Andreas Widmer argues poverty isn't just about money. It's about access to networks of productivity and exchange. Without connectivity to global trade and economic systems, people stay trapped regardless of income.
Chapters
I'm frustrated with this idea that poverty means living on one or two dollars a day. That is a very bad way to state the problem. Being poor has something to do with being excluded from networks of productivity and exchan. That means cell phones, Internet, banks, financial systems, educational systems. To have free trade, to have products from here that are produced here, to actually be allowed into other countries.
You are stuck in a hole in a village with all your skills and all your talent. And that's just unfortunately the way it is. The people here are not stupid. They're just disconnected from global trade, that's all.
This lack of access is one of the greatest challenges for the world's now we've all heard the saying, give a man a fish, he eats for a day. Teach a man a fish, he eats for a lifetime. But for most of the world's poor, this isn't really the problem. The poor know how to fish. What they lack is access to markets and networks of productivity.
Look at satellite pictures of the earth at night. The lights are concentrated in places where trade is easier. Near oceans and highways and navigable rivers. But it goes beyond geography. Look at north and South Korea for example. They have similar culture, people and geography. What's different is the political and economic system. The lights are telling us something. Where people have freedom and are linked to circles of exchange. Their capacity to create wealth for themselves and their families is unlocked.
There's a reason for this. God made us free. And where the political and economic conditions reflect our nature, people prosper.
One careless romantic vision of the poor is that they are being so exploited that they should just be left to retreat into self sufficiency. The organic holistic peasant uncontaminated by the dirty business of a market economy. And of course that is just romantic nonsense. People who retreat into subsistence, disconnected from the market, are poor. The only ones who are not start off as investment bankers and then go and live out this romantic fantasy. And that's fine for them. And it's no good for today's poor. Today's poor need all the connections they can get.
So what you see, historically speaking, is that when people, all people, rich and poor from all around the world are able to connect themselves to networks of productivity, what you see is increases in wealth and better quality lives for everyone. Not just the elites and the very wealthy segments of society, but even more importantly the those people who had never had any economic opportunity in the past.
