about making poverty history

"...and now the time has come, he said, to speak of many things..."

This could be a difficult article for some people. It is about the "make poverty history" slogan and the deficiency of that linear way of looking at the issue of poverty. Looking at this problem in a holistic way gives a better understanding of what poverty is, but offers no 'happy' solutions.

'Antipoverty' is chic these days. But there is great dissonance about who and where 'the poor' are, why they are poor, and what to do to make them not poor. There are semantic debates about how poor 'poor' is.

People who support antipoverty organisations or initiatives usually have little insight into the reasons for poverty. When people are poor, it is because someone wants them to be poor, and has the power to make them poor and keep them poor. Poverty will not end soon.

significant entities

There is an international group which encourages people to buy and wear white armbands to show their 'solidarity' with the poor. This group is fronted by rock stars, supported by politicians, and funded by business people who profit from poverty.

It seems that for them, all the poor people are in Africa. Apparently, the panhandler on a sidewalk near you is only 'relatively poor'.

There is in Canada a 'National antipoverty Organisation' (NAPO) which would like us to know that it has existed now for thirty five years. It's web is at www.napo-onap.ca. It has developed a sizeable donor base merely by being against poverty.

NAPO has little insight into why Canadians are poor and little idea of how to make them not poor. Lately it has timidly suggested a 'guaranteed annual income' (GAI) or 'basic income' (BI). Lately it has more assertively proposed increasing the minimum wage to ten dollars per hour.

Last October 17th in Toronto a group of social agencies called 'Ontario coalition for social justice' (OCSJ) held an 'end poverty day' event at Queen's park. It was rained out. Less than 100 people attended. It is unknown whether they achieved their stated aim of tying a white ribbon around Queen's park. Almost all these agencies get their funding from the government they pretend to be trying to influence.

poverty internationally

The rock stars who front for 'make poverty history' talk about 'debt relief' and easier access to foreign markets for 'debtor' countries products. These countries do not owe any debt.

The legal precedents for 'odious debt' have been established in international law for a long time. If the money went into somebody's pocket instead of for the benefit of the nation, the nation does not owe it. The lender is responsible for watching where the money goes. Google "odious debt" for more on the subject.

However, international law is of no more interest to the holders of weak states' debts than usury laws are to the mafia. A country that bucks them will be 'destabilised'.

An extreme example of this are the Hutus of Rwanda. They defied the international monetary fund (IMF). A million of them were butchered by mercenaries armed, trained, and commanded by western 'intelligence services'. The survivors sit in refugee camps over a decade later and will probably never go home. And they are made the villains of the story.

poverty nationally

Several social agencies in Toronto are now 'ahead of the game' and talk about basic incomes (BI). In Canada the term 'citizen's income' (CI) for the idea of simply giving people enough money so they can look after themselves and not be poor, is not used.

But CI best describes the real reason for giving people a basic income; so they have the leisure to participate as equal citizens in a democracy. This is the only way to insure they have the time and resources to preserve their freedom.

Several national states now have legislated some form of GAI/BI/CI. Legislation does not mean actual money. Portugal is thought to be the farthest ahead with a Citizen's Income. However, the Portuguese scheme is means tested and conditional on looking for 'work' and therefore not a guaranteed income at all. It is a wage subsidy.

Brazil has legislated a guaranteed minimum income, to be implemented in stages. Stage one is a very small amount of money to the very poorest people. No one knows when stage two will happen.

The first place in the world where a guaranteed income was tried out was in Dauphin, Manitoba, Canada, from 1974 to 1979. It is hard to find out anything about it, though it is said that people started working fewer hours. The experiment was killed dead by the conservative minority government of that year.

We do not hear much in Canada anymore of the campaign to reduce the work week to 32 hours. The best way of reducing work hours, according to the Dauphin experiment, would be GAI/BI/CI.

just give us our money

What we are in danger of getting, from the current talk in Ottawa, is an 'income supplement'; a wage top up similar to the 'Portuguese model'. Every time a GAI is discussed, this bastardised version seems to pop up. It does not get the gun away from people's heads; it subsidises wages so gyppo employers can get even cheaper labour.

Even the best GAI/BI/CI will do nothing for poverty by itself. It has to work with an effective housing system and with a high minimum wage that blocks attempts to use minimum incomes as wage top ups. Income guarantees make no sense without cost of living guarantees.

All this will will be impossible under the present political system and social climate. The political system must be changed first and a start has been made by the campaign to change the electoral system. This will give the public some tools to better control government, creating scope for further reform. The social climate is changed by first understanding 'framing' and then working to reframe the way people think.

poverty locally

There is poverty in Toronto. People are pan handling in the streets. Few of them go home to Rosedale at night. The city has no solution for this problem, and no collective ability to think straight about it.

At a recent all-candidate's election forum the mayor of Toronto gave a disgusting display of paternalism toward the homeless. "We are going to give them all homes" he said in a sappy tone. Moving the hard core homeless into housing solves nothing; most are back on the street within months.

There are people a step up from homelessness, in the "pay the rent or feed the kids" zone. They have learned to feed the kids and make government pay their rent by refusing to pay it themselves. They know it will take months for them to be evicted. Then the city finds them a motel and they start the process again.

just give us someplace to live

There are many reasons why people come to be living in the streets. Check out http://www.qaz.ca/racoon/7-05.html for a more thorough discussion. The core homeless are on the street because of intellectual, substance abuse, or behavioural problems that make it impossible for them to cope with the world.

Over twenty years ago it was somehow decided that this society would no longer pay for these people's continued existence. There are still jackasses who think that there was actually an intent to provide resources for "community treatment". Without rebuilding supportive and supervisory housing systems, increasing these people's incomes will solve nothing.

Increasing the incomes of those a step up the ladder from homelessness, the so called 'working poor', will solve nothing. The extra money will be taken away from them by decreased wages, increased rent, and all sorts of extra charges. Improving their condition is about protecting them from exploitation, which requires effective, democratic local government.

common patterns

There are consistent patterns about poverty, globally, nationally, and locally. The poor are in two rough categories; those to be exploited, and those to be eliminated. This has nothing to do with the level of material culture in a given country. This should end the talk of 'relative poverty'.

The people living on the streets of Toronto are up for elimination. Those able to produce but without either valuable skills or some skill at fighting for their rights, are forced to produce at very low wages.

There is starvation in Africa for the same reason there was starvation in the Ireland of the 1840's; all cropland is expropriated for export production. Nothing is left for the peasants to grow their food on. If they are not wanted to work the corporate factory farms, they are being eliminated by war, AIDS, and starvation.

There is no way to stop this in the short and middle term, in Canada or Congo. The people who benefit from it have the power to enforce it.

real solutions internationally

One thing frustrating the international corporations preying on Africa are the farm lobbies of developed countries, who are correct when they say that making their farmers poorer will not make the African farmers any richer.

If someone is being victimised by a loan shark, he does not need someone to arrange less crushing terms from the gangster. He needs an effective police. The poor of Africa need direct aid, bypassing the money lenders and corrupt officials, to rebuild their country's capacity to provide for its people.

Appealing to the developed nations to halt the international loan sharking are futile. The world class predators are stronger than any one government, and can shift their base to any country. They are increasingly using private armies to enforce their will in the poorest countries. They do not need national armies or intelligence services. So, they would probably ignore any debt cancellations.

There is no solution short of a 'police' that could defend the victim nations and hunt down the victimisers. This predicates on some form of democratic world government. Most of the world's people do not want a world government except, interestingly, in Africa.

real solutions nationally

To eliminate poverty in Canada also requires a break with the international money system. This requires a stronger democracy than we now have, which requires a change in the way Canadians think about government. Most human advances get to Canada a generation after everywhere else.

Right now several countries are successfully taking on the world monetary system. They are in Latin America. They are providing a base for the spread of participative democracy and of economy based on human needs, not profit.

The citizens of the socially very advanced countries, mostly in Europe, also seem increasingly resistant to 'corporate hegemony'. They have successfully beaten off attempts to form a united Europe under corporate rules. The European parliament is slowly acquiring power over the national states and is a good model for how a world parliament could develop.

But very few Canadians ask the necessary questions; for example, why are local governments, especially of major cities, so weak, and why do the banks, not the government, issue the currency?

real solutions locally

The solution for homelessness and other signs of social stress is effective, democratic local government, with control over sufficient resources to provide for its population. This will be very hard to achieve. The ruling elites of states know that, while the wealth of nations is produced in cities, democracy starts there too. Cities have to be tightly controlled and restricted. For a fuller discussion of this, go to www.qaz.ca/racoon/5-16-06.html

Toronto has been stuck in a 'permission seeking' pattern of behaviour for a very long time. Its 'progressive political class' still seems to be in shock from being taught by Mike Harris that they can be ignored with no consequences.

Ten years after, there are still only flashes of real organising among the Torontonians. The citizens for public education group, with its constant pressure on the trustees and the province, is notable in this regard.

But it will be a long time before Toronto builds the clout to control its government and protect its citizens from poverty.

why it never happens

It will be a long time before poverty is made history. Those who make poverty must be made history. This has to be made to happen; it will not descend on us from heaven.

It has been seen for a long time now that the 'class war' paradigm is not useful. Usually when revolutionaries take control for awhile the result is a worse tyranny and eventually, worse poverty. Given countless apparent opportunities for change, human populations go on recreating the same thing.

The recent 'progressive' doctrine is to call this "internalised repression". This doctrine fails in too many ways to go into here. But the imperative is to gain a much deeper understanding of the nature of 'mind'. The 'revolution' will not be one class over another, or one economic theory over another. It will be one type of mind over another.

until when

The future is uncertain. It is uncertain if our species is capable of survival or is a dead end. Poverty is more likely to increase greatly in the next generation.

For anybody who still wants to be an 'antipoverty activist', the first thing to do is to defend the victims of poverty. You do not do that by joining organisations which are funded by the exploiters of the poor and the governments they control. You do not subscribe to ideologies that see the poor only as abstractions, as 'lumpenproletariat'.

The second thing to do is to work for real democracy, locally, nationally, internationally, and for all that 'real democracy' entails.

The third thing is to work with other people who can think properly, act morally, and treat other people right; and to shun those who do not. These people are scarce. If you can not find some, do what you can on your own.

This is the real complexity of "making poverty history". Like any good holistic thinking, this article connects to many topics that could be explored in further articles.