POVERTY IN OUR SOCIETY

Poverty in Our Society



Poverty in Our Society

Introduction

Poverty is the state where one can not be able to buy, see a doctor, lacks a place to sleep and so on. As to some authors “poverty is being powerless and lucking representation.” If you look around you will note that the rich, middle class and the poor are described by the way they live and the amount of money they have. This simply means that poverty is not always a bad thing, it just another way of life, another way of living. Some one for example can look at poor countries and be sorry for them because of the way they live but then it is simply their lifestyle supported by the Environment they are in as some writers suggest.

Body: Discussion and Analysis

Poverty did not emerge recently; it has been around for a long time. Since ancient times, people used to be classified as either, rich or poor. The poor were ruled by the rich and in most cases they were oppressed by this same people. The same way the poor are handled today was the very same way they were handled decades ago. Poverty is every where. But is amazing that when we talk about poverty one immediately thinks of the third world countries such as Malawi, Uganda, and Somalia among many others. The truth is that also many western countries struggle with poverty. One can easily understand why they have poverty in the third world countries, the fact that they don't have the technological advances of agriculture that the first world countries has automatically sets them back. The other reason is that they do not have booming export industry to bring in money to combat poverty, this contributes greatly as well. (Census Bureau, 2004)

When Europe invaded Africa and colonised it, it took control of all resources and drained them to expand its wealth. That was the beginning of imbalance of wealth in most parts of Africa. People were forced to become slaves on their own land to help in development and expansion of industries in Europe. The colonial power was not interested with the welfare of African and it blocked out all Africans from engaging themselves in profit making activities. Capitalism was taking its root in Africa as minerals and people were being exploited. Europe became richer and richer as Africa remained in a state of poverty and greatly underdeveloped(Census Bureau, 2004). The natural flow of wealth was thwarted as the Europeans powers spread all over Africa and some parts of Asia. The African were soon or later left in a poverty trap which has become almost impossible to escape.

The gap

All around the world, the gap between the rich and poor even in the richest countries is going up rapidly. A few groups of people are becoming increasingly successful and wealthy while a disproportionately larger population of people is becoming poorer. There are many issues involved when looking at the term ...