- The official neoliberal paradigm has actually created its own ‘counter-paradigm’; one that, for looks, embodies a highly ethical (yet apolitical) discourse. Its name: “Sustainable Development”, Sustainable development is a discourse with a big focus on the environment and an accompanying strategy of ‘poverty alleviation’. It is here contended that sustainable development mostly brushes-over policy issues pertaining to the defense of human rights (HR) –including the right to health and the social rights of women. It also does not look into the structural measures needed for the eradication of poverty, of ill-health and malnutrition and of other HR violations.
- The beauty of this –for pro-status-quo ideologues– is that this ‘counter-ideology’ rarely challenges neoliberal policy prescriptions; it develops alongside and in harmony, rather than in opposition, to the official neoliberal dogma –perhaps only giving the ‘system’ an occasional cold, but not a real pneumonia…
- Within this counter-ideology, development scholars find a comfortable niche; their role is to generate a semblance of critical debate without prominently addressing the negative social aspects of the global market system. The ethical focus on the environment and on the poor with their health and other problems provides the sustainable development discourse with a ‘human face’ and with a semblance of commitment to some kind of social change. Bottom line, it really does not constitute a threat to the neoliberal economic agenda; so it is let be.
- In the ethical outlook of alleviating poverty, figures are being manipulated. Let us take a telling example: The 1U$/capita/day is actually a hoax. Through clever gross manipulation of income statistics, mainly (but not only) the World Bank presents us with figures that serve the useful purpose of representing (and making us believe that) the poor in developing countries are a minority group; groups with per capita income above 1U$ a day, we are told, are somehow not-so-poor. But the 1U$/day standard has no rational base; population groups in developing countries with per capita incomes of 2, 3 or even U$5/day remain poverty stricken and suffer from preventable deaths and diseases. The entire 1U$/day framework is totally removed from an examination of real life situations since it does not analyze expenditures on food, shelter and social services (especially health and education), among other –all inalienable human rights. We all know poverty indicators are computed in a mechanical fashion. The estimation of poverty indicators has thus become a numerical exercise that usefully serves to conceal the galloping globalization of poverty.
- Moreover, double standards prevail in the measurement of poverty. The 1U$/day criterion applies only to developing countries. In the West, methods of measuring poverty have been based on minimum levels of household spending required to meet essential expenditures. In the US, the cost of a minimum adequate diet is multiplied by 3 to allow for other expenses; this comes up to around 11U$/cap/day. If this methodology would be applied in developing countries, the overwhelming majority of the population would be categorized as poor. In fact, with deregulation and free trade, the cost of living in many Third World countries is now higher than in the US.
- Poverty assessments are largely office-based exercises conducted in the capitals of the rich countries with insufficient awareness of local realities; these realities –the burden of ill-health of the poor, for example– are often even deliberately concealed. So, poverty indicators misrepresent country-level situations, as well as the seriousness of unrelenting global poverty; they serve the purpose of portraying the poor as a minority group representing only some 20% of the world’s population. Future trends are forecast making poverty appear declining…thus vindicating free market policies. The free market system can then be presented as the most effective means of achieving poverty alleviation. The benefits of the technological revolution and the contributions foreign investment and trade liberalization make are then quickly added to the rosy picture (as a ‘topping on the cake’) without identifying how these global trends foster increased poverty levels.
- Now briefly back to the social rights of women. In the market-oriented approach, women’s programs are framed in relation to the opportunity costs and efficiency of focusing on women’s rights, i.e., investments in women’s programs (including those in reproductive health) are considered vital in achieving the economic efficiency needed for development. The main objective of such a justification is, therefore, not to enhance women’s rights, but –thru the economics of the free market– to make purportedly gender-centered investments that eventually end up demobilizing the women’s movement. The structural causes of the poverty of women and of the way they are discriminated are thus hidden or even denied.
Caveat
- We need to become more and more aware of these avenues of deceit we are bombarded-with day-in-day-out. We need to debunk these myths and communicate more effectively while doing so.
- The globalization of the HR struggle is fundamental; it requires solidarity and an internationalism of a degree with little precedents in history. The current global economic system feeds on the social divisiveness between and within countries. Worldwide coordination among all social movements that support the HR-based approach is crucial. This Reader has insisted on this urgency before, but it reiterates it here.
Claudio Schuftan, Ho Chi Minh City