The Meaninglessness of Ending Extreme Poverty

The World Bank defines the state of extreme poverty as being:<p>Short of food for all or part of the year, often eating only one meal per day.<p>Unable to save money - for if a family member falls ill and money is needed to see a doctor, or if the crop fails and there is nothing to eat.<p>Unable to afford to send your children to school.<p>Living in an unstable house made with mud or thatch that requires regular rebuilding.<p>Having no close source of safe drinking water.<p>If relieving the estimated 1.2 billion people in extreme poverty from living this way is meaningless then I despair.

&gt;There&#x27;s no scenario that sees the world ending poverty if the poverty line is set relative to the average incomes of the world’s poorest countries.<p><i>No</i> scenario? How about one where income inequality lowers in those countries? It&#x27;s entirely possible to have all incomes be at least a certain percent of mean or median income.

So by defining poverty on a relative sliding scale, we&#x27;ll constantly be working to improve the conditions of the least fortunate of us...<p>Good.

Absolute poverty is about actual living standards. How much food, housing, healthcare etc I have.<p>Subjective poverty is about social status. Where am I in a ranked list of wealth and resources?<p>Absolute poverty can change a lot, and that reflects real change in quality of life.<p>Subjective poverty is a zero sum game. Half the people will always be in the bottom half, because math.

What would a robust definition of poverty be? I think you&#x27;d have to get away from the concept of money, and define it as a lack of, or a lack of a way to get, any of the following:<p>* shelter<p>* transportation<p>* food<p>* medical care<p>* education

The only useful way to look at poverty is to use an absolute scale.<p>If we assume that every human being is born with absolutely zero wealth (or, at least, that this used to be the case in the distant past), then we should go about determining some objective minimum standard that is acceptable.

And also there are some that live on less money and are quite happy with that. What do we want to do about them? Push some money onto them?