Poverty is man-made
By: Shafi Sahal
Tags: Conspiracy, Poverty, Finance, Economy, Social

“Poverty is the worst form of violence” — Mahatma Gandhi

Violence!!!.

No way, how poverty can be any form of violence. It’s just an economic disaster or something where the people are not able to gain resources in order to keep there life running. Isn’t it??

The word poverty brings an image into our mind consisting of the starving kids in Africa or the slums in Mumbai.

There are different kinds of poverty and the worst among them is starvation where there is no enough food to consume.

Is the world that limited in resource?

No, they made the world believe there is no enough resource or there are people who are not able to get food and gave them a name “The poor”.

Based on the reaction of people when they see a poor person they can be categorized into five.

1. An atheist

Atheists, who is always busy in rejecting God or any kind of deity and penetrating this ideas into those who believe in a deity. Their whole day is focused to prove their argument is correct. When they see a poor person they use it as a weapon against the God or the believes of the believers. They raise question like “Where is God?”, “Is God dead”. They are not concerned about the suffering of fellow beings or their causes.

2. A religious

Religious persons, who is busy in proving his concepts of life, morality and divinity are right and others are just wrong with no acceptable proofs, blindly believing what he is taught. When they see a poor person they term it as God’s test or blame on the fate. They raise comments such as “We are helpless”, “poor people”, “may God help them” or they may pray. Again they are not concerned about the suffering or causes.

3. A hypocrite

These may include celebrities, politicians, athletes and rich men who donate, help or do many social services only targeting the benefits they gain from these activities. They are concerned about publicity and perfecting their image. They do not provide help if their is no any kind of beneficial returns.

4. The Ignorant

Ignorant one’s just enjoys his life. They are the people for whom ignorance is bliss. They are the kind who just believes the mainstream and rejects all the others. They usually are the people who spread rumours without any fact checking. They are only focused onto negativity and other’s faults. They usually say “Government is corrupt” or “money is evil” or the “filthy rich”. They are the nicest persons and everyone else are bad, cheap or corrupt.

5. A human

A true human whatever he believes does not use these people or ignore them. He thinks of the causes, search for the truth, for the clues that may help him one day to eradicate this lie. It does not mean that the above mentioned categories does not donate or give charity. They do it but they also do it for fame, or they just donate a few bucks and done. A human donates but he thinks of ways to eradicate this so there will be no more need to donate. Every human irrespective of caste, gender, race and nation is responsible for realizing poverty and work towards it. This does not mean that every resources shall be shared equally among the people. Then there will be no innovation. For any stable economy their should be some sort of hierarchy in resource sharing. The one who contributes to the economy more should get more resources and vice versa. A hierarchy in wealth distribution does not create poverty but the exploitation of the hierarchy does. There can be people who have enough money to survive and those have money to live in luxury. This hierarchy makes the human to do work, be productive and innovative, in order to gain more resources. The exploitation of this hierarchy for looting resources creates the poor people.

Let’s check the causes of this extreme phenomenon known as poverty.

1. Accumulation of wealth in the hands of few.

It was observed that the 80% of Italy’s land was owned by 20% of the population. It is known as the famous pareto principle or the 80/20 rule. The major portion of wealth is accumulated in the hands of the few, the elites.

2. Wastage of resources

Whether it is food, cloths or any resource, when you are able to buy it, it doesn’t mean in anyway that you really own it. Your wealth is not a tool to diminish resources but to use it as your need. Never waste it. It’s true that it is costly to transport the wasted resources to the needy. So just don’t buy more than you want.When in a restaurant only order the amount of food you will surely eat. Give wasted papers, plastics or utensils to recycle.

3. Credit

The credit based economy which apparently gives the illusion that it will benefit is just a mere illusion. In a credit based economy a transaction is created out of thin air. Credit is just word or promise to repay the amount + interest(if interest is involved). The problem is the one who takes loan has to repay amount+interest, no matter whether he is able to make money out of it or not. If there is no enough money to repay, there is the collateral and he is done. He is dumped. It can be called an unjust investment plan. In a good scenario when you invest, you are not guaranteed of the return. You may suffer loss or may gain profit. It’s based on percentage of shares you hold, not by a fixed amount. When you give loan, you are guaranteed of a return no matter whether the borrower gained profit or suffered loss. The return is based on a fixed amount. It’s truly unjust. So what to do in the case we need some money to start a business or stuff like that. Here comes the banks as devils and they lend the money they have. Alternatively, there is a kind of banking where your deposit will be invested in business run by the bank and you will be given shares not interest. The same when you borrow, you gave the shares as returns not investment. The governments does not encourage such banks. In India the reserve bank rejected a proposal for such a bank. These interest system benefits the lender not the borrower.

5. Manipulation of currency

There was an age when gold and silver was used for trade. Later they print currency but set a rule to print currency based on the gold value. This is known as gold standard. In such an economy the inflation will be less. Today this standard is not followed by any government, instead they use the fiat money, where there is no intrinsic value for the money. The value of currency is decided by the governments with no backup of resources. The gold standard limited the amount of money banks can lend. They can only lend based on the available gold.They cannot lend millions without having the equal amount of gold. But now due to the popularity of digital transactions or electronic money, the fiat money system and banks are able to credit you and they are licensed for it. They just need to show the digits on your screen and you can purchase with it. The problem here is that you need to pay interest for a money that actually does not exist. The whole money you payback is actually interest, you are not credited you are just made to believe to be credited. When you take loan of 1000 through a credit card, the bank is actually not giving money but a permission to purchase and you may have to pay interest. Consider the interest as 100. You will have to payback 1100. The bank actually did not give you money but got 1100 for free. This a type of fraud. Gradually, they lend more money without actual money and reach a point where there is not enough actual money to repay. The actual amount of money which can be withdrawn into currency is limited. The banks lends with electronic money which does not exist. When you fail to repay, they take your assets. The rich becomes richer, the poor becomes poorer.

I hope now you know why Gandhi called poverty a violence, the worst form of violence.