How poor is the world today? How IS the world poor today?

[YankeeRC]

Spending time in the Gospels, and Liturgy of the Hours I am often stuck by how much the poor are mentioned and elevated in God’s word. Probably the most surprising is in the Canticle of Mary which is from Luke Gospel where Mary takes the time to say this:

“He hath scattered the proud in the conceit of their heart.
He hath put down the mighty from their seat, and hath exalted the humble.
He hath filled the hungry with good things; and the rich he hath sent empty away.”

I honestly do not know how poor average people were in the time of Christ, but I would imagine that since there were extravagantly deified kings and emperors that common people were deeply indentured to pay taxes for such extravagance.

So how poor is the world today?

Of course there are hungry and there are some peoples exploited for their land to feed other parts of the world and there are areas of crowded and unsanitary living, but the world seems to be agriculturally and materially heading towards equaminity.

So today, are we more poor because we live lives of servitude to wages or are we more poor in faith than in wealth? Or are there still so many poor to feed that this should be the Church’s primary mission?

 

[centurionguard]

Check out these Stats and I think you’ll get a fair picture of increasing Global Poverty.

globalissues.org/article/26/poverty-facts-and-stats

 

[Monte_RCMS]

Instead of reducing the standard of living of people in Western countries, how about RAISING the standard of living of people in the poorest of the poor countries?

But it is more than just money or access to food or water.

It is getting rid of totalitarian governments with their thugocracies and cronies who run things.

Political freedom leads to economic freedom.

It works everywhere and every time that freedom is tried.

It is introducing democracy [or representative republicanism versus democracy which by definition is kind of open season with everybody doing their own thing] and the right to own property … if people cannot own the fruits of their labor and if some thug can just come along and take it, then why should people work for more than just bare subsistence?

Where totalitarianism is replaced by property rights, the prosperity of the people skyrockets.

Just look at India since they cast off the socialism they adopted after World War II … there is now a private sector middle class, they are are enjoying prosperity and it is getting better every day for more and more people.

When people actually enjoy the kind of rights as enumerated in the First Ten Amendments to the U.S. Constitution … the Bill of Rights, then prosperity takes hold and grows.

It’s not just words.