poverty of thought

A UN report says hunger in South Asia has reached its highest level in 40 years.
Unicef says that 100 million more people in the region are going hungry compared with two years ago.
"We are on the verge of a crisis," a Unicef consultant said.

According to the World Bank, three quarters of the population in South Asia - almost 1.2 billion people - live on less than $2 (£1.2) a day And more than 400m people in the region are now chronically hungry.

Amnesty International have said , "Poverty is not inevitable. The billions of people who live in poverty are shut out, ignored and denied security by the actions and failures of the powerful. This is a human rights crisis,"
Amnesty concludes:
"We will challenge discriminatory laws, policies and practices and demand concrete measures to overcome the factors that impoverish and keep people poor."

All rather well meaning but will Amnesty International be challenging the real cause of to-day's poverty stricken world - capitalism .

The greatest problem awaiting solution in the world to-day is the existence in every country of extreme poverty side by side with extreme wealth. In every land where, in the natural development of society, the capitalist method of producing and distributing wealth has been introduced, this problem presses itself upon us. To find a solution to this problem is the task to which the Socialist applies himself. He sees clearly that only by studying the economics of wealth-production and distribution can he understand the anomalies of present-day society. He sees, further, that having gained a knowledge of the economic causes of social inequality, he must apply this knowledge through political action – through the building up of a Socialist organisation for the capture of Parliament and the conquest of the powers of government.

The inequality which exists under world capitalism is simply breathtaking, and it is increasing: the world has never been so unequal as it is today. Giant global corporations own and control the world production of goods and services together with the natural resources of the planet. The sole object is to amass greater concentrations of capital and to increase their economic and political powers.Governments exist essentially to defend the interests of the rich and powerful. This is the way the world is. But it should not and need not be this way. Instead, the world could be run on Socialist lines, without rich or poor, without wages or money, without countries or governments. We live in a world of plenty where scarcity and rationing through the market and money system is unnecessary and anti-human. It must stop. There were always some such as Amnesty International trying to build a "fairer" society , but , poverty has not been reformed away .What we need is to decide that we have the way to actively declare an end to unnecessary want, and build a free co-operative commonwealth so that "poverty may give place to comfort, privilege to equality and slavery to freedom."