Poverty is structural.
This is the foundation premise of the entire progressive/liberal movement. This is the centre around which everything else gathers, and the base on which much else builds.
Poverty is structural. The massive suffering and deprivation in Africa (the focus of the G8) and in many other places is not handed down by God or mandated by nature. It is an artifact of the systems we have in place to govern the ownership and usage of resources.
We in the rich world benefit from a system rigged in our favour. We who benefit from it are also the only ones in a position to change it.
That is why we gather in Edinburgh next week. The mass action is designed to achieve one goal above all others: to give our elected representatives permission and instruction to spend our money on fixing this, instead of perpetuating it.
Because if poverty is structural, then the structure can be changed.
Another world is possible.
8 thoughts on “G8: Why We Gather, In 3 Words”
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My first blush response to this is that it’s too simple and makes a generalisation that is possibly misleading.
Upon reflection that all depends on what specifically is mean by structural.
The problem is that the word structural is either too vacuous to be of any use, or too specified to really be true. Let me elaborate.
My first response to it was based on a fairly strict interpretatrion of Structural. I was think of actual, man made, structures; governments, corporations, Aid agencies, media etc. And I thought well yes that’s true but poverty also has other sources, arguably more primal ones.
In particular culture must be a huge determinitive factor in poverty. If you have only ever been in the ‘western world’ then you haven’t seen real poverty. It’s one thing to see it on TV, it’s another thing to experience it in your face.
India, and much of Asia has a culturally inspired poverty. The governemnt, corporate, charitable etc structural responses to poverty are built upon these cultural influences, not in spite of them or in some kind of cultural void.
So, at first blush, to say poverty is structural is too narrow. I doubt that all the protests in the world would really affect structure. To change structure you need to change the culture that the strucure has grown out of and supports.
But to include culture in structure renders the definition relatively meaningless IMO because culture is not structure. Culture gives rise to structure but it is not structure. Culture is the underlying set of normative* values and ideals that a culture holds too and perpetuates.
So, unless you mean something totally different when you say poverty is structural, I think I’ll have to disagree. Especially if you are then going to say that by changing the structure you’ll allieviate poverty.
I just don’t think it would be that easy. Structural change is a result of prior cultural change. And cultural change is both inevitable and extremely difficult to direct.
I am personally inclined to agree with Jesus when he said “You’ll always have th poor with you…”
That’s not to say we shouldn’t try to change things, just that I think that on a grand scale those efforets will be largely wasted. So I take a more personal approach to it.
Rather than expending energy protesting I think it would be better to spend energy actually working to allievaye poverty in someones life.
What if all the people who are going to decend en mass on Edinbourogh built a house for a homeless family rather that wasted their time yelling at people who aren’t going to listen to them anyway?
All those people spending all that time and effort and money protesting when they could be spending it going and working with actual real live poor people in edinborough (bet you could find plenty if you tried) makes me a little sad.
I doubt the protest will achieve much. But making, or finding clothes for very poor families would achieve an aweful lot for the people who it was done for.
Thats my initial thought.
Matt
*by normative here I mean normative to that culture. That’s not to deny that there might be actual normative values, but that’s not the issue here.
Culture is a universal, but its also context. Which makes any solid definition difficult, but I do think that Culture is structure. It affects and flavours the infrastructure. To say that it isn’t perpeturates the myth that hierachical structures are superior structures(or more real). Of course I’m aware that its all semantics, but its signification thats the thing. Narrative, filter, reception and all manner of tools.
Personally I don’t think that having a big concert or march will change anything much. Charity necessarily involves an inequality, approval of large amounts of charity work signals a shirking of social responsibility by the state. To my mind its the theology of international capitalism thats the problem, and buying wristbands aint helping. But I’ll be on the march, to be there and to not believe that giving money helps and to maybe talk to a one person whose view of the world might alter. To me its a chance for mass change on a small step basis.
And there I was, thinking you were just going to see the U2 concert.
I always thought the point of these protests was to kill the pigs. My mistake!
“But I’ll be on the march, to be there and to not believe that giving money helps and to maybe talk to a one person whose view of the world might alter. To me its a chance for mass change on a small step basis.”
I hope it is. I did, perhaps, frame my response too strongly. I don’t think the march will do much good, but that’s not a certainty, maybe this time it will be different.
And it’s worth going on to show that this is not something that the west is unified about.
I suppose my main point is that time and energy are precious and that if it was a choice between positive social action with real people in real need and essentially negative social action against people who aren’t really listening I would advocate the former every time.
Yeah, I’m with that 🙂
Re: culture/structure stuff…
The definition of structure I’m using is implicit in my argument – by structure I mean things that can be changed by the decision of those in power. Culture falls pretty far outside that.
I accept that poverty is normative in some cultures. It doesn’t follow that this makes the project of changing global resource management structures pointless. Firstly, I believe that such cultures are atypical. Secondly, cultural change can be and is driven by structural change.
I do not believe the poor must always be with us, except in a relative sense. The kind of poverty Matt has seen up close is not necessary. It can be alleviated. Much can be done to reduce its scale.
Morgue wrote: “. Firstly, I believe that such cultures are atypical.”
Ahem. One culture I knwo of where poverty is normative represents a billion people. A 6th of the worlds population can hardly be called atypical. If you count other cultures that i don’t know as well but seem to have the same normatove approach top poverty then you’d be looking at something more in the region of 3 – 4 billion.
I would say, and stats pretty much back me up here, that western culture is atypical. History and the current world all show that poverty is ingrained in culture. It has been since there was anything like culutre and it currently is for about 2/3rds of the worlds population that live below the poverty line.
It’s very ripe to say that it’s atypical.
On this morgue you are just plain wrong. Western culture is atypical.