There’s a theme from a couple of posts I’ve written over the past month that I want to clarify today. These posts – about the invention of calculus and China’s goal to eradicate poverty – were similar in how they reflect my fundamental belief that societies move up when they are lifted from the bottom rather than pulled from the top. The more obviously unifying idea of these posts – that there is no more important task than ending poverty – is underscored by the theme of lifting from the bottom. I want to explore this concept a little further in a few upcoming posts.
I did want to touch on those two recent posts first, however, before moving on. The original idea of these posts was influenced by my own belief that there is no more important societal task than ending poverty. Is there a bigger accomplishment, reader, than lifting someone out of poverty, and keeping that person out of poverty for good? I think not. As is the case with most of my (many) strong opinions, I suspect I could be wrong about this. But until it’s proven otherwise, I’ll stick with my belief.
Let’s play Devil’s advocate for a moment, though, just to help me feel better about my conclusion. Is pollution and its connection to global warming more important than ending poverty? I think there is a case to be made here. If it turns out that an environmental catastrophe brought on by climate change wipes out a majority of the human race, the process of global warming will probably be looked back on as the most evil thing humans have ever done (assuming history will exist in a post-apocalyptic future, of course). However, when I look at the cause of climate change, it seems to me that the most significant increases in pollution come about to accelerate the rise out of poverty. Do the poor drive electric cars? I think if poverty ended, there would be less pressure to pollute as a means to increasing a society’s wealth.
How about rogue nations and the unpredictable nature of their crazed dictators? This is another strong candidate. If North Korea started nuking everyone, we would all regret not having done more to prevent it. However, I think one important reason we fear rogue nations is that we know their impoverished citizens have no choice but to support the hands that barely feed them. When starvation is a regular occurrence, people will support anybody who offers them bread and water. Maybe instead of tweeting at North Korea and trying to intimidate them with our military might, we should be sending planes over to Pyongyang and parachuting in all of our excess Wonder bread.
How about hate, discrimination, and intolerance? I think these are all big issues, perhaps each more important than poverty, and certainly with a different level of complexity. One thing I consider here is that these negative feelings require an internal system of winners and losers. Society’s casual acceptance of poverty makes it easier to understand others in this context because it starts to seem natural that there should be poor people in a world full of winners and losers. Further, by allowing others to remain in poverty, we subconsciously accept that poverty is caused by one’s own doing. We learn to discriminate anytime we accept the logic of idolizing winners and demonizing losers. Ending poverty would change this thinking in a big way by prioritizing equality not just in our rhetoric but also in the way we distribute our most essential basic resources.
Now, I should note that I don’t think getting everyone up to a basic sustenance level will solve all problems – ending poverty isn’t the magic domino that will knock over our other long-standing problems. However, I do think ending poverty will help simplify a lot of our current thinking about other problems that are much tougher to understand when so much of what they represent is influenced by the ever-present reality of poverty.
