According to the World Bank, around 700 million people need immediate assistance because they have less than $1.90 daily to survive. Everyone agrees that this is a bad situation and that anybody surviving on less than $1.90 per day is impoverished and in need of assistance. People in these circumstances often have to make moral decisions that no human being should ever make, such as which kid will go without food today or stay home from school so the others may earn money. Most of the world's poor are subsistence farmers or landless workers, and their little income's unpredictability only worsens their position. Maintaining even a bare minimum of consumption, losing the capacity to save and invest, and breaking out of poverty are all more challenging by a lack of consistent income.
Extreme poverty is a pressing issue because it causes severe, permanent damage that may be passed down through the generations if left unchecked. For instance, even if a country's economy improves, the effects of current problems, such as malnutrition and the undernutrition of children, will linger well into their maturity. People who don't get enough to eat are more likely to become sick and have a more challenging time learning from experiences like school. Since they will be less economically productive and have lower wages as adults, we are back where we started. Some of these drawbacks may also be due to mothers' poor health.
Finding the needy and providing them with enough money to lift themselves out of poverty is the only way to eradicate poverty from the planet. What constitutes poverty, who should be assisted, and how to do so are perennial topics of political discussion. Anyone surviving on less than $1.90 per day is unquestionably impoverished and in need of assistance, though, and this is something on which almost everyone can agree.
There needs to be a clear strategy to meet the UN's Sustainable Development Goal of ending extreme poverty by 2030 beyond trusting that current economic development patterns continue. The world has changed dramatically in the 200 years since capitalism was established. We need to ask two questions about the locations that have yet to benefit much from capitalism: what are they doing wrong? What makes us think things will change now? Foreign aid programs have little impact on these nations because they are too small and narrowly focused on influencing the politics of economic transformation.
This theory has at least two significant flaws:
- Economic success in a capitalist economy is not a zero-sum game. Thus, a plot against the world's poor is unnecessary.
- For decades, developing nations have benefited from preferential treatment inside the global trade framework, allowing them to take advantage of the wealthy world's low import tariffs without matching them.
- Even if those unfair laws were changed, it would take decades for earnings to catch up to where they would be with endogenous economic development.
Focusing on individual, stand-alone treatments with clearly demonstrable benefits for beneficiaries is preferable to broad, overarching aims like universal access to high-quality primary education.
Eliminating poverty by distributing a universal basic income is a no-brainer in a prosperous society. The plan's ultimate goal is to ensure that everyone who needs it has a vital stake in the global economy to lift them out of poverty. This requires a more sophisticated targeting mechanism for the pockets of poverty in Middle-income nations like India and the distribution of a partial basic income to all inhabitants of low-income countries to put them above the threshold of $1.90 per day.
This strategy's minimum moral, financial, and logistical requirements make it more agreeable and implementable. From a moral standpoint, it's far from being fair to society. It does not respond to the common issue of "What do we owe each other as fellow citizens (of the world)?" but instead to the more fundamental question of "What is the very least we should do to meet the needs of other human beings?" The benefit of this reductionism is that it eliminates the need first to raise and resolve a substantive disagreement regarding justice, such as the nature of a genuinely fair global economic system or the extent to which former colonial powers are responsible for past injustice, before attempting to address the topic at hand. Despite their differences, almost all global religions and ethical theories agree on the obviousness of the need to relieve severe poverty.
The World Bank has set the poverty line at $1.90 daily, a pitifully tiny sum. In the grand scheme of things, however, $1.90 is a chump change, and the gap between the ordinary individual living in poverty and that amount is even less. As a percentage of global GDP in 2013, the World Bank calculates that the poverty gap is merely 0.2%. This is an amount the wealthy would notice, even after accounting for administrative costs and the overshoot costs of general rather than tailored delivery. Rich people across the globe wouldn't have to sacrifice anything of moral significance, not even the security of their comfort or that of their families, to pay for the elimination of severe poverty.
A Global Basic Income would use already established and tested organizations (like the World Bank) and infrastructure (like mobile money) for practical purposes. Similar to the successful eradication of smallpox, this would need the collaboration of high-income and low-income countries worldwide, with the former providing financial and logistical assistance. Nonetheless, even under less-than-ideal international political circumstances, a Global Basic Income has the potential to make significant headway in the fight against poverty.
Instead of attempting to assist impoverished individuals by first fixing their governments (which is difficult), a Global Basic Income delivers money straight into their hands. Except for the conflict trap, it avoids the pitfalls that keep nations impoverished without solving those problems. Although up to 1.5 billion people live in countries with substantial political/criminal violence, the number of people who live under really anarchic circumstances is significantly fewer, especially when the conflict trap is considered. Most of the country's 85 million people reside somewhere safe to implement a universal basic income.
It's no longer simply a theoretical assumption that providing money to people experiencing poverty would alleviate poverty; there's a mountain of actual data supporting this claim from experiments and full-fledged programs in nations throughout the globe. It has been demonstrated that even small direct transfers of a few cents per day may improve people's lives and communities, as seen by increased school enrollment and improved nutrition, as well as decreased desperation for cash (in the form of crime and prostitution). Poor people can spend any surplus money 'rationally' on addressing their fundamental requirements, and they often do better than non-governmental organizations and government agencies. Focusing on institutional development is ideal, but eliminating destitution would considerably enhance the lives of individuals living in severe poverty. This is because it gives aid recipients more agency rather than treating them like bureaucratic patients.
The impoverished of the globe have been waiting for this answer for decades; now it's time to try something less ideal. Children whose families are so financially strapped that they must work instead of attend school are just one example of the many individuals and situations that cash transfers may help, where increased spending on schools or outright restrictions on child work will not relieve this financial pressure, an elemental income might.
When individuals no longer live in abject poverty, there may be a correlation to enhancing public services. When people are no longer living in abject poverty, they are in a stronger position to hold their government to account for its actions. The scope of a universal basic income pared down on purpose is flexible. First, international consensus and institutions can only exist once a Global Basic Income is implemented. Voters in any developed nation might make great strides toward ending global poverty if they put this issue at the top of their political agenda. Such a bilateral agreement would show the globe that good intentions can improve people's lives.
Skepticism about our abilities to aid impoverished people living in rural backwaters of inept or uninterested regimes thousands of miles away is the major impediment to effective global action against poverty, not the amorality of wealthy world citizens or politicians. However, contrary to amorality, such views are susceptible to persuasion. A Global Basic Income is far more straightforward, quick, and open than traditional help. Its only purpose is to transfer a fixed sum of money to the members of a specified group and not to intermediaries with elaborate schemes to put the money to good use. Additional assertions about how a partial basic income is predicted to enhance people's lives (such as decreased child labor) may be followed up quickly, allowing flaws to be recognized and remediated early on.
A basic income of sixty cents a day is insufficient since it is not meant to replace people's current income but to supplement what little they have. A guaranteed universal basic income at larger quantities, say $1.50 per day, would provide many advantages of a social insurance system for nations unable to organize one. Those who cannot work due to sickness, disability, old age, or the temporary absence of employment opportunities would be able to meet their most basic requirements with the help of a universal basic income. This would make it such that impoverished people no longer had to worry about survival from one day to the next. Therefore, a universal basic income may do more than ensure survival; it can also pave the way to economic security.
The absurdity and disgrace of severe poverty persisting among a tenth of the world's population in a $130 trillion economy cannot be overstated. Rapid economic expansion will only eradicate poverty for a while. The same type of development measures that have yielded so little over the last 70 years will not be enough this time. Providing financial aid to those in need is not only the simplest simple solution but also the most successful one.
Art: midjourney.com