NationStates Jolt Archive

In this article it is shown that the ideologues of neo-liberal globalization have embarked on a huge effort to convince the public, through the use of various statistical and terminological devices, that poverty has been phased out within the process of globalization and that what we call poverty today is, in fact, a "healthy" inequality created by a dynamic process. However, as the article attempts to show, the real aim of this new “political correctness” is to obscure the true size and the real dynamics of poverty, which is growing all over the world.

The ideologues of the New World Order which was imposed by the capitalist neo-liberal globalization have already proved their great skill to eliminate or distort annoying terms such as socialism, democracy (in its classic meaning of self-management), resistance against occupiers (defined today as "terrorism"), etc. It was not, therefore, surprising that the "international community" (an euphemism for the transnational elite) would find an appropriate way to eliminate poverty itself and its basic constitutive element, inequality ―particularly so, since poverty and inequality are the main symptoms of neo-liberal globalization. Indeed, in this effort to “eliminate” poverty the reformist Left also takes part, albeit involuntarily, speaking enthusiastically about the fight "to make poverty History" through reforms of the System (such as the lifting of poor countries’ debts) "forgetting" in the process that the same System which generated these debts will recreate them in the future!

Source: http://www.inclusivedemocracy.org/journal/vol4/vol4_no1_takis_poverty.htm

Correct on all counts. If poverty is ever eliminated, it won't be thanks to any of the institutions that are ultimately responsible for doing so. These are the World Trade Organisation, the IMF, the World Bank, etc. They claim to be trying - but all they're really doing is undermining democracies to serve the interests of multinational corporate powers.
The methods for doing so are more complex and deserve a fuller answer - but that's it in a nutshell. If you want to read a good description of the process, go buy the following books:

The best democracy money can buy - Greg Palast
Armed Madhouse - Greg Palast
The great unravelling - Paul Krugman
Globalisation and it's discontents - Joseph Stiglitz
Captive State - George Monbiot.

Well, first of all I'd like to say that having $2 a day is objectively better than having $1 a day, if that dollar can buy more things you want. Strictly speaking the threshold is $1.23, I believe - not entirely arbitrary. And yes, it was created for statistical purposes, because there has to be some measurement for which one can actually get somewhat reliable data. A bad measurement is better than none at all.

Secondly, I'd agree with the idea that there should be more work towards a widely publicised measure of poverty that covers "basic needs" or some degree of positive freedom. Of course, you try and define what "basic needs" actually are, and you'll get nowhere fast. If you start defining it based on what rich people in that country can afford, you don't have a measure of poverty but a measure of inequality.

But the two are fundamentally different things. We can all be equal but so poor that we starve. And I can have $2 million and you just $1 million, but that doesn't make you poor.

And that's the fake thing about articles and rhetoric like this. They sacrifice the sort of analytical rigour you need to solve these issues in order to score cheap and questionable points, aimed squarely in the wrong directions.

Every time I hear someone use the words "corporate" or "multinational" these days, it's to spew baseless crap (and I'm afraid bar further explanations, that goes for Darvo-Tran too - Stiglitz and Krugman are the only authors you mention whose opinions I consider worthwhile, and their issues lie in different places to where you want them to be). There is no way in hell for the international financial- and trade system to be made more effective or more fair if you're going to lie through your teeth about what corporations are and do and demand some sort of utopia without any plan to get there.

So to the OP: Bad intentions, a good point or two but a lot of crap in there as well. If you want to talk about the lot of poor people in the Third World, read Amartya Sen or someone like that.