Poverty and Inequality

4 min readDec 12, 2020

There are many problems facing this world today. One major problem the world faces today is poverty. Poverty is the state of being unable to provide/able to provide only a little in life. It can also be being extremely poor to the point people are unable to live a normal life due to social, economic, and many other reasons. Many people from around the world suffer from poverty each day. Even until now, millions, or even billions of people still face this problem. This leads to a clear divide in the population of people from the rich, to the middle class, to the poor/people suffering poverty. In this blog I will talk about poverty, and stuff related to it such as inequality.

Trends

There are a certain amount of trends that happen within poverty and inequality. Such trends include how while countries have continually improving welfare and economy, there still is that population within a country that gets left behind as a result. This is seen especially in poorer countries and middle income countries like India and Indonesia. In addition, more than 40% of the people suffering poverty or are poor live in countries where the economies are affected by conflicts or fragility. On the bright side however, there has been a decrease of people living in extreme poverty from the years 1990 (over 35%), to less than 10% in 2015. But this year, as a result of the COVID-19 Pandemic, many people have been pushed into extreme poverty (between 88 to 115 million people).

Capitalism

Capitalism is described as an economic system wherein people or businesses own capital goods. In this, production of goods are based on supply and demand rather than planned production, and people, to an extent, are able to decide on the price their product can be bought or sold for. Regarding the question if capitalism reinforces or eliminates inequality, I would say it can reinforce inequality, but it also can eliminate or reduce inequality. With capitalism, people are encouraged to work harder in order to gain profit (having incentives on being rich/having wealth). This means that people engaging in capitalism have the potential to become rich, or for people who are already rich to become even richer. But this also means that people who don’t engage/are unable to participate in capitalism can suffer. An example of a consequence of capitalism can include higher prices on products or properties. This of course affects the people who are poor/suffering poverty/not so fortunate because of their inability to purchase things that they would really need in their lives. Which means that while capitalism allows opportunities for people to become as rich as other people, it can also divide people even further from the rich as a result of this.

Globalization

Globalization is the interconnection and integration of different people, places, countries, and much more. This can be done through trade or even exchange of cultures. Though now we ask ourselves, does it increase or decrease poverty around the world? For me, I think that in a way it does decrease poverty around the world. This is because as a result of countries and people opening themselves up for trade and exchange, it has allowed them more opportunities to grow such as being able to find ways to produce products in a more cost-effective way (opens up room for innovation), and being able to have a higher living standard, which can reduce poverty in different countries. But, it also has its drawbacks because something imported/not from our own country can be more expensive than what is local within the country.