Poverty- a summary to a curse to Humanity

Poverty is “the state of one who lacks a certain amount of material possessions or money” as defined by the famous Wikipedia. People from most of the countries in our world are affected by this ‘state’. But why some of the people are under this grasp of poverty? Why only a selected people are suffering from lack of food, shelter, clothing and education?

Strictly speaking, there is no ‘poverty free’ country in our world. There maybe some countries where majority of the people are not engulfed by poverty (for e.g. Japan, Germany, Saudi Arabia etc) but still it is not rightful to say that these countries have successfully eradicated poverty out of them. In order to properly understand why poverty affects some people and prevails all over the world, we must categorize the major reasons behind it:

Ø  Interest Based Economy: An economy that is based on giving and taking of interests in several aspects cannot have a bright future. This is because interest often causes the borrower to face both social as well as financial problems (which is not at all desirable). The rates at which interests are posed upon the borrower party by the lender party are often too high. For example, in a large scale, when an under-developing country takes large loans from a developed country under terms of interest; it often forces the borrower government to provide the lender government with high rates of interest along with the original amount. In order to pay the debts, this causes the borrower government to raise the prices of electricity, food, clothes and even medicines for its people. Basically under an interest based economy, a rich man gets richer and a poor man gets poorer.   

Ø  The Circulation of Wealth: The circulation of wealth must have to be fair enough to make sure every one gets his/her economic rights and benefits. For example, a government must make sure that its people pay their respective taxes in time so that the wealth is well circulated among all the people irrespective of living standards and hence the government does not have to forcibly rise the prices of food, oil, medicines and other fundamental necessities. A government can also introduce necessary economical initiatives (e.g. various monthly/yearly schemes) to further aid its people’s economic conditions.

Ø  Corruption: One of he biggest reasons why many countries around the world are least developing countries is because corruption stays upright in all of them. Certain people not paying their taxes (concealing it from government), a portion of government bodies taking bribes in order to satisfy legal and sometimes illegal needs of some people are considered to be two major parts of corruption. Even many school and hospitals are under the grasp of such corruption. The reason why it prevails in the least developing countries of the world is because there is often no strong law or (even if there is a strong law) no proper implementation of the law against corruption. Most of the people, who are suffering due to the corruption in the society, are not willing to report it to the respective governing bodies and are therefore not being able to surpass this stumbling block to prosperity. 

 

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