In developing countries 1300 million people live below the poverty line, more than 100 million people live in these conditions in industrialized countries and 120 million in Eastern Europe and Central Asia. Although the reasons why so many people living in poverty are complex, it is said that the main causes are the inequalities in the distribution of resources, services and power and the inability of many people to access knowledge. Arturo Escobar, in his book "The Invention of the Third World", tells of an unjust international economic system, he argues that the causes of poverty in developing countries must be sought outside the Third World.
Although poor people have fewer opportunities, this does not mean they can not overcome poverty alone, but they refuse that opportunity. The main obstacle to the poor is their mentality, as has been seen many times in society, some people that without any means get to be very successful and wealthy , but their mentality is different from that of those people who are still poor. If I am poor and I am unhappy with my situation it makes sense to do something to try to change it and not wait for other people to help me, but many poor blame their failures and lack of initiative to others and their situation. We often hear "I'm poor, I have no money, the government must help me, injustice is everywhere blablabla." Some clear examples of this are the story "We're very poor" by Juan Rulfo, which shows how a family blames the poverty of their misfortunes, and the book of Emile Zola's The Tavern, where a woman is about to get of poverty twice but her thinking stops her.
Japan is the third world economy, but only 20% of its land is arable, has no natural resources and is often hit by hurricanes, tsunamis and earthquakes. In Latin America people live in countries rich in resources and fertile soils, but they managed to be poor and blame the United States and capitalism. This seems to fit what T. Harv Eker said "Rich people focus on opportunities, poor people focus on obstacles". That is why most of the time people stay rich richer and the poor stay poor, the rich people are optimistic, if they want something they look for ways to have it and constantly learn and grow, poor people are pessimistic and the thought "No, I can't do" often leads to failure because they do not believe in themselves.
Another problem is the hatred between classes. It is very common to hear "the rich rob the poor" or "to be rich you have to be false" and that's another difference between rich and poor, rich people admire other rich and successful, the poor are resent the success of the rich. Robert Kiyosaki said the poor father will teach your child to be rich is to be born rich and wealthy father will teach his son to be rich or poor is something you can learn, have often seen cases of people born a poor family and manage to become very rich.
Finally, it boils down to the rich think "I do my life" and the poor think "This is the life I had to live." Poverty is a massive problem worldwide, whether it is important that governments support the poor, is an impossible situation to resolve if poor people do not help themselves. This leads many people to wonder if social inequality is the fault of the system or is it really is a personal responsibility.
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ReplyDeleteIt's more complicated than that. Many rich people are born into wealth. Others step all over people to get there. There's only so much room at the top for rich people. A CEO takes a $30 million salary and pays their employees a gross difference; that is a problem in the US today--CEO salaries have risen over 300% than their regular workers over the last two decades. So GREED and lack of morality is a factor. People ask why are teachers paid incredibly lower than a baseball player?
ReplyDeleteIn the US, all these financial brokerage house problems, bailouts, etc. are due to greed--pushing paper without anything really behind it.
The rich need the poor because they want cheap labor to get richer. Their investors want better returns so they can get richer, thus corporations are moved overseas, such as in Mexico, to pay cheap labor.
Poor people may feel defeated, unmotivated, or be physically or mentally ill so that they don't try to better themselves, but plenty of people have gone to college and right now have shitty jobs below their education level.
It has been this way for centuries--the poor versus rich--but there is more widespread greed today (than say the days of kings)and less of sense of sustaining communities. There are wealthy people who recognize this greed too and have done things like bring some companies back to the US.
One thing that drives me nuts is when poor people procreate when they can barely survive on their. Birth control, please! Why would you want a child when already poor? Sometimes religion factors in this, sometimes it's the men in the culture, etc.
Many factors to think about. But if so many could succeed, there'd be less people cleaning public toilets. People say things like, "If you don't like it, educate yourself and do better." But then who is going to clean the toilets? If all our 13 or so million illegal aliens were sent home to their countries, all this cheap labor in the US would dry up. Whose fault is that? Greedy people with no morality, and most often peopel with money. :/
I understand your point, maybe I should've specified a little more, I was talking about certain kind of 'poor' people that are actually like *that*, that could actually do better(cuz I know).
DeleteThere will always be poor people, right, but there's a difference between the poor man that works hard and tries to have a better life, not necessarily stop cleaning toilets tho, and the man that complains about how people that have more than him (rich, middle class, whatever) don't help him blabla and then go and spend all the money in beer and doesn't help himself.
It's not just poor people, it's also the middle class people that resent the rich or another middle class people that have more than them. To not make it longer, there're people that just don't do enough but instead they just want people that actually earned their things, one way or another, give them money, 'help' them.
oh, when I used 'poor' and 'rich' I didn't mean it so literal, I was trying to... describe 2 different mentalities, poor wasn't meant just in the sense of 'poor' people, same with rich.
In the USA you have opportunity. Capitalism allows a person to be rewarded by working hard. Its welfare system is the devil in disguise. This allows people to benefit and do nothing but be rewarded with a paycheck. The poor people are provided with a monthly paycheck, free health insurance, free rent, food stamps. The middle class will work a laborious job and earn an average paycheck. With this paycheck they pay for health insurance, high rent, and food. Why work for it, when the government will give it to you for free? There is plenty of work here and nobody except for the elderly, or handicapped should be allowed welfare. The USA needs to change this. This can begin by saying NO to Obama and the democratic party.
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