Causes of Poverty Disclosed in Our Free Essay Example

As a planet, we have come a long way and many inventions have been made. We first walked naked as primitive beings now we have inventions such as planes, ships, cars, hospitals, and labs. These inventions have facilitated us as human beings to be self-sufficient by maximizing on resources to get maximum output. This policy has been applied in many relevant areas such agriculture and others. However it is evident that despite human evolution to more advanced and brilliant beings, the problem of poverty still plagues the world. In an analysis to figure out why poverty exists I established a few causes.

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Conforming to Achunonu (54), political instability is one of the major reasons for poverty; we have seen these numerous global issues throughout history and currently in the media. Countries that used to be very rich empires have fallen causing turmoil and instability. Political instability is the first factor in a chain reaction after the war starts; this can be between the state and its citizens or the state and its army. There are other cases where a country is attacked externally. When a country becomes unstable, the government lacks coordination and fails to provide safety to its employees. As a result, the resources are not properly allocated which in turn leads to wastage of resources and citizens also fail to play their part by earning their living. This chain reaction leads to a state that is broke citizens who cannot financially support themselves.

Accessible education and capital provides that people are stable and independent. Through education, people can receive essential skills to apply in their employment or businesses in case they decide to be entrepreneurs. Capital allows people to be self-sufficient by providing the financial backbone to start a business. At the moment, many countries are providing their citizens with low-interest loans to start businesses. Also, the emergence of venture capitalists has immensely promoted this field of entrepreneurship. Currently, there is an influx of jobs; numerous firms are firing employees while others are closing shop. This factor has contributed to the increase in poverty; other firms are employing people on a casual basis earning less than a dollar a day. There may be more venture capitalist than earlier at the beginning of the decade but accessing them is very hard especially for people allocated outside towns.

The cost of living has risen tremendously, the worth of a dollar today was less than a half its worth twenty years ago. The prices of consumer goods have also gone up; this is because raw materials and energy used are much more expensive hence increasing the cost of production. Even for the people in stable jobs it is much harder for them, over the years when people receive mass promotions the cost of consumer goods rises too. This is a tool for keeping the government well financed through tariffs and by-laws that in turn reduce more from the citizens paychecks.

According to Bauer (75), colonialism is one of the major causes of poverty, when superior countries went to conquer the new world, their major reason was to acquire more wealth. When they realized that these new colonies were rich in minerals and the fertile land they decided to own these resources through force and violence. Unfortunately, this was the case mostly in African states. For decades, these resources were siphoned to their mother countries, and when these colonies got their independence, the colonial masters did not relinquish all the resources they had acquired. Sadly by the time colonial masters left some countries mineral resources had been cleaned out completely. In some cases due to corruption, you find mines and large chunks of land still owned by colonial masters. In such countries, it becomes difficult to develop due to lack of resources for exploitation hence resulting to an impoverished country.

A countries population in relation to agriculture is very big determinant of whether or not a country will be able to feed its citizens especially if it is a third world country. On this factor other issues are involved such as the fertility of the soil, the quantity of laborers, whether the labor is manual or mechanized, crops planted and if they are high yield. In many developing countries, farmers plant low yielding crops instead of genetically modified crops that provide a high yield. There is a mass exodus of people from rural to urban areas due to urbanization which in return results to inadequate laborers hence less yield. Use of manual methods of farming increase the cost of farming, sadly many developing countries have not yet embraced modern ways of farming. When food production is less, it becomes more expensive due to high demand and low supply.

Corruption, social and psychological factors cover a wide range of issues. According to Pelizzo and Stapenhurst (82), Corruption is like a disease that prevents development hence causing poverty in large scale. It diverts resources from more deserving and important departments to the pockets of a few who in many cases do not need the money. Corruption accounts for why companies collapse and ministries go broke. This leaves people with no jobs hence no income. In this case when I refer to social and psychological factors I mean factors that affect people morally and perception individually. For instance people who grow up in an impoverished area and, as a result, have been so for generations tend to be pessimistic. They view the world negatively and believe that their status will forever be so. Such people fail to work hard in life hence they do not get an education and end up getting unstable employment with little pay. Despondently, this cycle continues and may only be broken if a member of that society changes his perception of life and works hard to change his life. If this happens, it can motivate others to do the same and change their life.

Through establishing stable political structures and audit systems, a country can carefully monitor its systems to prevent instability and corruption. Consumer goods, education and agricultural items are supposed to be subsidized; this allows easy access of the services to all. Through subsidizing the cost of education people in impoverished areas get a chance to achieve more and be independent (Pelizzo and Frederick, 56). Inquires and probes need to be done constantly to determine resources owned illegally and then reverted; this promotes equity and independence in a society. A state that works hard to push its citizens to entrepreneurship creates employment for the entrepreneurs and employees who are employed in such businesses. Lastly, it is important to offer seminars and campaigns where people are taught alternative ways of life to reduce poverty and change their perceptions of life and promote prosperity.

Works Cited

Achunonu, Anthony. Poverty And The Church In Igboland, Nigeria. [S.l.]: Xlibris, 2012. Print.

Bauer, P. T. Equality, The Third World, And Economic Delusion. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1981. Print.

Pelizzo, Riccardo, and Frederick Stapenhurst. Parliamentary Oversight Tools. Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge, 2012. Print.