Week 5: Flashcards
1
Q
Poverty statistics:
A
- 700 million people around the world live in extreme poverty, with less than $2.15 per day (2023).
- 22,000 children die each day due to poverty (UNICEF).
- Hunger kills more each year than AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria.
- 1 out of 9 people in the world suffer from hunger (WFP).
2
Q
Is poverty declining?
A
- 1.8 billion in 1990 to 1.2 billion in 2012 to less than 1 billion in 2018.
- between 1990 and 2012 the proportion of people living on less than $2.15 a day declined from 43% to 22% of the global population.
- especially in China:
- China lifted 800 million people out of poverty over 40 years.
- accounts for almost three-quarters of global poverty reductio in the past 40 years.
3
Q
Continued and rising inequalities:
A
- overall huge economic success gains over the past century, but often highly unequal.
- Between 1960s-2000s richest 20 states in the world grew by 300%, poorest 20 grew by 20% (World Bank). GDP is highest in North America and Europe and smaller in continents such as Latin America, Africa and other parts of Asia.
- Domestic inequalities growing since 1970s.
4
Q
COVID and rising poverty:
A
- Prediction models extrapolate from past and present, but future is often uncertain.
- COVID-19 and rises in extreme poverty.
5
Q
Different perspectives on poverty:
A
- mainstream/Orthodox
- alternative view
6
Q
Orthodox view:
A
- Poverty is “a situation suffered by people who do not have the money to buy food and satisfy other basic material needs” (Evans and Thomas 2023, p.428).
- Dominant view of poverty exemplified by the field of development economics.
- Embraced by most powerful actors in the system, especially the World Bank which categorizes countries according to their GDP.
- Poverty is about money, not having income or work.
- Poverty is seen as an economic condition dependent on cash transactions in the marketplace.
- A common economic yardstick is used to measure and judge all societies.
7
Q
Alternative view:
A
- Poverty is “a situation suffered by people who are not able to meet their material and non-material needs” (Evans and Thomas 2023, p.428)
- The well-being of the human person is not just about wealth accumulation, but also about self-reliance, maintaining cultural ties and community, having a voice (especially for the powerless and marginalized such as indigenous groups and women), and living in a dignified and sustainable way that values nature.
*“The poor are those that not only lack material capacity to satisfy culturally informed needs, but the ability to live meaningful lives” (Pasha 2019). - Orthodox view of poverty critiqued for valuing individualism and consumerism seen as destructive of natural resources and communities.
8
Q
Difference between human development and sustainable development:
A
- Human Development: development understood in term of human, not just economic, growth (education, health, empowerment, etc.)
- Sustainable Development: concerned that economic growth does not go to the expense of the environment and future generations.
9
Q
Mainstream vs alternative understandings of poverty:
A
- Share the view that poverty has an important material aspect to it, in terms of lack of economic resources, food, clean water and sanitation.
- Disagree on the stress they give to purely economic factors in contributing to keeping or bringing people out of poverty.
- Disagree on the importance they give to non-material aspects of poverty like culture, society and the environment.
- Alternative view has been making headways into the mainstream view in past decades (e.g. from MDGs to SDGs). Alternative has broadened our understanding, MDG broader set of goals.
10
Q
Classification of poverty:
A
- Extreme poverty: cannot meet the basic needs for survival.
- Moderate poverty: basic needs are met, but just barely.
- Relative poverty: income level below a certain average national income level. Lacking prerequisites for upward social mobility. Quite prevalent in the Global North.
11
Q
Debated theories and theorists:
A
- liberal and neo-liberal theories
- critical theories
- institutional and political theories
12
Q
Liberal and neo-liberal - cause of poverty:
A
- little-free market capitalism
- too much state intervention
13
Q
Liberal and neo-liberal - development:
A
- more free market capitalism and less state intervention
14
Q
Liberal and neo-liberal - solution:
A
- promoting greater economic growth and integration to free market and global economy.
- Firms will increase their economies of scale in a larger market and incomes will converge as poor countries grow more rapidly than rich ones. Win win situation – everyone benefits.
- developing states are generally asked to cut down state intervention to the economy and society through privatisations, reduce domestic subsidises.
- E.g., China and East Asia are examples of parts of the world that have plugged themselves into the global economy and grow rapidly.
15
Q
Critical theories - cause of poverty:
A
- colonialism, capitalism (main cause of poverty) and/or economic exploitation and inequality.
- Imperial and colonial practice by the North and its direct use and exploitation of the colonised global south – modern economic system continues to perpetrate unequal relations in the system
- (Pasha) the working of the current global economic order continues to replicate colonial governmentality which favours the rich. Manufactured goods move more freely between rich and most advanced countries and largely restricted in poorer countries.
- Multinational corporations exploit the natural resources of the poorest, leaving little behind.
