Thinking Poor or Poor Thinking?

Poverty, like religion, is usually discussed very superficially, lest people’s politics get in the way and cause fall-outs. Though we recognize it is a cancer, the boulder is often left unturned in a casual setting due to our political ambivalence. Summoned in a formal manner, such as by an Economist or a Politician, the topic usually gets muddled in a political swamp.

Take Ecuador once again. Former President Osvaldo Hurtado, of the political right, undermines 64% of the electorate that by all accounts legitimately approved a 2008 referendum calling for a Constitutional Amendment by incumbent President Rafael Correa, a left-leaning politician, when he unfoundedly asserts that the election was won through “control of advertising and propaganda, manipulation of voters, and sophisticated election frauds.”

He also insists that President Correa is attempting to create a Dictatorship – like Chavez’s, he says – despite the fact that since his coming to power $15+ billion have been reinvested in public works, helping reduce poverty by almost 6% from 2009 to 2011, as reported by Prensa Latina.

This political division has capped much of the progress the world could have experienced otherwise. Precisely because Economic Liberalization has reached such staggering heights and complexity, writes J.W. Smith, an independent Economist, “few of today’s powerful are aware of the waste and destruction created by the continuation of this neo-mercantilist struggle for markets.”

And it’s not just the powerful. Our personal economic advancement has conditioned us to subconsciously defend this way of life (part of the reason why, like poverty, we abhor socialism) and in the process to continue reproducing the conditions for global poverty.

The framework within which we work and look for answers to the problem of poverty is designed to alleviate the problem – not to fix it – and hope to get better.

But this is just a bandage over a gash…what happens when the gash deepens and the outpouring blood overtakes the bandage?

LIBERALIZING POVERTY
Like a powerful avalanche, globalization grows massively as it goes and its force is like a stream overtaking us all. We can’t help but giggle with excitement at the idea of connecting with virtually everyone around the world through our keyboards. The economic impact it’s had on our lives practically tickles us silly. But the avalanche has also trapped many under the rubble.

While its advantages are magnified, the repercussions of Free-er Trade amongst countries are vaguely pointed out as sad but inevitable. Though consumers save money as rabid competition between Canadian and foreign companies ensues, we often ignore that people will inevitably be let go as companies close and outsource to Third World nations, where workers can be paid a fraction of Canadian laborers’ wages for the exact same work.

While it is almost a worthwhile endeavor to lay-off Canadian workers in order to provide poorer people with paid work, paying them meager wages for back-breaking and often life-threatening and environmentally-unsound work seems counter-intuitive. A more pressing issue, however, is the fact that locals are often more than willing to do the work in the face of absolute poverty.

In Ecuador President Correa has put forth an initiative to leave 846 million barrels of petroleum ($7 billion worth) untapped in the Yasuní National Park, “the most bio-diverse swathe of rainforest on earth.” This would avoid 407 million tones of CO2 emissions and help raise life-expectancy levels. However, ravaged by absolute hunger and poverty, locals from bordering towns often have confused feelings about it as many feel that any income supersedes no income, a National Park, or the environment.

A destitute and uneducated people, these locals fail to understand neo-liberal economics as the root of their poverty. Coca, for instance, one of the destitute towns bordering the Yasuní National Park, has demonstrated impressive economic growth since the 1960s, when Texaco struck oil there. In true capitalist spirit, the government of the time took a hands-off approach, boasting a growing employment rate thanks to the private company’s interest in the land. The result, as reported by Enrique Morales, Director of Environment for the local provincial government, has been an over-dependent population on companies causing the very deforestation, contamination, and uncontrolled immigration that maintains locals poor and unhealthy.

The contaminated areas and the excess waste were left to be attended – as a paying job, thank god – by the locals. Cleaning contaminated oil spills (as much as 3,000 cubic meters a year), digging trenches, and clearings roads have become their life-savers.

It has also been widely recognized by many circles in the world that neo-liberal economic policies pushed on the world by the IMF and the World Bank, like for example the Washington Consensus and the Structural Adjustment Programs (SAPs), have reproduced the conditions necessary for poverty to take root and perpetuated economic crises around the world.

To receive loans from these institutions, countries have given up tremendous amounts of sovereignty and autonomy. Just like Canada was pushed to make public spending cuts in the ‘80s and ‘90s by the IMF to make the country more business-attractive, poor countries have historically agreed to cut public spending on social programs and give tax-cuts to wealthy individuals to foment foreign investment, which has caused local businesses to compete with multinational corporations and come out on the losing end.

If globalization is indeed like an avalanche engulfing us all, the worse ones off have got to be the ones at the bottom – the Third World – which will most likely be saved last.