Can Poverty Be Eradicated?

By:  Shoeb Amin

The opinions expressed in this submission are those of the author and do not reflect those of the TF and its editorial board

Recently China announced it has eradicated “extreme poverty” in its country one month ahead of its stated goal. If everything that comes out of Xi Jinping’s propaganda machine is to be believed- I usually take it with a whole can of salt – that is a miraculous achievement .

 But before we look at the veracity of China’s claim and look at how those goals were achieved we need some definitions of the word poverty. Extreme or absolute poverty is defined globally by the World Bank as an income of $1.90 per family per day. China decided it will have its own definition of extreme poverty – at 1.52/day/family  instead of the globally recognized 1.90/day/family (I told you) and declared it had eradicated extreme poverty. (See the Breitbart link below). It still is not a small achievement … but China did so by spending billions and  through forced relocation and forced labor (as reported in the LA times link below).

The  next category is “relative poverty” which the Organization of Economic Co-operation and Development defines as an income less than half of the median income of all the country’s citizens. Thus the relative poverty level for India might be very different from that of Finland. The rates are in the following link. But instead of using these academic definitions I will refer to poverty, in my opinions below, to mean significant lack of the most basic necessities such as food, shelter, clothing and safety.

Some of the tactics China used to “eradicate its own definition of extreme poverty” would be considered human rights violations  in most other countries and cannot be applied everywhere. Since most of the world cannot adopt the Chinese formula what else can the rest of the world do? Solving any problem requires understanding the causes of the problem. Causes of poverty are complex and sometimes the causes and their effects form a vicious circle in the sense that one aggravates the other. According to UKEssaya the most common cause of poverty is hunger; if you are undernourished ,you don’t have the mental or physical energy to strive out of poverty. But hunger is also the effect of poverty so some people find themselves in a trap that they can never come out of.

Christopher Sarlo of the Fraser Institute divides the the causes in 3 broad categories; “bad luck”, “bad choices” and enablement. Bad luck causes are those over which you have no control so if you are born as an untouchable in India or a Uyghur in China; or born with major physical and mental disabilities or born in a country  which is grossly mismanaged chances are you’ll end up in poverty. Personally I think being intellectually challenged  is the most common cause of poverty; it not only falls in the bad luck category (you can’t control the genes your parents give you) but also to a large extent in the bad choices category. The “bad choices” category includes dropping out of school, early child bearing, having children out of a committed relationship, drug use etc. Sarlo’s third category is “enablement” ; he believes by the govt. doling out welfare checks to the poor it actually perpetuates poverty.

Some people fall into poverty from”temporary” reasons like major natural disasters e.g. earthquakes, floods, hurricanes, war etc.

Now that we know all the causes of poverty can we eliminate them all and end poverty and hunger forever? I can categorically say NO, never. My view is not from pessimism, cynicism or negativism; it is just from realism that most of us do not want to accept.  Poverty has been with us since the time of the Pharaohs or even before that. It existed even before money was invented, when the rich had 100 sheep and the poor had one or none. It existed during all the great empires. It existed before capitalism and the industrial revolutions ( which some blame for poverty) came into being. Well meaning activists and philanthropists have tried for decades, if not centuries, to eradicate it and poverty still survives. I think wealth distribution, like our height and weight and other characteristics, will always vary on a bell shaped curve; there will always be folks below the 5th percentile (2 standard deviations below mean).There will always be people born with bad luck factors described above; always be people who make bad choices in life and there will always be a few – not all – people who, because of receiving their government’s financial assistance get trapped in that state or prefer to stay there. And there will always be populations living under Mugabe-like governments. You cannot make all those causes go away.

So am I saying helping the poor is a futile exercise? Not at all. Helping those who have fallen into poverty because of “temporary” causes listed above has very good results. Studies have shown that a majority of those so affected get back on their feet and get close to their previous financial state.Helping the chronically poor – certainly the ones who fall into the bad luck category – to alleviate their plight is laudable but that is different from the lofty but impossible goal of attempting to eradicate poverty and hunger. You can never make all the causes of poverty go away concurrently.  Even some Scandinavian countries, with all their high taxes and very generous socialistic policies have not been able to eradicate poverty. Refer to the second chart in the link below.

I wish I had a more positive opinion on this subject and I certainly wish I could  be proven wrong.