‘Poverty is the collateral damage associated with the free-market economy.’
I thought that was fairly clever. My exposition follows.
In my understanding, limited though that may be, the following are key words and phrases that underlie a free-market economy: supply and demand, competition, speculation, accumulation, self-regulation and unrestricted trade.
Imagine, if you will, that I am poor.
My demands, requirements necessary to survival, are considerable. The supply might be around, but my poverty denies me access to that supply.
Having sold my dwelling and land, eaten my livestock and having abandoned my ungrateful offspring to their uncertain fortunes in a faraway city, the only commodity with which I can speculate is my labour.
Now, we have all seen how fragile the labour market can be.
Speculation, by its very nature, involves risk. As exemplified by the recent banking crisis, it does not always lead to accumulation.
My desperation might even lead me into a life of crime. It is said that crime never pays. My arrest, conviction and subsequent imprisonment would render me disenfranchised. Thereby I have no voice; that is another major feature of poverty. I am then released from captivity. I have no address. Thereby I become unemployable and my credit-rating is zero. Having no gainful employment, I have no access to permanent accommodation. Herein lies the inexorable spiral of poverty.
Consider now ‘unrestricted trade’. Do we have that? Have we ever? My meagre means ensure that my ability to trade is very seriously restricted. I cannot compete. My poverty begets destitution, starvation and death.
Does that matter?
The US administration of George Bush regularly demonstrated gross complacency on this issue, and seemed to have the attitude that, if you ignore poverty, it will go away. Witness the tardy response to the devastating flooding of New Orleans.
On the subject of climate change we heard Mr. Bush say, “The American way of life is not for negotiation.” Is that in context? Yes, be assured that global warming will lead to widespread poverty.
Indeed, it is probably true that ignoring poor people might eventually make them disappear, whereby poverty, as a concept, ceases to be a problem for those who remain.
We have another example on our own shores. I refer to the utterly inadequate response (some would say intentionally so) of the British government to the Irish potato famine of 1845. The Irish population (consisting of largely unwilling British subjects at that time) was decimated by starvation, disease and emigration.
See – it almost worked!
Now, do I believe what I have just written? I think I have justified the hypothesis intellectually in economic, historical and self-indulgent imaginary terms.
Is it right?
I mean morally.
That, of course, is another question.
I think not.
Will our national leaders ever begin to seek something more than another term in office?
When will they engage at least a degree of compassion and altruism?
When will the relief of human suffering become a priority in their minds?
Can they be persuaded that poverty is blight on our global society, that wealth is to be shared and that, as long as poverty exists, it remains a communal responsibility?
It is a responsibility that needs to be addressed by us all. The eradication of poverty is not the function a free-market economy. This issue needs strategies more than the forlorn hope that poverty will simply go away.
Do my politics look big in this?
