On Tue, 16 Mar 2004, Jeffrey Fisher wrote:
> i see your point, miles. i'm looking for something, though, that
> provides a reasonable general measure of poverty on a global level and
> that is reasonably easily communicated to, say, students. this seems to
> be pretty much it, but i'm happy to take alternative suggestions.
>
> j
What I don't like about Yates' analysis is that it implies that any society in which goods are not brought and sold is "poor". For most of human history, people lived on $0 a day; this lack of income did not equate with lack of resources (homo sapiens over the past few hundred thousand years has thrived without any "income"). --And also, being a bit utopian, my political ideal is creating a world in which everyone lives on $0 a day (abolition of the wage system and all that)!
--That said, the disparity in access to resources at the global level is pretty appalling, so in practical terms I agree with Yates. You can get this across to students by talking about limited access to clean water, health care, education, food, shelter (UN has good but depressing data on these).
Miles