Povery in South America

Group members: Lau Yu Fan, Perry Tan, Joshua tan, Chiam Dao Wen, Edwin Chua
Issue: Poverty in South America

Guidelines:
1. Case Study
2. Causes of poverty
3. Solutions of poverty
4. Evaluation of solutions

Written Sources:
· POVERTY
Publisher: Opposing Viewpoints Series
Series Editor: David L. Bender & Bruno Leone
Published:
· The Growth Illusion
Author: Richard Douthwaite
Published: 1993

Case Study:

There are approximately 534 million people living in the Latin American/Caribbean area. Of these, 132 million live on less than $2 a day, and 57 million live on less than $1 a day.
About 70-75 percent of South America is suffering from poverty. However, this poverty is caused mainly by its economic growth.


Causes of poverty:

New technologies cause poverty
It has been widely assumed that an obvious factor in the socio-economic growth of nations is the steady introduction of new technologies into the workplace is.
However, British economist and journalist Richard Douthwaite rejects this proposition. He contends that in the majority of cases new technologies have profoundly weakened the economic well-being of a society. Douthwaite stresses that technological advances in industry contribute to joblessness and ultimately promote poverty.

Douthwaite's book The Growth Illusion depicts the interrelationship of technology and social changes in the modern world.
New technologies almost always destroy more jobs than they create. It has taken 180 years for the evidence that this is so to become apparent because, until very recently, the jobs which were lost in the Third World, where growing poverty and underemployment were blamed on the laziness and stupidity of the natives.
Globalization
Globalization has increased the standard of living in more developed countries, and as a result, the markets of these countries demand a higher standard of good. However, Less well-developed countries are unable to cope with the increased standards and therefore are stuck producing ‘inferior’ goods. Inferior goods do not bring about enough revenue to produce better goods and the lack of revenue for Research and Development means that factories continue producing the inferior goods. And the vicious cycle repeats itself.

Solutions for poverty:
One main contender for the cure of poverty is Communism. This is based on the idea that communism seeks to create a society free from all distinctions like class with the means of production being commonly owned by the people. As a result, money earned is shared evenly among everyone. This rids the poverty issue as it means that there is neither rich nor poor.

Evaluation of solution:
Although the idea behind communism is perfect, we are, in fact, dealing with imperfect subjects. Communism does not take into account the basic greed of humans. There is no point in working if one gets the same pay as others, therefore, the individual will depend on others to provide for him.
However, multiply that by a whole nation and all the flaws in the system show up. People start to become lazy, hoping that the next guy would pick up what one left off and society starts to crumble.
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