How do you think the United States ranks in the Human Poverty Index compared to the other top industrialized nations?
If you said “badly” – then yes, you are correct.
The United States ranks NEAR THE BOTTOM (17 of 19) in the Human Poverty Index (2008) based on the key indicators of life expectancy, literacy, unemployment and population below 50% of median income (%).
Bet you didn’t know that did you?
But these numbers are from 2008. Since then we’ve had the depression/housing crash and many more have joined the ranks of the poor.
The poor are mostly women and children. So poor women and children in the U.S. would be better off living in almost any other industrialized nation OTHER THAN the United States.
Many people are unclear regarding what is charity and what is justice. In fact, the boundary isn’t always black and white. There are gray areas. But generally, charity provides immediate aid for suffering, while justice works to end the underlying causes.
Here’s a biblical example often used to explain the idea of biblical justice, right relationshps or making things right. Moses didn’t ask Pharaoh to give the Israelites better working conditions, shorter hours and health care. Instead, Moses asked to end their entire economic system of slavery. He asked for justice. “Let my people go!” Moses’ request was to end the underlying system of slavery that caused the suffering.
A good example for us today is hunger. Donating food to the food shelf or volunteering at Feed My Starving Children is charity. We could donate food forever and there would still be hunger in the world because the root causes of hunger wouldn’t have been eliminated. On the other hand, Justice is working with organizations like Mary’s Pence or Bread for the World to end the underlying causes of hunger.
We need both and we each need to do both. Charity provides immediate results. This alleviates immediate suffering while motivating us to continue to work for justice, the changing of laws and systems. Justice takes longer and requires the coordinated efforts of many. It can be discouraging because we don’t see immediate results – but it is even more necessary for ending suffering and bringing peace to the world.
Becoming truly human requires real freedom. Stated another way, as long as we are held captive by that which prevents us from choosing in our own best interests (i.e. working for the good of all) we are not truly free.
Justice begins with education. The bible is replete with examples of people escaping injustice in the dominant culture. Exodus and the Exile are two well known examples of stories that work as metaphors for our own spiritual journey to freedom, but also serve as models for real world oppression.
Jesus too, freed people from physical and spiritual oppression or afflictions. But he also told many parables about how the world could be different, more just, about the in-breaking of the reign of God or the Kingdom (e.g. Matt 8:18-23, 20:1-16, 22:2-14 ). These parables helped others to become empowered to escape the actual oppression of families, tribes and the dominant culture of his time.
Scripture scholar Marcus Borg explained this idea of the bible as a collection of stories about justice and freedom in a talk he gave in April 2011, at Westminster Forum entitled “Speaking Christian.”
We cannot be truly free until we are no longer held captive by unjust ideas, patterns and practices of our dominant culture.
Click on the links above. Learn more. Share what you learn.
“If you want peace, work for justice” Pope Paul VI.
The reverse is also true. Social justice with progressive taxation is good for poor and rich alike – for the same reasons. Everyone benefits from an educated, healthy society with good infrastructure and public safety nets.
Here’s an excerpt:
But even more important is that high levels of income inequality exert a toll on all, particularly on health. Would you trade a shorter lifespan for a much higher level of wealth? Most people would say no, yet that is precisely the effect that the redesigning of economic arrangements to serve the needs at the very top is producing. Highly unequal societies are unhealthy for their members, even members of the highest strata. Not only do these societies score worse on all sorts of indicators of social well-being, but they exert a toll even on the rich. Not only do the plutocrats have less fun, but a number of studies have found that income inequality lowers the life expectancy even of the rich.
Although those who can afford it may feel that they can use their wealth to insulate themselves – that insulation is not very pleasant either. Smith writes:
You might argue: Why do these results matter to rich people, who can live in gated compounds? If you’ve visited some rich areas in Latin America, particularly when times generally are bad, marksmen on the roofs of houses are a norm. Living in fear of your physical safety is not a pretty existence.
Education, knowledge and compassion about the reality and existence of others is the way forward.
Recently people in Israel, and elsewhere too, are beginning to see that the purpose of the economy is to serve human beings, not the other way around. Human beings create the economy and we can change it.
Nearly 300,000 people have demonstrated in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and elsewhere in Israel demanding change. Here’s an excerpt from an article in the Jerusalem Post, August 7, 2011
Itzik Shmuli, head of the National Union of Israeli Students, rebuked assertions that the movement has become partisan or overly politicized.
“We aren’t asking for a change of personnel in the government or a change in the coalition in the parliament that was elected by the people. We are young people who are demanding a change in the cruel economic policies. We are demanding a personal economy over one that tramples, we are demanding an economy that takes into consideration the suffering of people and not one that only crunches numbers,” Shmuli said.
“We want a more correct balance between the free market and the human economy. We are demanding serious attention to closing social gaps and for a more far-reaching answer to be given to the basic needs of the citizens of the country, in particular the country’s weakest citizens.”
Read more about Israeli’s demands for justice – NOT charity, here. When will we demand the same for people here in the U.S.?
This article from U.S. News and World Report and this article in Yahoo News both detail new research that shows eating a healthy or nutritious diet is a luxury the poor can’t afford. But access to healthy food is a HUMAN RIGHT.
Keep in mind we subsidize poor eating options (or bad-for-you food) by subsidizing (meaning we give U.S. tax dollars to) corn mega-farmers. This means we are, therefore, subsidizing all businesses that use corn or corn related products such as corn oil, flavorings, flours, syrups and corn animal feeds.
In effect we subsidize soda pops, chicken, beef, corn oil, a myriad of processed food ingredients, restaurants that serve chicken, beef, soda and companies that make foods like corn chips and cereal (can your say Coca Cola, Kraft, McDonald’s and General Foods?). Big business tries to use corn ingredients because corn-based ingredients are cheaper for them to buy.
Dairy farms that feed corn to cows are also subsidized, meaning cheeses, milk, yogurt, eggs and other dairy products are cheaper due to our tax subsidies.
But we could subsidize healthy food. Why don’t we demand subsidies for fruits and vegetables instead?
Similarly, OUR subsidies put farmers in other countries – those whose governments don’t subsidize their produce – out of business. Think about farmers in Mexico and Central America who come north looking for work after our subsidy policies have put them out of business.
When I was in Juarez, Mexico – I actually saw stacks of produce crates at the market stamped “U.S.A.” They were being sold for prices cheaper than Mexican farmers could grow it. We put them out of business in a predatory way. This is what is meant by “economic terrorism.”
People migrate north then – because they can’t feed themselves using their own agricultural products – thanks to us.
In 2006, I spoke with a young couple getting preparing to cross the border. They had a 2-year old child. I asked, “Why would you take a small child on such a dangerous trip?” He said simply, “If we stay here we starve.”
While we have a right to protect our borders, all rights are NOT created equal. Every person has an even higher right, which is to protect his or her own life.
The next time you open your refrigerator and assume food will be inside — realize that this is not true for most of the world’s population. You are rich by their standards. And remember that access to healthy food, like clean water and clean air, is a human right.
