Explain the growth of poverty and slums in the world.

how would you explain it?

 

More Poverty and Slums=More CIA Drug RUnning of Heroin and Cocaine into the hood...I know it sounds crazy but look it up...www.copvcia.com

 

I would first look at the economic policies of the countries involved.

 

I'll just talk about the US here, world poverty is much more complex.

The main causes of poverty are lack of education, lack of oppurtunity, drug use, and mental and physical illnesses.

There are many social programs other then 'welfare' to help the poor we could be implementing. Most social programs target the middle class more then the poor. Check out the Matthew Effect.

If you don't spend more money on integrating poor communities, you'll be spending more money on prisons. I don't see why communities would spend more money on prisions, it's much more dangerous for the community, and much cruler. The reason that strikes me, is most people get caught up in a centuries old practice of wanting to get rid of the 'undesirables' by speeches from tough talking douchbags like Joe Arpaio. The public doesn't think things through very much and agrees there needs to be a solution to this problem. The solution they are pushed is more prisons.

This prison system effects minorities (male minorities) disproportiaty and the rates of recididivism are even higher for minorities. Clearly there an element of cultural discrimination in this process.

Ghettos forming is also a major problem. Ghetto growth is largely a result of suburbinization. What happened during suburbanization was more affluent communities tried to get away from 'undesirables', so they moved outside the cities bounds. This let them feel their children were safer when they formed their own schools, free of many city social taxes.

This let many schools and hospitals in inner cities falling into disrepair. Less social services, less jobs, leading to more crimes. People should be free to move where they want, but they shouldn't be allowed to move right outside the cities limits to avoid taxation when they use other city services.

A good way to escape this is allowing a city to have special annexation authority, which allows the city council to vote to extend the limits of the cities a few more miles to tax people who have moved right outside the city.

There are lots of other factors to consider also.

 

1. Capitalistic human nature.2. Priorities, most resources do not go to human development


I like to say it is complex but, it is simple to understand.

 

How about a lack of capitalism contributing to poverty?

What are some things most poor areas have in common? One would be a lack of jobs and job variety which contributes to high unemployment and stagnate wages. So if you want to reduce poverty in an area then promote economic policies that attract investment and stimulate diverse job creation.

 

globalization, outsourcing, gentrification, captalism, deep rooted hatred (such as tribal warfare and genocide), racism

 

For those who blame capitalism for poverty. How exactly does capitalism cause poverty from your point of view?

 

the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.

 

Seriously though, naturally there are always slums, but it's made worse by OUR government/elite (rich people) shipping in drugs and peddling them off to the poor, then the poor either use them and slowly kill themselves or sell them to other people in their neighborhoods and slowly kill them. Than...these users and dealers are arrested and brought to prison where the rich also benefit because we now live in an economy that makes money off prisons.

 

How about poverty being related to geography?


I've heard that places in America like the Mississipi Delta,Appalachia and many Indian reservations have poverty problems largely because they are located in areas that are "too far out" to attract investment to the local economy which then contributes to their higher unemployment. If people in these areas want a better life they basically will need to relocate to better economic areas.

For those who'd say these areas need more gov't assistance,haven't people in these areas long been recipients of welfare and other gov't programs?

 

rich people peddling drugs to the poor? our government causing people to get addicted to drugs and sell them? prison system being used for profit?

are you sure your not on drugs?

 

“Explain the growth of poverty and slums in the world”

There are no simple definitive answers.

Slums have historically grown when rural people have moved to urban areas to find work (e.g. Late Republican Rome, Victorian London, and Modern Day Mumbai). The areas they inhabited lack the amenities of other areas (fresh water, sewage system, etc).

Improvements of those amenities can greatly increase the quality of life of those areas, but the political will needs to be there. If that will is missing then nothing (or very little) is done to alleviate the suffering.

In other areas long term inhabitation without renovation can lead to once respectable areas becoming slum areas. Again this can be remedied but only if the political will is there to do so.

**

As to poverty it depends on a persons political and economic outlook and most importantly their definition of ‘poverty’.

Some only see those that have very few material goods and are only one meals away from real hunger as being ‘poor’ while others point out that poverty in any society is relative to that society. In other words in somewhere like the US people might have some material goods (TV, car, fridge etc) but still be relatively poor in comparison with those above them in the economic strata.

Most right wingers believe that some level of ‘poverty’ is needed within an economic system in order to ‘drive’ it. In other words, if numerous people are fighting for work they are likely to drive down wages. These are the kind of people that call for the lessening or even abolition of all benefits to the unemployed.

Others that a nations economy should be used to benefit all and be used to try and increase the quality of life of all within that society.

**

In the last few years there has been something called the ‘Washington Consensus’ dominating many of the policies of the international institutions (IMF, WTO, World Bank) as well as the economic foreign policies of the US (but not it’s domestic economic policy).

It was a rather right wing belief in a freemarket neoliberal economics, that many now believe was the wrong approach to be taken to actually improve many countries economies or the quality of life of it’s citizens.

Try ‘Globalization and its Discontents’ by Joseph Stiglitz

**

 

Well the thing about the Washington Consensus is that it seems to be debatable as far as it's successes and failures and the rejection of it can vary from country to country. Some countries like Brazil have found some of the principles useful for their economy.

Plus,it should be pointed out that there are those including the author of the WC,who feel that it has been misunderstood by it's critics and mis-applied by the IMF in how they implemented the principles of the consensus.

 

I’m a pragmatist and the problem is that many that were adherents of the WC were dogmatic in their implementation of their views. They were also rather bullying in forcing countries often against their own will and with little regard for local conditions to enact measures that many saw as wrong in that particular instance (and were proved to be wrong). This often lead to gross instances of hypocrisy were the weak were forced to ‘open’ up their markets while the rich and powerful were allowed to continue the protect ion of their own markets while using the ‘rules’ to dominate foreign markets.

For example – The richer more influential regions (US, EU) have often subsidised their agricultural markets (for purely domestic political reasons) while poorer, weaker nations have not been allowed to protect their own agricultural markets against the cheap (subsidised) western imports. This squeezed the rural economy of many third (and second) world countries causing people to move to cities to seek work where they created slums.

Now the supporters of the freemarket ideas of the WC, claim it ‘would’ work if the rich countries just followed the principles. But that’s the problem, if a theory is dogmatic and only works if everyone follows the rules to the letter is unlikely to work in the real world where other factors will always get in the way.

My guiding philosophy is how much something benefits and contributes to the general and sustainable quality of life of the people involved. The problem with freemarket ideas is that in my view they don’t work for those goals. Power will accumulate in the hands of a few and out of self interest those few will work against the interests of the many.

Only where a democratic government has the power to intervene for the benefit of the people can a balance be found between the interests of the public and private sectors, and that means that any freemarket has to be regulated.

 

One thing that many might not be aware of is that many pro-capitalist people are against the IMF also.

They acknowledge that the organization has been counter-productive and a waste of tax dollars. So people shouldn't think that organizations like the IMF are representative of the market/capitalist crowd. Some of these people want the IMF either abolished or reformed.

 

Umm....is that that new thing people call sarchasm lol...I don't think those are outrageous claims to make, and I can back them...

 

Please do.

 

Oh he has sources.

The sources may claim that the leader of the CIA is the lochness monster, but he has them.

 

Motion

Yes but what would they replace it with?

**

According to George Monbiot the author of the book Age of Consent: A manifesto for a new world order the IMF and the World Bank should be scrapped but he also suggests alternative systems, he says –

“It’s not just that they [the IMF and the World Bank] are controlled by the rich world but operate in the poor world. They are also constitutionally obliged to place the entire burden of dealing with trade deficits and international debt on the deficit and debtor nations, which are least able to do anything about them. When they were established in 1944, a much better idea had already been proposed.
John Maynard Keynes had been working on his proposal for an International Clearing Union for 12 years. When he unveiled it in 1943, it was almost universally recognised as a work of genius. Not only had he solved the problem of debt and the balance of trade; he had also discovered a formula for global economic stability. The Clearing Union was a bank operating at the international level, in which nations held their trade accounts. They would be charged interest not only on their trade deficits, but also on their trade surpluses. Before the end of every year, therefore, when the interest payments fell due, they would have a powerful incentive to “clear” their accounts – in other words, to end up with neither a deficit nor a surplus. The only way in which surplus nations can clear their accounts is to change their terms of trade, so that they import more and export less. By getting rid of their surpluses, in other words, they also get rid of other nations’ deficits. As accumulated trade deficits are the major component of international debt, by preventing the accumulation of deficits you also prevent the accumulation of debt.
Keynes’s idea was blocked by the US government. Many economists warned at the time that the result would be a massive accumulation of unpayable debt on the part of the poor nations, and a corresponding increase in the powers of the rich nations. They have been vindicated. It is time to bring the Clearing Union back to life.
We also need some kind of a global trading body, if the weaker nations are to have any possibility of collective bargaining. A fair trade regime might look something like this:
The nations which are poor today would be permitted to follow the routes to development taken by the nations which are rich today. This means protecting their new industries from foreign competition until they are big enough to fight their own corner, and making free use of other countries’ intellectual property, for trade within their own borders and with other poor nations. What I am suggesting, in other words, is a sliding scale of trade priveleges: the poorest nations are permitted full protection of their infant industries and the free use of intellectual property; slightly richer nations lesser priveleges, the richest nations none at all.
But this is only one component of fair trade. A Fair Trade Organisation would also become an international licensing authority for corporations. Only those companies which can demonstrate that they are not employing slaves, banning trades unions or dumping their pollutants in the rivers would be permitted to trade internationally. All global trade is therefore run on the principles of the fair trade movement today. A corporation wishing to trade internationally must employ monitoring companies to examine its performance and report back to the FTO. Among the criteria they apply should be the requirement that companies pay the full costs of production themselves, rather than dumping their costs on other people or the environment”
http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2004/06/01/the-age-of-consent/#more-888