Poverty and Inequality

Disaster in Society

What if I told you that one person's wealth in the United States could sufficiently alleviate poverty within the world? According to the United Nations Human Development Report in 1997, Bill Gates's wealth alone would be sufficient in alleviating poverty. Before getting into how to solve poverty and this incredible inequality gap, one must look at what caused these social problems.

The social system today is responsible for social problems within society. Global Inequality and Poverty are caused from the world allowing the wealthy to dominate. Using wealth as a way to rule societies has caused a tremendous inequality gap as well as an increase in poverty. Global inequality is so bad that the richest 2 percent of adults own more than half the world's household wealth (Eitzen 60). As D. Stanley Eitzen said in Social Problems 11th edition, the reasons for such terrible global inequality and poverty are due to the "effect of power" (Eitzen 60). By this he means that the richest countries as well as companies are using their wealth to drain from other countries as well as people. In this essay I plan to show you how the social system today allows these countries and companies to use their wealth as a tool of power to drain money from other countries and people.

Before examining how the companies use their wealth as a tool, one must look at how the system has given these companies the ability to do so. The system has a natural bias towards the rich. Corporations receive a wide range of favors, tax breaks, direct government subsidies to pay for advertising, research and training costs, and incentives to pursue overseas production and sales (Gillespie 2003). In total the government gives $125 billion dollars annually to big business. With these tax policies in place, there is an unequal distribution of wealth, increase in national debt, a reduction in government spending for the poverty, as well as weaker public institutions that benefit society (Eitzen, 58). These factors cause the already rich countries to keep gaining while depriving the middle and lower class to lose wealth. This inequality allows the upper class to do whatever they want in order to make more money.

The unfair use of power and wealth has been used since the 1400's to the mid 1900's. European powers as well as the US invaded the Southern Hemisphere and took the countries land, labor, and resources. This cruel system of the rich countries taking advantage of the poor countries labor and resources are still going on today. Today the inequality gap and poverty are caused by taking advantage of poor countries and unemployment due to offshoring.

Rich countries are supporting the poor authoritarian Third world countries in order to take advantage of them. The rich countries typically aid the poor by using military aid or arms sales and by doing so, they can set up a cooperation there that takes advantage of the cheap labor and lenient laws in order to make huge profits (Competing Explanations for and Responses to Global Inequality, 3). From this the rich countries are making more money and becoming richer, while the third world countries are remaining poor and living in the terrible conditions. A common idea is that the building of corporations in these poor areas should allow the countries to benefit. This common belief is wrong. The transnational corporations exploit the labor and people. The majority of the profits that are made are exported back to the companies' country. Also, with the use of advanced technology, the demand for jobs is limited (Eitzen, 75). With the labor that is hired, young women are usually the ones selected (Eitzen, 75). This system of power allowing countries to be taken advantage of is a major factor into why the global inequality gap is so far apart.

Unemployment in the states caused by companies and countries off-shoring is also a major factor in global inequality and poverty. With our social system allowing the rich companies to exploit the other countries leads to unemployment. The deployment of businesses in other countries is taking away from the home country. Suppose a company in the United States creates a new factory in Nigeria that employees 1000 workers. The United States could have used those 1000 workers to help the unemployment. By doing this offshoring, the unemployment level increases which in the end increases poverty. With more people falling from the middle-class to the lower class, creates more of a difference of inequality amongst classes.

Another great factor of the system leading to inequality and poverty is the debt of the third world countries. These third world countries are in debt with the rich countries. These rich countries take advantage of this debt by constantly increasing the interest that they owe. Some poor countries spend 40 percent of their income for interest on a foreign debt that will never be repaid (Eitzen, 79). This constant increase in money is keeping the third world countries poor. The 40 percent of income could be spent on bettering the living conditions or helping out the poor. 99 percent of the current population growth occurs in the less-developed nations that are filled with poverty. With the less-developed nations having to pay off their debt, they could be providing birth control and other ways to stop pregnancy. The world bank estimates that it would take $8 billion dollars to make birth control readily available globally. With the population sky rocketing, families are unable to provide the bare necessities for the family. This makes the families a lot poorer and the country poorer as a whole.

Media is a factor that contributes