injustice in the world today is the grave imbalance in economic and material conditions. A relatively small percentage of humankind has immense wealth, while the majority of the world's population lives in dire poverty and misery. This imbalance exists both within nations and between nations. Moreover, the gap that separates rich and poor continues to widen, which indicates that existing economic systems are incapable of restoring a just balance.
Rich and powerful in most countries around the world are more greedy than the rest of us and they tend to get their own way most of the time. While rich is getting richer over the years, the number of very poor countries has doubled in the last 30 to 40 years, while the number of people living in extreme poverty has also grown two-fold, according to a UN think-tank, UNCTAD. The number of individuals living in extreme poverty increased by three million per year during the boom years of 2002 and 2007, reaching 421 million people in 2007, as reported by the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD)
How about in the United States? The percentage of Americans struggling below the poverty line in 2009 was the highest it has been in 15 years, according a recent report from the Census Bureau. A staggering 43.6 million Americans, more than 14 percent of the population, were poor in 2009, according to the latest figures released recently. This means nearly 4 millions more Americans drowned in poverty in 2009. This is the third year the number has risen. For the nation’s most vulnerable - children - the poverty rate has reached 20.7 percent, according to a data released in 2009. And more than half of the 15.4 million poor children live with single mothers. The U.S. Institute for Children, Poverty and Homelessness reports that nationwide, 1.35 million children are homeless. Most of them are black or Latino.
Stark are the contrasts between the consumption of luxuries and the cost of provision of basic needs: basic education for all would cost $10 billion; yet $82 billion is spent annually on cigarettes in the United States alone. The eradication of world hunger would cost $30 billion; water and sanitation - $10 billion. By comparison, the world’s military budget rose to $1.55 trillion in 2008.
A satisfactory solution to the world's present economic crisis lies in a profound change of heart and mind which only religion can produce. From the Bahá'à perspective, the prevailing materialistic assumptions about economic development reflect a profound error of conception about human nature itself. `Abdu'l-Bahá wrote that "The fundamentals of the whole economic condition are divine in nature and are associated with the world of the heart and spirit. The disease which afflicts the body politic is lack of love and absence of altruism.”
This picture becomes more complicated when we introduce the problem of equity. The growth process has been accompanied by an increasing division of wealth and poverty due to a host of historical factors such as the technological, educational and military dominance of some countries, and inequities in the system of international trade. Apart from the moral unacceptability of a situation in which the top 20% of the world's population is 150 times richer than the bottom 20% (according to United Nations research), extremes of wealth also increase environmental degradation. At the poverty end of the scale, countries are forced to exploit their natural resources to pay national debt interest, and landless people cut down forests to grow basic food crops. Population growth is highest among the poorest. At the richer end, over-consumption of energy and material goods is directly causing global warming, pollution, etc. As Bahá'u'lláh, the Founder of the Bahá'à Faith, warned over 100 years ago:
In short, the Bahá'à teachings envision that economic justice and prosperity will come about only when the essential connection between the spiritual and practical aspects of life is recognized.
Undeniably, poverty is sustained by an interaction of social and material factors. This interaction determines the societal benefits of material resources, whether the resources are concentrated in the hands of a few or are equitably distributed, whether they are beneficial or harmful to the society at large. Today, much of economic activity and its institutional context is at odds with environmental sustainability, the advancement of women, the well-being of the family, the engagement of young people, the availability of employment, and the expansion of knowledge. For example, military expenditures exceeding $1 trillion and global trade in illicit drugs in excess of $300 billion far exceeds the estimated costs of meeting the United Nations’ global development goals in areas of education, health, sustainability, and women’s empowerment. The economic theories of impersonal markets, promoting self-centered actions of individuals, have not helped humanity escape the extremes of poverty on the one hand and over-consumption on the other. New economic theories for our time must be animated by a motive beyond just profit. They must be rooted in the very human and relational dimension of all economic activity, which binds us as families, as communities and as citizens of one world. They must be animated by a spirit of innovation rather than blind imitation, ennoblement rather than exploitation, and the full and confident participation of women.
For example, the poorest 40 percent of the world’s population accounts for 5 percent of global income while the richest 20 percent accounts for 3/4 of world income. According to UNICEF, 24,000 children die each day due to poverty. Among the 2.2 Billion children worldwide an estimated 1 Billion live in poverty. There is currently 121 Million children with no access to education worldwide; and for the 1.9 Billion children from the developing world there are 640 Million without adequate shelter, 400 Million with no access to safe water, 270 Million without health care, and 121 Million children worldwide with no access to education.
Meanwhile, the total wealth of the top 8.3 Million people around the world is globally rising dramatically, effectively giving them control of nearly a quarter of the world’s financial assets. In other words, in 2004 about 0.13 percent of the world’s population controlled 25 percent of the world’s wealth. If we consider the global spending priorities of 1998, the trends were already extremely alarming.
Gilbert Mercier of NEWS JUNKIE POST, writes:
In 1998, $8 Billion were spent to buy cosmetic products in the United States, $11 Billion to buy ice cream in Europe, $12 Billion to buy perfumes in Europe and the United States, $17 Billion for pet foods in Europe and the US combined, $ 50 Billion to buy cigarettes in Europe, $105 Billion to buy alcoholic drinks in Europe, $400 Billion to buy narcotic drugs worldwide, and $780 Billion were spent in military expenditure globally. In comparison, according to Anup Shah from Global issues.org the cost to achieve universal access to basic social services in all developing countries would be as followed: $ 6 Billion to provide basic education for all, $ 9 Billion to bring everyone water and sanitation, $ 12 Billion to provide reproductive health care for all women, and $13 Billion for basic health care and nutrition.
Our current form of globalization has not leveled the social playing field whatsoever, but has instead increased the unsustainable gap between the rich and the poor. According to the new economic data for March, American consumers are spending again, they are back in the shopping malls and buying durable goods, which could indicate that the worse of the recession is over. While this is good for Wall Street, which has regained all of its losses from the crash of 2008, it is not necessary good news for our society as a whole. The global financial collapse was a unique opportunity in America and elsewhere to adjust our mode of economic development and make it more sustainable. Unfortunately, because of a general lack of political vision and will from our governments, the process of re-thinking capitalism to finally address the issues of poverty and social justice in the context of globalization never really took place.
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