THE WORLD OF THE POOR: How people chose and perpetuate poverty

By Sule Aminu

Me think one way to understand how to deal with this “simple” problem of poverty is to ask how come the minority rich individuals or groups were able to succeed even when we all started at the same level. No person or society was born rich or wealthy.

To further buttress this point, do you sincerely think that if all the wealth in the world today is equally shared to everybody, poverty will end? Your guess is as good as mine. I believe just within five to ten years everything will return to normal, with may be even greater number of poor people.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookRix
• Release date: Jul 6, 2021
• ISBN: 9783748787563

Book preview

INTRODUCTION

Poverty is as old as man on earth affecting more than half of the world’s population with debilitating effects. Strangely the poverty scourge persists in spite of breakthroughs by countless individuals, groups and societies in attaining socio-economic and technological advancement.

The nature of poverty has undergone considerable change over the years. Who the poor are today is quite different from those called poor in an earlier period. In the 19th century and even more than half of the 20th century, people living in villages depended directly or indirectly mostly on agriculture  for their livelihood, having a very small mud thatched hut, were regarded as poor.

According to UNDP report (1996), 39 per cent of the rural population was living below the poverty line or earning less than $2 per person per year. This figure might have changed a bit due to the implementation of many rural development and poverty eradi­cation programmes but still most of the villages around the world are suffering the consequences of poverty.

The change in technology has also changed the face of poverty. There is a great exodus of population from villages to urban areas in search of jobs. The use of electricity, tractors, and many machines in agricultural pursuits, along with the improved hybrid seeds and method of cultivation, has forced many people to leave villages.

This change in technology has made many people poor while a a small percentage affluent. Technology often displaces workers by abolishing their jobs, while creating other, better paying ones for people more technically trained.

WHY I WROTE THIS BOOK

A lot of studies and researches have been conducted about poverty, its causes and effects with myriads of propositions on how to eradicate it from the world. Many poverty alleviation