Are we better off?

Big statistics about poverty are scary. Plain and simple. Millions of people living in unsanitary conditions, millions more dying of simple infections or even births. What do we do about it? This question has been asked again and again, and has an infinite number of responses. While we may be in an overall improved world than that which existed 50 years ago, this certainly does not mean that improvement has been felt equally across the globe. While poverty may seem like an impossible challenge to tackle, equally, if not more difficult, is inequality. Let us say the poorest of the poor may be living in slightly better conditions than they were a generation ago, it does not seem likely that they will ever make it out of their place at the bottom of the development ladder.

Where have strategies of development come from? I have recently been re-reading Encountering Development by Arturo Escobar (which I highly recommend) and thinking about the beginning of global initiatives, such as the World Bank. Something Escobar discusses is the "important connection between the decline of the colonial order and the rise of development" (26). Patriarchy is still not dead, and while there has been improvement, it is still apparent in policy circles that we still believe we know better than those in developing countries.

In an article from the Economist, we continue to see how patriarchy and ignorance are not just vices of the poor, but of respected first-world peoples. The author argues that Walmart will help solve the "backward" Indian retailing. While there may be problems with fresh fruits and vegetables not being safe or well kept, it seems highly unlikely Walmart can possibly be the answer to this problem. It seems there is an underlying agenda that the author is projecting. For example, the author writes:

"A decade ago [India] favoured economic opening, even of retailing, and celebrated India’s capitalist boom. Now it is a shoddy outfit, blocking change purely to weaken the government and discounting the national interest with even more zeal than the Beast of Bentonville discounts tomatoes." [italics added]

Who is to say Walmart will really help the country? Who defines the "national interest"? It might adjust macro-level growth patterns such as GDP, but this scope is not sufficient if broader equality is to be reached. clearly, this is not the goal of many development initiatives because it calls people to think about why inequality exists in the first place. We'd like to think problems can be fixed without thinking about who to blame. Or rather, whether we might be to blame because we support systems and institutions that continue to suppress the voices of those who bear the brunt of "development".

I do not solely want to critique, but to offer a solution. We as a society have yet to entertain the possibility that our way of living may not be the ideal for all across the world. It is our preference. There are other ways of viewing the world, different value systems, different people. Without taking the time and interest in learning someone else's perspective, especially those whose lives we intend to "fix", we will continue to ignore the voices of poverty.