Socialist Action /May 1999
Straight From the Horse's Mouth: UN
Reports on Growth of Global Poverty
By PAUL SIEGEL
"Human Development Report 1998." Published for the United
Nations Development Program by Oxford University Press, 1998. 228 pp. $34.95
(hard cover); $29.95 (paperback).
The annual report of the United Nations Development Program, a UN agency,
is a valuable chart of developments in human welfare throughout the world.
It is interesting to compare the 1998 report with the 1996 report, reviewed
in the June 1997 Socialist Action. In just two years the destructive trend
noted in 1996-the increasingly enormous disparity in wealth between rich
countries and poor countries and also between rich and poor within countries,
including industrialized countries-has accelerated.
The 1996 report gave the mind-boggling statistic that the net worth of
the 358 richest persons in the world was equal to the combined income of
the poorest 45 percent of the world's population, that is, of 2.3 billion
people.
The report pointed out that in this comparison it used the combined income
of these 2.3 billion people rather than their combined net worth, since
their net worth could not be estimated. However, it added, "a contrast
of wealth alone, if it were possible, would be even starker, since the wealth
of the poorest people," who are unable to save, "is generally
much less than their income."
The 1998 report states: "New estimates show that the world's 225
richest people have a combined wealth ... equal to the annual income of
the poorest 47 percent of the world's people (2.5 billion)." Only 225
of the top billionaires are now needed on one side of the scale to balance
the increased number of the poor (now 2.5 billion) on the other side!
The 1996 report stated that over the period of 30 years the share of
global income of the richest 20 percent of the world's people rose from
30 times that of the poorest 20 percent to 61 times that of the poorest
20 percent. The 1998 report states that the latest figures show it is now
82 times as much.
The 1996 report stated that since 1980 there has been economic stagnation
or decline in l00 countries that have almost a third of the world's population.
In 70 of these countries average incomes were less than they were in 1980.
More than a billion people saw their incomes fall between 1980 and 1993.
The 1998 report states that in the 100 countries where there has been
"serious economic decline" over the last three decades per capita
income is "lower than it was 10, 15, 20, even 30 years ago."
Almost 3 billion of the estimated 5.6 billion people constituting the
world's population live on less than $2 a day. The 1996 estimate was that
more than half of the world's population lives on less than $2 a day.
The 1996 report stated that, while nearly 170 million people in East
Asia were living below the poverty line, per capita income there grew more
than 5 percent a year between 1960 and 1993, the highest rate in the world.
Just 10 semi-industrialized countries, mostly in East Asia but also in
South America, received three-quarters of the investment capital of the
advanced capitalist countries. However, the report suggested, these countries
had only "limited autonomy over interest rates, exchange rates or other
financial policies."
The dependency of these countries on the global financial market, in
which capital can flow out as readily as it flows in, has been confirmed
by the East Asian economic crisis, which the 1998 report calls "undoubtedly
the biggest setback to human development in the past year."
The extraordinary extent of this setback, which of course has worsened
since the report was written, is indicated by a single sentence in a recent
Associated Press dispatch (The New York Times, Jan. 16, 1999): "The
number of Indonesians living in poverty has reached 130 million [out of
a population of 206 million], a sharp increase from 80 million last year,
the government reported."
U.S. wealth disparities
Poverty and enormous disparity of wealth between rich and poor, the 1996
report showed, are, however, present not only in unindustrialized and semi-industrialized
countries but in industrialized countries as well.
One hundred million people in the industrialized countries, it reported,
live below national poverty lines.
As an indication of the growing disparity of wealth, it cited the situation
in the United States, where, "between 1975 and 1990, the richest 1
percent of the population increased its share of assets from 20 percent
to 36 percent."
The 1998 report introduces a new statistical index, the human poverty
index for industrialized countries, which is not the same as income poverty
but measures the maldistribution of income and deficiencies in health and
education that result in exclusion from active participation in a community.
This index has special significance for Americans, who are being bombarded
with triumphalist statements concerning the nation's unparalleled prosperity.
Ranking 17 industrialized countries, the report finds that "the United
States, with the highest average income ..., has the highest population
share experiencing human poverty."
Thus, among the 17 countries, the United States, with 13 percent of its
people not expected to survive to age 60, came in last in this respect.
With 20.7 percent of its population between the ages of 16 and 65 functionally
illiterate, that is, unable, as measured by an international literacy survey,
to follow simple written instructions such as are on a medicine bottle,
the United States did more poorly than any other country except Ireland
and the United Kingdom. With 19.1 percent of its population having less
than 50 percent of the median personal income, it ranked lowest on this
measure of social exclusion.
Although the report does not mention it, these statistics reflect the
existence of a "Third World" sector in American society consisting
largely of African Americans, Latinos, and immigrants. The fact cited in
the report that "31 percent of Hispanics aged 25-65 have not completed
the ninth grade, compared with only 6 percent of whites," helps to
explain what may seem to be the surprising percentage of functional illiterates.
Even in terms of income poverty, the percentage of people in this category
rose in the United States (as well as in the United Kingdom) between 1975
and 1995, the last year's figures available to the report's writers.
Neither high economic growth nor a rise in average income necessarily
prevents the poor from growing poorer or their number increasing, in industrialized
countries as in unindustrialized countries.
The one measure of human poverty in which the United States does best
of the 17 industrialized countries is in its low long-term unemployment.
Here, however, the example of Japan is instructive.
Japan, said the 1996 UN report, had long held the record for long-sustained
growth and for the lowest sustained unemployment, but for many years now
it has been suffering from a stagnant economy and increasing unemployment.
The triumphalism of Japan in the 1970s, which was giving the United States
advice on how to run its economy, has been succeeded by the triumphalism
of the United States today.
At the moment the United States has benefited from foreign capital seeking
a safe haven here from the turmoil abroad. However, the growing U.S. trade
deficit, resulting from its trading partners cutting prices and devaluating
their currencies in a desperate drive to export and at the same time being
too impoverished to sustain imports from the United States, is a sign that
this country, as Alan Greenspan once stated, cannot be an island of stability
in an ocean of turmoil.
The contagion of what has been called "the Asiatic flu," the
financial fever that originated in East Asia, has spread to Russia and Brazil
and threatens the rest of the world. But it is not only this epidemic but
more literal epidemics, from which rich countries cannot insulate themselves
in this era of global travel, that threaten "not just the health of
the world's people but the achievements in human development."
Rise of AIDS epidemic in underdeveloped world
Despite widespread poverty throughout the world, the 1996 report stated,
infant mortality, thanks to the advance of medical science, has fallen sharply
and life expectancy has risen greatly. However, it warned that overcrowding,
poor sanitation, and homelessness could bring epidemics that might wipe
out the gains from immunization and other health measures.
The 1998 report repeats this warning and points to the HIV/AIDS epidemic.
In 1996, 22.3 million people were living with HIV; at the end of 1997, nearly
31 million were doing so.
As a result of lack of education and of high-quality, inexpensive condoms
as well as other effects of poverty, 90 percent of those becoming infected
are in Africa and Asia, with India having the greatest number. "Sex
tourism" may cause the number infected in the West to grow.
Just as, though epidemics hit poor countries hardest, advanced capitalist
countries cannot isolate themselves from the spread of contagious disease,
so it is poor countries that suffer most from environmental damage, which,
however, ultimately threatens us all.
Rich countries contribute by far the most to pollution, global warming,
and toxic and other waste; poor countries suffer disproportionately from
the effects of these phenomena. Depleting their resources in order to survive,
they in turn contribute to deforestation, soil degradation, and loss of
biodiversity.
Despite its tracking of dangerous trends, the report is insistent that
"a cleaner environment, a more equitable society and the eradication
of poverty" can be achieved. It merely requires setting the proper
goals and making proper allocation of our present resources, which are more
than sufficient for these tasks.
Only $40 billion or 0.1 percent of world income would be needed yearly
to bring basic education, clean water and sanitation, and basic health,
nutrition, and family planning services to every one in the world.
"The future is bleak," says the report, "if we continue
with business as usual. But there are alternatives and we can shape the
future accordingly-with big commitments, big changes in policies, institutions,
and values and a big sense of collective responsibility."
However, the "key actions for change" urged by the report,
such as "taking actions to ensure minimum consumption for all"
and "strengthening mechanisms for international cooperation,"
can only be unheeded exhortations in a global economy in which "competitiveness,"
used to justify holding down wages and cutting social services, is the name
of the game.
Telling the profit-driven giant corporations and the ruling-class governments
that they must cooperate for the benefit of all is like telling a man-eating
tiger that it must take up vegetarianism.
What I wrote at the conclusion of my review of the 1996 report remains
true: "Only the international working class can bring about a new society
worthy of humanity.
The attainment of this society will require the organization of a titanic
struggle and then a mighty effort after the victory of the working class
has been gained throughout the world. But there is no other way to emerge
from the morass of capitalism."
Socialist Action /May 1999 |