What does economic theory have to say about poverty and the wealth divide?
There may be an abundance of resources globally but to utilise those resources and turn them into goods and utilities requires vast amounts of capital. Capital is what capitalists provide in the form of machinery and labour to exploit resources (BP for example) Many people are in poverty because they only have their labour to sell and usually they are paid a pittance for it, not allowing them to accumulate wealth. I doubt we actually have the technological ability to distribute resources ANYWHERE in the world. In any case, many things mitigate against that; mainly nationalism and religion. There will always be rich and poor for many reasons: e.g. many people waste their money; people who invent things expect a big reward (and deserve it) for putting their intellect to use to ease peoples lives; some simply deserve more than others in my view, especially doctors, teachers and many other professionals; and at the end of the day, as has been written by another contributor – we are in the
I don’t understand the part about “there being near perfect infrastructure and technology for its distribution.” Are you stipulating that condition, or do you really believe that the world has this perfect infrastructure? Poor infrastructure is a major contributing factor to poverty, at least in the African countries I’ve visited. It hampers small enterprise and reduces foreign investment. Countries with better infrastructure are more likely to attract foreign companies. India has a large English-speaking workforce and a good telecom sector, so they get customer service outsourced there. Many countries have neither of these things. Beyond that, the discussion of poverty is simply too complex to answer in this format. The view that the free market is the answer to all problems is simply untrue, as many “free market economies” in Africa and elsewhere fail miserably. But a combination of economic freedom, property rights, anti-corruption programs and a variety of other measures could help
