For Richer, For Poorer.

In 1999, the total wealth of the world's three richest individuals was greater than the combined Gross Domestic Product of the 48 poorest countries - a quarter of all the world's states

The rich North contains fewer people, but consumes vastly more of the world's resources than the South. There are some very wide contrasts. The 20% of the world's population in rich countries have 86% of the world's Gross Domestic Product - it was 70.2% of world GDP in 1960. The poorest 20% share just 1% of global GDP. In 1992, rich nations were 60 times wealthier than the poorest 20%, and in the previous three decades the gulf between rich and poor countries doubled.

In terms of income, nearly half the world's population lived on less. than $2 a day in 1999. One fifth of the world's population - roughly 1.2 billion people - survived on half that amount, less than $1 a day. In 1960, the income of the 20% of the world's population living in the richest countries was 30 times more than that of the 20% in the poorest countries. In 1995, it was 82 times greater. In more than 70 countries, per capita income was lower in 1998 than it was 20 years earlier.

The grim statistics are endless. According to a 1998 article that appeared in a liberal Paris, France magazine, Le Monde Diplomatique, "... the number of people without shelter, work, or enough to eat is constantly growing. Of the four billion people in developing countries, almost a third have no clean drinking water. One fifth of all children [do not have enough to eat]. And, two billion people - a third of the human race - [suffer] from anemia."

The article further says that, while there is plenty of food in the world for everyone, 30 million people a year die of hunger, and 800 million suffer from chronic malnutrition. It's a problem of sharing the wealth. The author points to the United Nations' calculation "that all the world population's basic needs for food, drinking water, education, and medical care could be covered by a levy of less than 4% on the accumulated wealth of the 225 largest fortunes (which add up to more than one million million dollars). "To satisfy all the world's sanitation and food requirements would cost only $13 billion, hardly as much as the people of the U.S. and the European Union spend each year on perfume."

Put another way, it would cost one percent of global income to end poverty - about $80 billion, a tenth of the amount the world spent on the military in 1995.

One of the keys to ending poverty is education: before they can get ahead, people in poor countries need basic training so they can help themselves. An article in The Economist in March 1999 quoted India's Nobel-prize winning economist, Amartya Sen as saying, "Educate part of the community and the whole of it benefits." Mr. Sen said basic learning drives economic growth, lowers fertility rates, helps women to raise healthy children and farmers to reap bigger crops. But, even if the world's governments honour their pledges (made at an Education for All conference in 1990) to have universal basic education by 2015, there will be 75 million children (mostly in Africa) who will have no education. As The Economist explains, that's because the 30 African countries that are deepest in debt spend as much on interest as on health and education together. Tanzania's debt service payments, for example, are nine times what it spends on primary health care and four times what it spends on primary education. Mozambique spends two-and-a-half times more on debt repayment than on health care.

The 1999 United Nations Human Development Report (10th edition) points out that globalization has created "many opportunities for millions of people around the world. Increased trade, new technologies, foreign investments, expanding media, and Internet connections are fuelling economic growth and human advance. All this offers enormous potential to eradicate poverty in the 21st century - to continue the unprecedented progress in the 20th century. We have more wealth and technology - and more commitment to a global community - than ever before."

However, the report is quick to add that market growth is only one part of globalization. Yes, globalization has raised living standards, lengthened lives, improved nutrition, and broadened education, but for whom?

According to a study by the Ottawa-based North-South Institute, the world's poor have been catching up with the rich over the last 30 years. But most of the progress has been confined to a few large countries, such as China and India.

The UN says the global economy could make life better for a lot more people worldwide, not just an elite few. The gap still needs to be narrowed between rich and poor countries as well as between rich and poor people within developing countries.

So far, that's not what's happening. Most of the new jobs being created are for highly skilled workers, and that has left only a very small group of people ahead.

People living in the "New India" that's developing are an example. Cyber Towers is a modern structure in a software technology park in Hyderabad, India. Technology has linked India with the United States, and it has helped make India's educated elite wealthy. However, most people still live in poverty in villages where the ox cart remains the main means of transportation and health clinics, power, and good roads are non-existent. Sheri Ram Reddy Guda is such a village. In March 2000, the New York Times newspaper carried an article that contrasted the village with the Hitec development in Hyderabad. Less than 80 kilometres apart, Sheri Ram Reddy Guda is a poverty-stricken village where "the old India is alive and unwell. Illiteracy, sickness and hunger are the villagers' constant companions. Women and children work in the fields for less than 50 cents a day. The sole telephone - an antique contraption of batteries and antennae - almost never works."

The reporter writes that in the shadow of the country's technological development is a population of which half the women and a quarter of the men cannot read or write; more than half the children four years old and under are stunted by malnutrition; 300 million people can't afford enough to eat; and, more than 30 million children six to 10 years of age are not in school. The technology boom is not putting necessary funds into education and health care. Nor is it improving life in general for the impoverished multitude who desperately need better roads, reliable electricity, and jobs.

About three decades ago, Canada's Pearson Commission began its report by acknowledging that "the widening gap between the developed and the developing countries has become the central problem of our times." But since then, the income gap between the world's richest fifth and its poorest fifth has more than doubled, to 74 to 1 in 1995, from 30 to 1 in 1960. The gap was 60 to 1 in 1990, and going back almost two centuries, it was 3 to 1 in 1820, 7 to 1 in 1870, and 11 to 1 in 1913.

In April 2000, the leaders of 80% of the Earth's population in poor countries said a new global human order is needed to spread the world's wealth and power. They spoke out during the first summit of Third World Countries, held in Havana, Cuba. Dozens of presidents and prime ministers from the Group of 77 - which has expanded to 133 poor countries since its founding in 1964 - complained that globalization of the world's economic and information systems has done little but damage their countries.

The leaders called for the cancellation of "unsustainable debt," and for the countries of the South to be given the right to "participate on an equal footing in decisions which affect them."

While we in the North live in relative comfort, everything is not rosy in our part of the world either. Here, the gap between rich and poor continues to grow as well. In 1979, the richest 10% of male Americans in full-time employment earned 3.6 times as much as the poorest 10%; by 1996, they were earning five times as much. Pay inequality in Britain has risen even faster.

Membership in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) is restricted to countries with the most highly developed economies; it has 29 members including Canada. However, there are an estimated 100 million income-poor people in OECD countries; about 37 million are without jobs. According to The UN's Human Development Report 1998, unemployment among youth (age 15-24) has reached staggering heights, with 32% of young women, and 22% of young men in France unemployed, 39% and 30% in Italy, and 49% and 36% in Spain. Furthermore, about 8% of the children in OECD countries - including half or more of children of single parents in Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States - live below the income poverty line of 50% of median disposable personal income. Nearly 200 million people are not expected to survive to age 60, and more than 100 million are homeless, in the midst of affluence.

Granted, this is a different type of poverty to that experienced in developing countries, but hard times exist in industrial countries too, where the poor tend to be undereducated, inadequately fed, clothed and housed, and often unemployed. They have no voice in government policy-making and often are socially isolated.

Among 17 industrial countries, Sweden has the lowest rate of human poverty with 6.8%, followed by the Netherlands, and Germany. Canada ranks tenth with 12%. The countries with the most poverty are the United States, with 16.5%, followed by Ireland and the United Kingdom at 15.2% and 15%.

The disparities continue, despite the assertion of The (1948) Universal Declaration of Human Rights that "... every-one has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care, and necessary social services."

Journalist Madelaine Drohan says if altruism doesn't motivate the Western world to try to alleviate poverty, then the capitalist instinct should. As Ms. Drohan points out: "Impoverished countries with weak or non-existent governments, a poorly paid civil service and only the most tenuous legal and justice system are fertile territory for the type of shaky financial institutions that can cause systemic contagion (i.e. worldwide financial shock)."

And don't be too quick to dump on international financial institutions such as the World Bank and the International Monitary Fund, she cautions. They need reform, she agrees, but they're also necessary protection "against global financial crises and deepening poverty."

In the end, she says, rich countries can help poor ones by reversing the downward trend in official development aid, speeding up debt forgiveness to the poorest, and reforming trade policies that hinder poorer countries; all topics being considered by the richest nations.

SUGGESTED ACTIVITIES:

1. Australian philosopher Peter Singer who teaches at Princeton University has some ideas on how we can help those in the developing world. Give money that would otherwise be spent on non-essentials - expensive holidays, dinners out, etc. - to charities such as UNICEF and OXFAM, where $200 can save a child from malnutrition or death from childhood diseases that are easily treated. He sets out his case in an article in the New York Times Magazine in September 1999. Mr. Singer acknowledges that most affluent people will not give up their luxuries and donate the money to the world's poor instead. But, he says, that doesn't make the choice of inaction morally right. "...if we value the life of a child more than going to fancy restaurants, the next time me dine out we will know that we could have done something better with our money," he writes. "If that makes living a morally decent life extremely arduous, well, then that is the way things are. If we don't do it, then we should at least know that we are failing to live a morally decent life - not because it is good to wallow in guilt but because knowing where we should be going is the first step toward heading in that direction." Discuss whether or not you think we should give up luxuries to help the poor. Argue both sides of the issue, and if you decide in favour of giving, start a savings fund toward fostering a child living in poverty. Or, donate the funds to a community charity.

2. Read Your Money or Your Life by Vicki Robin and Joe Dominguez, who assert that "money is simply something you trade life energy for." The authors suggest trading as little time as necessary to make a living, mostly by cutting back on expenses (i.e. expensive toys). The idea is that by wanting less, we can save more, retire earlier, volunteer more, and relax. Discuss whether or not you think this is a good idea, and what would happen if everyone in the affluent North took this route.

DEFINING POVERTY

Some think it's far worse, in some ways, to be poor in a rich country than to be poor in one where poverty is the norm, but families and communities support each other.

One reporter wrote in the New Internationalist in March 1999 about a group of six poor tribal people from India who were invited to visit Germany. For a month, they left behind their village, forest, and mountain home.

But, the material wealth of a developed country did not impress them. Instead, one said: "It's very nice to be here. But I couldn't live here. It's not my place. A man needs his family, his community, his own people around him. Just money can't give you a life. You'd shrivel up and die."

And, the idea of an old people's home horrified them. One asked, "How can children send their old parents to live alone?" And another said, "We must ensure that such things never happen in our society, no matter how much we progress."

What did impress them, was that they were treated with respect and dignity, which they lacked in Indian society. These were people who did not see themselves as poor but as people without money.

MORE THAN ENOUGH

It's quite clear that not everyone in the world can live as extravagantly and wastefully as we in the North do; the biosphere simply will not support six billion people consuming resources at a Northern pace. The difference in consumption between rich and poor countries is vast. Globally, the 20% of the world's people in the highest-income countries account for 86% of total private consumption expenditures - the poorest 20% a mere 1.3%. The top 20% consume 45% of all meat and fish, the poorest fifth, 5%. Energy consumption is 58% for the richest, 4% for the poorest. The rich consume 84% of all paper and own 87% of the world's vehicles, compared with 1.1% and less than 1% respectively for the poorest 20% of people. And, the richest fifth have 74% of all telephone lines, the poorest fifth just 1.5%.

You might think all this consumption among people in industrialized nations would make them a contented bunch. But that's not the case: they're spending more, borrowing more, saving less, and having a harder time making the distinction between luxuries and necessities.

A few people in the affluent North are preaching the gospel of non-consumerism. We have a "Buy Nothing Day" each year on 24 September, but this movement is more than that. It draws its inspiration from the South and in particular from India's Number One Guru of the 20th century, Mahatma Gandhi. He was once asked by an American journalist to "Give me the secret of your life in three words." Gandhi chuckled and said "Renounce and enjoy." Gandhi did just that: he gave up all physical pleasures, comforts, and possessions. He preached non-violence. He drove the British from India, and attacked the apartheid system in South Africa, and colonialism around the world. And, he fought for the civil rights of India's most oppressed people, the Hindu untouchables. By turning away from the material world and the law practice he was trained for, he devoted himself to improving the lives of others.

The organization, Alternatives, has a prescription for a life of simplicity that could fit our Northern lifestyle - do justice, nurture people not things, learn from the world community, care for the Earth, don't conform. According to the organization, living simply, is "more than just being frugal, far from being a tightwad, and surely not about being a miser. It's a journey to find more meaning, more joy, more fun in life by removing the barrier of material goods that keeps us apart from other people - and even from ourselves." It means not buying things we don't really need, viewing high-ticket items such as cars as transportation rather than status symbols, generally seeing the wastefulness of extravagance, and gradually cutting down on over-consumption.

FACT FILE

It would cost the average Bangladeshi more than eight years' income to buy a computer; the average North American would pay about one month's wage.

The number of Internet users among China's 1.2 billion people is doubling every six months, according to Civilization magazine: there were 900,000 users in 1997, five million by 2000, and an estimated 35 million to 50 million by 2003.

Of the more than one billion people still living in poverty in the world, 10% live in industrialized nations.

THINK ABOUT IT

In 1992, a newspaper article outlined a 12-step program to try and give us some idea of how most people in the South live.

The first step was to remove all the furniture from your home, except for a few old blankets, a kitchen table, and maybe a wooden chair. A bed is a luxury you've never had.

The next thing to go would be most of your clothes, except for two or three items; the head of the family has the only pair of shoes. In your kitchen, there are no appliances, as there is no electricity: there is only a box of matches, a small bag of flour, some sugar and salt, a handful of onions, a dish of dried beans.

There is no running water. In fact, there is no house, except for a shelter the size of an average tool shed. You are surrounded by shanties, which house the fortunate. You are illiterate, and there is one radio in town. There are no government services, no fire departments. A tiny, two-room school is five kilometres away and only two of the seven children in your family attend. There is no hospital, no doctor, and the nearest clinic, run by a midwife, is more than 15 kilometres away.

Your assets include about $5, and three acres of land, which the family cultivates to try and raise $300 in cash crops - your landlord will want a third and the money lender another 10%. The kids need to find ways of contributing a little extra cash for food, and even then there will be days without food. And, finally, you can expect your life to be 25 to 30 years shorter.

THE WORLD IN MINIATURE

If we shrink the world's six billion population to a village of 1,000 people there would be 570 Asians, and 210 Europeans. Another 140 people would be from North and South America, and 80 would be from Africa. Of the 1,000 people, 510 would be female, 490 male. Eight hundred would live in sub-standard housing, 700 would be illiterate.

Half would suffer from malnutrition. One may be on the Internet, but 750 have never made a phone call. Half the entire village wealth would be in the hands of 60 people, and only 10 would have a college education.

CHECK IT OUT

How much richer Switzerland was compared to Mozambique in 1976: 52 times in 1997: 508 times

How much richer the richest countries in the world were compared to the poorest 250 years ago: five times

Chance of becoming a millionaire in the global economy: 1 in 1,000 Chance of becoming a slave: 1 in 222

Average net worth among the Forbes 400 list of the richest Americans: $2.6 billion (U.S.) Number of Canadian companies that earned an annual profit greater than that: one - BCE Inc. (Bell Telephone), which earned $3.1 billion (U.S.) in 1998

Africa has fewer than three computers per 1,000 people, according to the United Nations publication Africa Recovery. Of the continent's one million Internet users, 90% are South African. Africa generates 0.4% of the contents of the World Wide Web and only 0.02% when South Africa is excluded.

A PATH LESS TRODDEN 

New York writer Bill McKibben recounts a personal experience in the November/December 1999 issue of Mother Jones. In an article on Western materialism, he tells the story of being in the southern Indian province of Kerala, "a state of 30 million people, where, in the 1930s, under Gandhi's deep influence, many Brahmans began renouncing their privileges and giving up their lands." Not all Brahmans did this, he explains, but enough to be noticed. "The result has been a state with some of the most equal wealth distribution on Earth, and a place where - despite an annual per capita income of $222 - both the average life expectancy and the literacy rate approach our own."

In an attempt to level out the world's wealth, or at least help put an end to the exploitation of people in poor countries, an anti-sweatshop movement is "exploding on more than 200 campuses across North America," according to Globe and Mail columnist Naomi Klein, author. of No Logo: Taking Aim at the Brand Bullies. Thousands of students are asking that the companies that supply clothing with their school's insignia pay their workers in developing countries a living wage. It's happening at universities as well as secondary schools.

One group of teenagers had a sweatshop fashion show in the school gym. While modelling clothing from companies such as Nike and Victoria's Secret, the students told stories of the "punishingly long hours and low wages endured by the workers who keep them in cotton and denim." Students' want the companies making their school clothing to give them lists of all their contract factories, so they can check up on them.

Websites

North-South Institute - http://www.nsi-ins.ca/index.html

Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development - http://www.oecd.org/

United Nations Development Update - http://www.un.org/News/devupdate/latest.htm