'Making poverty history' and 'an end to poverty' are mantras that have been part of public conversation for the last five years. They have galvanised activists across the world, from Norway to Australia. Although 'making poverty history' may be a little tired now as a slogan, it still has pulling power.
Recently, under the 'make poverty history' banner, a group of young Australians launched a 'roadtrip' to Canberra to advocate that Australia raise its foreign aid commitment to 0.7 per cent of GDP. And although the white 'make poverty history' arm bands weren't as ubiquitous as they were in 2005, strong feeling about taking action to alleviate poverty certainly survives. The recent Canadian G8 meeting sparked new protests at the failure of rich countries to honour the promises they made five years ago at Gleneagles to increase aid by up to $50 billion by 2010.
Yet these latest protests, ritualistic at G8 meetings, point not only to the failures of the G8 governments, but also to the limitations of those mantras, 'make poverty history' and 'an end to poverty'. Much of the anger and debate that accompanies G8 meetings focuses on numbers. The monetary pledges made by governments are either met or broken, and the public responds accordingly. So the movement to 'end poverty' is tied to the numbers that emerge from each international summit. Progress is measured by the amount of money pledged and ultimately spent on aid and development.
In the cacophony of pledges and broken promises, one question is not clearly answered: what does an 'end to poverty' actually mean? Is it in fact a question of arriving at a world where everyone lives above some pre-determined 'poverty-line'?
The language of 'ending poverty' focuses on economic improvement. And that is where aid comes in. Aid seeks to rectify an imbalance of the basic goods which people need in order to live and to realise opportunities to do what they like with their lives.
But, as the economist and philosopher Amartya Sen has argued, primary goods don't necessarily translate into substantive freedoms. Poverty is not a one dimensional affliction.Communities enduring poverty are almost always torn by multiple afflictions, for example, ethnic or class discrimination or corruption. A person in a poor community may not simply suffer from a lack of primary goods (food, shelter, healthcare), but also from various forms of discrimination or poor access to institutional protection. In India, for example there are on average 11 judges for every 1 million people.
Is it possible to conceive another way of thinking and talking about overcoming the harm we see caused by poverty?
Perhaps a more holistic and far reaching approach — and a different mantra — can be found in the idea of 'justice'. People's desire to assist poor communities — to 'make poverty history' — surely arises out of a sense of injustice. So any campaign to lift people out of poverty is moved by a desire for justice. By making 'justice' the stated goal of the 'anti-poverty' movement, success would be measured not only by material outcomes, such as the quantity of aid delivered or the number of schools opened, but by the impact made on people's lives.
'Justice' is a more ambitious goal than 'ending poverty'. If we pursue justice, then we are not only working for higher average incomes or more housing. We are also working to empower people.
By adopting the idea of 'justice' as a new watchword for the fight against poverty we would recognise the complexity of human communities. Even though we might fund the construction of 1000 schools across a poor country, discrimination on racial, gender or religious grounds, corruption or lack of legal representation could prevent this 'achievement' from really vanquishing the injustices we visualise when we want to 'make poverty history'.
Making justice our goal overcomes another weakness inherent in the 'end to poverty' slogan. The movement to 'end poverty' has in practice worked with conventional concepts of what is a 'poor' community and what is a 'rich' community. Thus the focus has been on Africa and South East Asia.
In the late 18th century, Mary Wollstonecraft criticised Edmund Burke's support for American independence because Burke did not also support the emancipation of slaves. Wollstonecraft argued that if we desire justice for one group of people, then we have to desire it for everyone.
While the slogan 'an end to poverty' has channeled energy towards assisting the world's poor nations (measured by GDP and general welfare statistics), people suffering from poverty are not confined to these nations.
Many African Americans living in inner city neighbourhoods have lower life expectancy than poor people living in less developed nations like Costa Rica. In Russia, a country classified as 'developing', many people suffer from severe lack of opportunity and proper healthcare, just like those in 'under-developed' nations. In the campaign to 'end poverty', must they be forgotten simply because their national statistics (GDP, GNP etc.) tell a different story?
As an articulated goal, 'justice' overcomes this problem. If we are working for justice, then by implication we are seeking to undo injustice wherever it exists and in all its complexity. The language of 'ending poverty' can inhibit us from seeing reality. The language of 'justice' takes the scales away from our eyes.
Ben Coleridge studies Arts at the University of Melbourne.