Blog action day 2008: Poverty

Oct 15th, 2008 by katesaltfleet

Welcome to Blog Action Day 2008 at Experiments in Living! Today we take a break from the richness of Vegan MoFo to consider the ongoing issue of poverty on our planet. Please be sure to visit the Main Page where you can see contributions that other bloggers have made to this international day of awareness through the written typed word.

Poverty in a land of plenty

Unless you have been living under a rock somewhere you will be aware that there has been much turmoil in the stock markets across the world. Millions have been wiped off the value of share prices in a matter of minutes, consumer confidence is at an all time low. Institutions which had been household names have vanished overnight and entire economies (such as Iceland) have practically been declared bankrupt.

I am far from poor. I have a very comfortable life. I know where my next meal is coming from, and I live in a nice house with everything I need. Yet there is something about this talk of stock market collapses which does not sit comfortably with me. I certainly do not have millions to invest in stocks or even buy property, however the decisions of those that do will directly affect myself and millions like me. When the stock market suffers, banks suffer. When banks suffer, businesses suffer. When businesses suffer, customers suffer. And we are all customers.

Ethical Choices - them or us?

It is interesting to see how this perceived poverty affects the ethical choices that we as consumers make. In fat times, people feel more generous and are more inclined to buy free-range, organic food or support Fair Trade products. Now times are leaner, the cheap stores are reflecting a boom in sales. Charity begins at home is used as an excuse to withdraw our support from others. It is not my intention to trivialise the fact that millions of families across the world are feeling the pinch when it comes to their finances or judge the choices they make because of this. Rising fuel prices, increased mortgage costs and rising price of groceries all have very real effects on the consumer and the choices we all make.

If you are at risk of losing your home, then putting your interests first is entirely appropriate. However, in a developed country, we are talking about relative poverty, not absolute poverty for the most part. That is not to trivialise the difficulties faced by someone who cannot access a bank account, or who has no fixed address which is often a barrier to finding work, but to be aware that absolute poverty impacts on us all. When people are starving whilst we throw away good food, there are some serious ethical questions to be raised.

Not production, but distribution

I am a vegan, and many vegans argue that if everyone went vegan, that would be the end of food shortages, as there would be less land needed to produce our food. Supposing that the whole world turning vegan is even a remote possibility, that would not solve the problem. Even during the famine of 1984, Ethiopia was still exporting grain to western countries for animal feed, while its own people starved. The real problem with world hunger is not so much one of an inability to produce food, but the politics and economics of food distribution.

Three easy things that you can do to help:

Buy fair trade products where possible

Consider sponsoring a child or buying a gift for a community in a developing country

Join End Poverty 2015