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Essay Composition On – Poverty Anywhere Is A Threat To Prosperity Everywhere – For W.B.C.S. Examination.
Poverty can be defined as a state of life, in which a person has a higher propensity to spend more than his earnings, so that all his basic needs remain only partially satisfied.Continue Reading Essay Composition On – Poverty Anywhere Is A Threat To Prosperity Everywhere – For W.B.C.S. Examination.
Newspapers, discussions, budgets and surveys all echo, today, the path that humanity has trodden onto. This reflects how the world, this moment, is committed to a type of economic development that concentrates on the industrial sector, an absolute growth strategy and an exponentially increasing technological use. Yet this unidirectional focus on efficiency at the cost of scarcity considerations has not yielded desired results. Political upheavals, breakdown of the social fabric and the abject poverty seem to be the inescapable consequences of these rising growth rates.
We have compartmentalized humanity right from the global north-global south to the below and above poverty lines. Such a perspective, however, is problematic as it shadows over the interconnectedness of economies, societies and lives. The truth of the above theme, “Poverty anywhere is a threat to prosperity everywhere”, becomes starker in this context where all effects are permeated across borders and boundaries. In addition to this proximity of poverty, poverty is also a multidimensional concept.
Besides the financial (economic) aspect, poverty, as Amartya Sen would see it, is also ‘unfreedom’ in a number of ways. It entails in it social aspects like gender, political aspects like the right to freedom of speech and psychological aspects like happiness. All of these are also interwoven together, often forming the vicious circles of not only poverty but well being. Poverty is also inextricably linked to inequality. A highly unequal society is an implication of the large majority of the poverty-stricken population. While some scholars seem to look at inequality as a tool for efficiency, this view would persist only for some and for the shorter run. For the greater good and larger masses both poverty and inequality are like a disease that slowly eats up the entire social fabric of the country from within.
From an exclusively economic point of view, poverty would imply a low savings rate in the economy which is analogous to low investment and consequently slow growth of the economy. Besides this, increased poverty also hampers people’s access to basic facilities like clothing, food, and shelter. This leads to people being increasingly distrustful, crimes rising at an unprecedented rate and a growing unease and dissatisfaction that often take the form of violence and rage in society. Difficult conditions of living also make people question the legitimacy of the state. A decreasing voter turnout, larger number of strikes and protests etc. are some means of such expression.
At the same time, we need to think and ponder over the fact, ‘what is the greatest repercussion of poverty?’ Dependency in life on those who have a certain state of prosperity in their life can be considered to be its greatest repercussion. In the long run, poverty acts as the serpent, and, in this way, a poverty-stricken person to sustain in this world in one way or the other is compelled to eat away the resources of those who are prosperous in life. This fact of poverty itself is a pointer towards the fact that ‘poverty anywhere is a threat to prosperity everywhere’.
At the same time, we need to ponder which is the greatest form of poverty? The simple answer to this question is that, “the greatest form of poverty in this world is that which compels us to incline towards the don’ts of life instead of do’s”. Thus, poverty leads us to a path which is anarchic and troublesome. In the long run, poverty has the capacity to cripple those faculties of mind which may lead our life in the right direction.
If prosperity in life leads to a state of being, of self-contentment in life, at the same time, poverty in one’s life leads to a certain feeling of voidness in his/her life. In this way, the state of being of a person in poverty is just the reverse of that person who is in a state of prosperity. The voidness created in one’s life due to poverty stings that particular person to take the path of anti-social activities in his/ her life. Sometimes this anarchic and anti-social activities of a poor person which are activities done to appease his thirst and hunger of that particular person creates due to his such activities anarchy on the society. The greatest fallout of such anti-social activities is the creation of a diabolic society, a diabolic society which engulfs one and all of our society irrespective of rich or poor of the society.
Thus, the state of poverty can certainly be considered by one and all of a society as a threat towards the path of creating an egalitarian society. If promoting egalitarianism in the society of ours is our goal, then the pathway of achieving this goal is only by wiping off poverty lock, stock and barrel for we the world being. As stated above, poverty is a serpent and the greatest trait of poverty is that it like a parasite which destroys the tree, in the same way, poverty of a few destroys the plenty and prosperity of the many. As state of poverty is marked by the trait of being dependent on others due to meagre or little income of the poverty-stricken person, so, the voidness created by poverty even if to a little extent cannot be engulfed by the plenty and prosperity of the society as a whole.
In a nutshell, poverty itself is a threat for the whole society in general, mainly due to two reasons. Firstly, it is due to the effect that poverty creates on the psyche of the poor person and secondly, this diabolic psyche has a wholesome effect on the all-round development of that particular society. This is particularly because the path that sometimes taken by the poverty-stricken person which is mainly a path of anti-social activities. As crimes are mainly perpetrated on those who are wealthy and prosperous, therefore, this state of poverty most of the times blossoms as a threat to the whole society as a whole and the prosperous sections of the society in particular. All these facts again speak in volumes that ‘poverty anywhere is a threat to prosperity everywhere’.
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