How do we defeat poverty in the world?

I could call this blog "the gap". Because the gap between the richest and the poorest, both within nations, and globally, is growing and with it a whole range of social disorders from addiction and domestic violence to organised crime (see R Wilkinson and K Pickett, The Spirit Level-why equality is better for everyone. See also Max Rushbrooke, ed; Inequality-a New Zealand Crisis; and the 2014 study by Inner City Mission Speaking for Ourselves-the truth about what keeps people in poverty by those who live in it).

I'm not an economist. I hear arguments from those who think the current free market/open competition flavour of Capitalism is the solution to all the world's problems and those who believe the opposite, that it is the cause of growing poverty and all the social ills that come with it. The one thing I am convinced of is that those who defend the current capitalist ideas and spout the now well worn belief that "economic growth" of a nation as a whole will "trickle down to the poor" are wrong. What I do not fully understand is the mechanisms by which the opposite seems to happen fairly consistently. Economic growth following the current ideologies seems fairly consistently to increase the gap between the richest and poorest in a nation. Wilkinson and Pickett document one or two nations who have intentionally taken radical steps to close the gap between the richest and poorest and show how this has benefited everyone, including the richest in those nations.  There are obvious reasons why economic growth might only benefit the wealthiest and not those who are poor. We only need to ask who is in control of such measures to create economic growth. Wealth and power go hand in hand just as poverty and powerlessness do.  So measures to create growth are bound to favour those in control of those measures. However I think there are other mechanisms besides the self-interest of those in power. I think many political and business leaders genuinely believe the poor will benefit from their effort to generate growth in a nation. 

What is needed is a recognition that the gap between the richest and poorest in a nation will only be closed by taking intentional steps to ensure that the needs of the poorest are met. In other words, a nation must gradually give to all its citizens some things as a right that comes with being alive. When certain targeted basics are freely given to all, not means tested, simply given, no matter how poor or wealthy, that reduces the suffering of poverty and powerlessness in a nation. Four basics come to mind: safe and healthy shelter/accommodation, a minimum access to nutritious food, free medical care and free education. These things are not new but have been relentlessly undermined in nations which have bought into the current dominant free market idealogies.

The other thing which I believe is needed is bottom up growth by intentionally supporting entrepreneurial initiatives by people who have no employment. When I recently visited Kenya I was struck by the reality that, without a safety net to provide for unemployed people, every "unemployed" person was self-employed, selling fruit and veges, selling clothes, people with cars driving people without them, and so on. In this country so many businesses fail. In Kenya, if your business fails, you starve. It does seem to breed certain survival skills in small businesses that our easier environment does not.

However Kenya is now moving towards western taxation systems which create a barrier to poor people starting small businesses. This, in my view, is destroying one of the greatest strengths of the simplicity of their previous taxation system which operated like local government rates in Aotearoa. That is, every land owner paid land tax (like our rates) directly and every tenant paid land tax indirectly through their rent. So everyone paid taxes. However no one paid income tax, GST or any of the other things which create so much of a headache for small business people here. So in Kenya, back in February 2024 when I visited, anyone could sell anything and every cent (except their Mobile Wallet account fees) was theirs.  In a nation in which the vast majority of professionally qualified young people will not get jobs in the areas in which they have trained it is critical to remove barriers to people starting businesses. 

Hope is about having power to change your situation. Giving hope to people who are poor is about giving them that power.