What is the difference between underdevelopment and poverty?

When people hear the word poverty associates it with underdevelopment. Many people think that poverty exists only in the countries of the developing world. But it is not truth. There are poor but developed countries and rich underdeveloped countries.

How is this possible?

Well, because the development is not only a material issue of abundance of money and goods, but an attitude towards life, which manifests itself in multiple ways such as respect for nature and the environment, respect for others and especially towards the weakest, as women, children and the elderly; respect for other nations, respect for peace and rejection of violence and war.

In this paper I present two essays on the subject; the links are:

While millions suffer hunger other spend trillions in weapons

http://pablorafaelgonzalez.blogspot.com/2009/09/while-million-suffers-hungry-other.html

Difference between underdevelopment and poverty

http://pablorafaelgonzalez.blogspot.com/2009/10/difference-between-underdevelopment-and.html

Four priorities and programs for the world development

The most important problems and priorities of the world are: a) overpopulation, b) destruction of nature and the environment, c) poverty d) egoism and lack of social education. Following we will explain each one.

1.       Overpopulation

In the last 100 years the population grew more than in the rest of the humanity history; this has been a consequence of the advance in the science and technology. The trend of high growth has augmented in the recent decades and the perspective is that at mid and long term will be more intense. But the problem is that the resources do not increase in the same proportion.

1.1.  Solution

A solution is to develop a global campaign of education to promote the responsibility and to highlight that a family most have only the number of children that a couple can care, this mean, to feed, educate, to give medical assistance and to assure an appropriate home.

The campaign must be accompanied of concrete medical programs developed by the governments to help the population to reach the objectives.

2.       Destruction of nature and the environment

The world shows evident signs of the nature and environment destruction: climate change, contamination of the sources of water, pollution of the cities and too many other problems that affect the health and quality of life of millions of people.

2.1. Solution

There is no one solution because the environmental problems are innumerable. However, we can do something concrete to help the environment: it is a global program of reforestation, which might contribute to restore the balance of nature and to improve the quality of life of the people. The reforestation is an effective way to diminish the climatic change effects and, moreover, to protect the threatened sources of water.

3.       Poverty

The key to combat the poverty is the employment: good and stable jobs with fair salaries. To reach those objectives would be necessary to carry out three plans: a) a program of job training, b) a program to increase the number of jobs in the economy, that we have denominated the double working-day and the half working-day (1) and c) the creation of millions of ecological employments, through the global program of reforestation proposed in the previous epigraph. The countries might create permanent activities to plant and to keep diverse kind of trees for different uses and this would be a concrete contribution to the solution of the jobless.

4.       Egoism and lack of social education

They are the cause of the most world problems.

4.1. Solution

A solution is to employ the immense power of the mass media to create in the world population attitudes to favor the economic and social development; they are: a) To promote the responsibility in the family that, among other duties, require to have only the number of children that a couple can care, b) to protect nature and the environment, especially, to keep the forests, do not contaminate the sources of water and to do a rational disposal of waste and c) to develop campaigns of public health to teach the population rules to prevent the spread of illnesses.

5.       Conclusion

Of course, these ideas are not the solution of the humanity problems, but its application might create better conditions of life for millions of people worldwide. This kind of initiatives must be promoted by institutions of international influence, like United Nations and the World Bank. Without the sponsorship of those agencies the programs would not be possible. So that in the hands of the leaders of the United Nations, Ban Ki- moon and the World Bank, Jim Yong Kim, is the possibility of to realize these initiatives.

(1)    http://www.amazon.com/Pablo-Rafael-Gonz%C3%A1lez/e/B001JOAE2U

Austerity generates unemployment, poverty and political instability

Austerity is a big mistake. The big damage is for the middle class and the workers. Austerity leads to recession; orthodox politicians and economists are responsible of that big error. They developed a theorist conception that attributes at money the cause of inflation; but this is not true. The true cause of inflation is the human egoism; the unlimited desire of wealth of speculators.

Money is only metal and paper without intrinsic value. Nations can issue without limitations all the amount of national money ---their own currencies--- that their economies need. Money is only a mean of interchange, nothing else. Observe what happen when people have more money; when people have more money is happy; buy more food, clothes, cars, travel, etc; also observe the opposite phenomenon and you will obtain the right answer about what is good and what no.

If you give more money to people ---by the increase of salaries, pensions, more and best public services--- you improve the quality of life of people, because this stimulate production and the goods and services supply increase. If, on the contrary, you restrict the amount of money in circulation you lead people to poverty and stop the economy.

The economies of Greece, Italy, Spain and Portugal do not need to restrict their public spending; if the governments of those countries insist in imposing the program of austerity, it is very likely a deep political change in those countries, because of the population pressure. Perhaps new actors will appear. New actors that are unknown in this moment but that might provoke a complete political change in those nations. A similar phenomenon happened in Latin America in the 90s years as a consequence of the economic and political impositions of the International Monetary Fund, IMF and the World Bank.

The European Central Bank, the International Monetary Fund, IMF and the authorities of the European Union are the big obstacles for the European recovery.

Soon it might come a moment when Greece, Italy, Portugal and Spain have not other option than to abandon the euro and comeback to their national currencies. It will depend of the European Central Bank, the IMF and EU attitude.

Money is only metal and paper without intrinsic value

http://pablorafaelgonzalez.blogspot.com/2011_06_01_archive.html

Human egoism and overpopulation, big economics and political problems

“The pride of man makes him love to domineer, and nothing mortifies him so much as to be obliged to condescend to persuade his inferiors. Wherever the law allows it, and the nature of the work can afford it, therefore, he will generally prefer the service of slaves to that of freemen.”

Adam Smith. An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (1776), Book III, Chapter II

Index
1. Overview

1.1. The system of private property

1.2 The postulates of the economy are only intellectual exercises

1.3 Base of the political systems

2. Original Accumulation, vision of Adam Smith and Karl Marx

3. Comparison between the two points of views

4. The population growth, appreciation of Adam Smith and Thomas Robert Malthus

5. Unsustainable

6. Conclusions

1. Overview
Why does exists poor’s and rich’s?

Why one’s does governs and others obey?

For understanding the scope and answer those questions, first of all it is necessary consider two essential aspects: a) how was created the first wealth in the world? and, b) how did evolve the societies toward the different forms of government?

In the first stages of the human development, man lived in small groups of peasants and in a communitarian economic system, where shared the means of life with other members of the group; but that Honey Moon did not last too much. The human egoism dominated man hearts and appeared the first signs of struggle for the Earth resources and the dominium of one’s men over other men.

At the beginning of the times, land was communitarian property and nobody had individual rights over her.

1.1. The system of private property
The first big jump toward the new political and economic system of private property was the appropriation (robbery) of land by the strongest and rich men; this led to the establishment of the private property on land. The second step was the accumulation of stock. The first forms of capitalism appeared at the end of feudalism; however, the previous appropriation of land was the first expression of the wealth concentration.

But what did determine that deep change ---robbery of land and private property--- in the social behavior of man?

The answer is: a) the fear and b) the sexual instinct. The fear to the lack or scarcity of material means of life and the uncontrolled desire of sex. But pure love, fraternal love also exists and it is the other big might that inspire human beings life. The fear provokes the wealth accumulation wish because man wants to assure the goods that need. But for obtaining those goods he requires, in turn, to dominate the other people; therefore he searches the politics power.

Man made war to appropriate land and women of the conquered lands. In the Holy Scriptures and in the world history there are numerous examples of this. The fear and the sexual desire ---pleasure--- are the two forces that determine man behavior.

As a consequence of the uncontrolled sexual appetite ---and fertility--- the population grew; the effect of that growth was the multiplication of the social needs. The material means of life began to be scarce and this fact developed the human instincts of survival and the human egoism. Each one began to fight against other for the possession of the limited resources.

Land is the primary resource. And land encompasses the other essential resources. Land is wealth, the true wealth. Therefore, the first action of man was to appropriate land. But land and their physical expressions ---in material goods--- was not enough. Hence man created other symbol of wealth: the money.

Everyday the population grew more and more. But the resources do not augmented in balanced proportion and, moreover, they were not distributed fairly. This has been the essential cause of poverty and richness of one’s and others. The rich and strongest men ---since the physical and intellectual point of view--- have taken the best part of the earth resources and the capital factor; the poor’s and weak has received nothing.

In its first stage, the process of expropriation of the weak peasants was made through blood and fire. In parallel to the robbery of land to the peasants and the accumulation of stock, the rich and strongest men developed the political institutions ---states, governments, laws--- to guarantee their property and privileges and the dominium of the poor’s and weak . The maintenance of that process along the centuries has been based in the same principle: the violence. But ---in the modern times--- employing a romantic and false justification: the prevalence of law. The juridical system of the countries is the base where is supported the privileges of the owners of the power and wealth. It is too its moral justification. You must obey the law. It does not matter if the law is fair or unfair, moral or immoral. If you do not obey, the system has the legal force to punish you. The financial crisis of the year 2008 in the United States and other Industrial countries is an excellent example of the unfair laws. The bankers ruined their banks --- but kept their personal fortunes--- and the governments had to give them millions of money in bailout. That is the law.

1.2 The postulates of the economy are only intellectual exercises

In all the political and economical systems, the politics and the private economy advance together. The private economy cannot work without the institutional political support. The private economy is not independent and do not dominate the market. The private economy depends of the politics because the most important economics decisions ---the economic policies--- are taken by the politicians and the governments and not by the economists neither the entrepreneurs. For the mentioned reason, the postulates of the economic theory, the laws and the mathematical base of the economy ---like science--- are only intellectual exercises over situations that can occur or not in the true reality. In all the political and economical regimes are the governments ---through their policies--- who determine in last instance the conduct of the market. However, it is necessary underline that the politics and the politicians need the cooperation of the business and the entrepreneurs to reach the goals of the economic and social development. The public economy and the private economy, though have different objectives, need achieve basic agreements to benefit the society.

1.3 Base of the political systems
Since their creation, the political systems were established over a basic principle: the use of force or the threat of use of force. All the political systems are sustained in that principle. Man obey only for fear or own interest. The rulers and the rich know it perfectly. They employ both.

But man searches power and wealth for a basic reason: to satisfy his sexual desire. That is the true truth but nobody is able of to recognize it openly. The society has two faces: a) the apparent, institutional, legal and moral and b) the real, the true and not recognized. The Adam Smith’s concept that heads this work is a good example of the true human beings feelings. Fear, hedonism and egoism govern its life.

The world problems have two kinds of causes: a) intangibles and b) the materials.

The human egoism ---that is equivalent to the uncontrolled desire of pleasure--- is the foremost intangible cause of the big problems of the world. That uncontrolled wish of pleasure provokes the uncontrolled desire of sex, of wealth and politics power possession.

But the big desire of sex is, in turn, the cause of the overpopulation and this, the source of the big material problems of humanity: a) the overexploitation of the natural resources, b) the damage to nature and environment, c) unemployment, d) poverty and e) illnesses. In the table may be appreciated the hierarchy of the diverse situations.

2. Original Accumulation, vision of Adam Smith and Karl Marx
The study of the Original Accumulation is essential for the comprehension of the evolution of wealth along history.

Adam Smith employed the term “Previous Accumulation”, Karl Marx used the words “Primitive Accumulation” but I prefer “Original Accumulation.”

Adam Smith (1753-1790) is the father of the Economic Liberalism. His vision regarding the Original Accumulation is a concept that cannot be ignored in the study of richness. The opposite thesis of the Economic Liberalism is the Scientific Socialism. Karl Marx (1818-1883) is considered the father of this conception and for that reason his opinion about the Original Accumulation must be taken in account.

In the book An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (1776), Book I, Chapter VIII, Adam Smith wrote:

“Of the Wages of Labour

The produce of labour constitutes the natural recompense or wages of labour.

In that original state of things, which precedes both the appropriation of land and the accumulation of stock, the whole produce of labour belongs to the labourer. He has neither landlord nor master to share with him. But this original state of things, in which the labourer enjoyed the whole produce of his own labour, could not last beyond the first introduction of the appropriation of land and the accumulation of stock. It was at an end, therefore, long before the most considerable improvements were made in the productive powers of labour, and it would be to no purpose to trace farther what might have been its effects upon the recompence or wages of labour.

As soon as land becomes private property, the landlord demands a share of almost all the produce which the labourer can either raise, or collect from it. His rent makes the first deduction from the produce of the labour which is employed upon land.”

And in the Introduction of the Book II about Of the Nature, Accumulation, and Employment of Stock, Smith wrote:

“In that rude state of society in which there is no division of labour, in which exchanges are seldom made, and in which every man provides everything for himself, it is not necessary that any stock should be accumulated or stored up beforehand in order to carry on the business of the society. Every man endeavours to supply by his own industry his own occasional wants as they occur. When he is hungry, he goes to the forest to hunt; when his coat is worn out, he clothes himself with the skin of the first large animal he kills: and when his hut begins to go to ruin, he repairs it, as well as he can, with the trees and the turf that are nearest it.

But when the division of labour has once been thoroughly introduced, the produce of a man's own labour can supply but a very small part of his occasional wants. The far greater part of them are supplied by the produce of other men's labour, which he purchases with the produce, or, what is the same thing, with the price of the produce of his own. But this purchase cannot be made till such time as the produce of his own labour has not only been completed, but sold. A stock of goods of different kinds, therefore, must be stored up somewhere sufficient to maintain him, and to supply him with the materials and tools of his work till such time, at least, as both these events can be brought about. A weaver cannot apply himself entirely to his peculiar business, unless there is beforehand stored up somewhere, either in his own possession or in that of some other person, a stock sufficient to maintain him, and to supply him with the materials and tools of his work, till he has not only completed, but sold his web. This accumulation must, evidently, be previous to his applying his industry for so long a time to such a peculiar business.

As the accumulation of stock must, in the nature of things, be previous to the division of labour, so labour can be more and more subdivided.” End of the quotes.

In his book, Capital, A Critique of Political Economy, 1867, Part VIII, Primitive Accumulation, Karl Marx wrote:

“We have seen how money is changed into capital; how through capital surplus-value is made, and from surplus-value more capital. But the accumulation of capital presupposes surplus-value; surplus-value presupposes capitalistic production; capitalistic production presupposes the pre-existence of considerable masses of capital and of labour power in the hands of producers of commodities. The whole movement, therefore, seems to turn in a vicious circle, out of which we can only get by supposing a primitive accumulation (previous accumulation of Adam Smith) preceding capitalistic accumulation; an accumulation not the result of the capitalistic mode of production, but its starting point.

This primitive accumulation plays in Political Economy about the same part as original sin in theology. Adam bit the apple, and thereupon sin fell on the human race. Its origin is supposed to be explained when it is told as an anecdote of the past. In times long gone by there were two sorts of people; one, the diligent, intelligent, and, above all, frugal elite; the other, lazy rascals, spending their substance, and more, in riotous living. The legend of theological original sin tells us certainly how man came to be condemned to eat his bread in the sweat of his brow; but the history of economic original sin reveals to us that there are people to whom this is by no means essential. Never mind! Thus it came to pass that the former sort accumulated wealth, and the latter sort had at last nothing to sell except their own skins. And from this original sin dates the poverty of the great majority that, despite all its labour, has up to now nothing to sell but itself, and the wealth of the few that increases constantly although they have long ceased to work. In actual history it is notorious that conquest, enslavement, robbery, murder, briefly force, plays the great part. In the tender annals of Political Economy, the idyllic reigns from time immemorial. Right and “labour” were from all time the sole means of enrichment, the present year of course always excepted. As a matter of fact, the methods of primitive accumulation are anything but idyllic.

In themselves money and commodities are no more capital than are the means of production and of subsistence. They want transforming into capital.

The capitalist system presupposes the complete separation of the labourers from all property in the means by which they can realize their labour. As soon as capitalist production is once on its own legs, it not only maintains this separation, but reproduces it on a continually extending scale. The process, therefore, that clears the way for the capitalist system, can be none other than the process which takes away from the labourer the possession of his means of production; a process that transforms, on the one hand, the social means of subsistence and of production into capital, on the other, the immediate producers into wage labourers. The so-called primitive accumulation, therefore, is nothing else than the historical process of divorcing the producer from the means of production. It appears as primitive, because it forms the prehistoric stage of capital and of the mode of production corresponding with it.

The economic structure of capitalist society has grown out of the economic structure of feudal society. The dissolution of the latter set free the elements of the former.

In the history of primitive accumulation, all revolutions are epoch-making that act as levers for the capital class in course of formation; but, above all, those moments when great masses of men are suddenly and forcibly torn from their means of subsistence, and hurled as free and “unattached” proletarians on the labour-market. The expropriation of the agricultural producer, of the peasant, from the soil, is the basis of the whole process. The history of this expropriation, in different countries, assumes different aspects, and runs through its various phases in different orders of succession, and at different periods. In England alone, which we take as our example, has it the classic form.” End of the quotes.

3. Comparison between the two points of view
Adam Smith presents an ascetic or perhaps an eclectic appreciation of the Original Accumulation. He does not explain openly how the violence, the murder and the robbery of land to the first commoners, the first peasants, was the base of the process. Smith recognizes the landlord’s rights to explode the peasants and receiving rent.

On the contrary, Karl Marx highlights how the violence was the method employed by the first rich to accumulate its primary wealth before the apparition of the first forms of capitalism.

This appreciation on the origin of wealth would determine the position of each one of them regarding the paper of capitalism in the society.

If you consider that something is right and moral you accept it, but, on the contrary, if you think that something has been not acquired by right and moral methods, perhaps you will reject it. Adam Smith considered the capitalists methods like something right. Karl Marx taught the contrary.

Along the centuries the workers had been simple slaves.

The philosophical position of Marx contributed ---years later--- to change the social and economic situation of the workers, because it opened the door to new reformists movements, like the syndicates, and new political parties, that fought by their social rights. For example, an Italian friend, remembers me that at the beginning of the 20th century, in Italy, cradle of western culture, the peasants were formally freemen but, in the social and economic reality, they were true slaves. He told me: “it was Benito Mussolini who made the first social reforms to improve the quality of life of the Italian peasants. At the beginning of his politics career, Mussolini was socialist. Mussolini, for first time, gave to the Italians peasants a participation in the benefits of production. In an official decision, he imposed that 55 per cent of the benefits of production had to be given to the peasants; the other 45 per cent was for the capitalists owners of land”, assured my friend.

The Marxist communism was a result of the unfair economical and social conditions that existed in Russia, the Eastern Europe and China. But the Marxist Communism did not change those unfair conditions. On the contrary, the communism created new dictatorships that devastated those countries during the past 20th century.

The nations that had reached the most standards of economic and social progress are those countries that had adopted an intermediate model between capitalism and socialism, like the Nordic countries. For example, I read recently, that Norway is the country with the major level of happiness.

4. The population growth, appreciation of Adam Smith and Thomas Malthus

The high rate of population growth is the principal cause of the economic and social problems of the world. In the last two hundred years, the world population grew as never before.

But the most paradoxical is that the maximum growth has been registered in the poorest and underdeveloped countries.

So far, the world, as a whole, has not focused its attention in this problem. Only the principal countries directly affected by the phenomenon, like China, have taken in account the issue.

If there is not a global consensus on the need of demographic control, the situation will be every day worse and in too few years will be unbearable. To ascertain this, it is enough to see how the poverty augments in sustained form in the underdeveloped nations. The poverty has many causes but one of the first is the overpopulation. It is not the same a family with two children than a family with six or eight children.

In the time of Adam Smith, 18th century, the situation was different. As a matter of fact he assured that:

“The most decisive mark of the prosperity of any country is the increase of the number of its inhabitants”. End of the quote. An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (1776), Book One, Chapter 8, Of the Wages of Labour.

But Thomas Robert Malthus (1766-1834) thought something different; in his book An Essay on the Principle of Populations, Book One, Chapter One, Malthus assured that:

“It may safely be pronounced, therefore, that population, when unchecked, goes on doubling itself every twenty-five years, or increases in a geometrical ratio.

The rate according to which the productions of the earth may be supposed to increase, it will not be so easy to determine. Of this, however, we may be perfectly certain, that the ratio of their increase in a limited territory must be of a totally different nature from the ratio of the increase of population. A thousand millions are just as easily doubled every twenty-five years by the power of population as a thousand. But the food to support the increase from the greater number will by no means be obtained with the same facility. Man is necessarily confined in room. When acre has been added to acre till all the fertile land is occupied, the yearly increase of food must depend upon the melioration of the land already in possession. This is a fund; which, from the nature of all soils, instead of increasing, must be gradually diminishing. But population, could it be supplied with food, would go on with unexhausted vigour; and the increase of one period would furnish the power of a greater increase the next, and this without any limit.” End of the quotes.

5. Unsustainable
Nevertheless all the advances achieved by science and technology and the development of the democratic institutions, hundreds of millions of people suffer hunger. Already it is not only a problem of distribution but a problem of production. Man has devastated the environment and the natural resources. The scarcity of water is every day something real in too many places of the world. The deforestation and pollution of seas, rivers and lakes is the other evident reality.

“Until recently economic theory has not seriously considered that a global shortage of natural resources could occur, and even less a global shortage of water and petroleum.” Pablo Rafael Gonzalez, A Statistical Yearbook 2008. Running Out How Global Shortages Change the Economic Paradigm, page 11, Algora Publishing, New York. 2008.

But the global shortages of natural resources have begun and are visible in countries and regions where there was abundance in the past recent. The stress or scarcity of water exists already in several regions of the United States and Mexico, in the Caribbean and in South America in unthinkable countries like Brazil and in other countries as Bolivia, Peru and Chile. The same happen in some countries of Europe, like Spain and Italy, in the Middle East, Africa and Asia.

The stress or scarcity of water is and will be the gravest problem that humanity will face at mid term; their consequences will be disastrous for the wellbeing of the world population.

The global scarcity of natural resources is, and will be, a consequence of two phenomenons: a) the overpopulation and b) the overexploitation of the resources.

6. Conclusions
- For the comprehension of the current economic and social disparities it is necessary to know the evolution of wealth since the first times.

- The Original Accumulation is the previous period to the Capitalist Accumulation.

- The Original Accumulation of wealth was a consequence of two facts: a) the robbery of land by the strongest and rich men and b) the violence and crime against the first peasants.

- In its first stage, capitalism used analogue methods but substituted crime by the overexploitation of the workers, especially women and children.

-The economy depends of the politics, because in all the countries, the most important economic decisions are taken by the politicians and the governments and not by the economists neither the entrepreneurs.

- The human egoism is the foremost intangible cause of the world problems and the overpopulation the first material cause.

- If there is not a global consensus on the need of demographic control, the situation will be every day worse and in too few years will be unbearable.

- So far, the world society has not given the due importance to the problem of stress or scarcity of water that is the most important challenge for the population survival.

- The overpopulation and the overexploitation of the resources are destroying the planet and, if that trend continues, in too few years the Earth might be inhabitable.

- It is something essential, vital for mankind, to detain the destruction of the forests and to begin a global campaign of reforestation. This might be a way to combat the poverty, create millions of ecological employments and preserve the water and the environment.

Wages and welfare, ecological employments

Job and a fair wage is the essence of the economic and social development.

But, what is a just wage?

It is the amount of money for acquiring the goods that a person or a family need for getting welfare.

And what is the welfare?

It is health, food, dress, house, education, recreation, security and stable job; this mean quality of live. The problem is that the most part of the world population do not enjoy of those benefits; the great challenge is changing that situation.

Restrictions of natural resources, especially of water and energy, the scarcity of capital ---know how, technology, goods of capital, infrastructure and money--- do not help to carry out a global and effective program of employments and just wages.

A cause of the poverty

The other great problem is the inequality in the income distribution. The salaries are the basic indicator of the poverty or the well-being of a society.
There is a huge gap between the bosses and executives earnings and the workers salaries.

Only in the developed industrialized nations the workers receive an income for satisfying part of its necessities. In the rest of the world the wages are not enough neither to eat, as it is demonstrated in the following tables.


In Australia an executive receive an average of 200,000 US $ of salary per month, but a worker obtain (minimum wage) 1,908 US $ per month; something similar happen in Germany where the average salary of an executive is of 316,666 US $ per month while a worker obtain (minimum wage) 1,701.26 US $.
But the most difference is in the United States, where the monthly of a worker is of 1,209.60 while the executive earning (average) is of 525,000 US $; this mean 434 times more than the former.


Australia pays the higher wages to their workers, followed by France, Germany, the United Kingdom and Italy in the first five places. In this table the United States is in the sixth position regarding the workers earnings, but the United States is in the first place regarding the remuneration of their executives.

Of the selected countries of Asia, Bangladesh has the lesser income followed by Vietnam and China. A person that visited the industrial city of Guangzhou said to me that the workers in that city are practically slaves; they receive a salary of approximately 120 US $ per month and work the thirty (30) days of the month.
Of the selected countries, the communist nations of the past (Russia) and of the present (China and Vietnam) are the societies where the workers receive the lesser wages; in change, in the developed capitalists nations the workers obtain the higher salaries. This reveal the failure of the communism system and it explain why the communism disappeared in the former Soviet Union and in the Eastern Europe.


The situation in Africa is worse than the situation in the poorest nations of Asia.
In Latin America the Dominican Republic has the major wage but that is an exception in the region and in the rest of the underdeveloped nations.

The extreme poverty in Latin America is a sad reality. The case of Brazil and Mexico, which economies are situated between the first ten economies of the world is something that deserves to be considered with special attention: in both countries the minimum wage was less of 100 US $.

Brazil and Mexico have an important industrial development but is evident that their governments have been not able of establishing a fair wage for the workers.
In the most countries of Latin America still exists concentration of the property of the land and a good part of the peasants live in precarious conditions.



Key of the economic expansion
The economic expansion is not possible without just salaries; the politicians and the private entrepreneurs should be aware of this true.

The wages are the force that impulse the market; they are the key factor that determines the effective demand behavior.
A first step for combating the poverty is to increase the wages to a level that let to the workers satisfying its basic necessities.

If the underdeveloped nations do not make an effective effort for improving the wages the poverty will remain and vice verse.

Conclusion
The analysis of the economic reality lead to a conclusion: the most workers in the world are practically slaves because its salaries hardly let them to eat. Only in the developed industrialized nations this does not happen. Nevertheless, the difference between the wages of the executives and the workers earnings in the industrialized countries is something unbelievable: is hundreds of times superior.

It is necessary to carry out a global program for combating the poverty, preserving the natural resources and the environment.
One way are the ecological employments, through a global program of reforestation and conservation of the forests that still survive, as the Amazonia Region. The base of that program should be fair wages for the workers.

This program does not require a great amount of energy for to be developed; in change, other economic activities in the agriculture and the manufacture need a very important amount of energy, oil and coal especially. The world is running out of basic natural resources as water and petroleum. It is a global shortage of resources that change the economic paradigm.

The great problem of the humankind is that the worlds need more food and more manufactured goods, but there is not enough water nor petroleum for sustaining those requirements. In some regions, like China, there is abundance of coal but this is most contaminant source of energy. The other sources as the nuclear energy are too very dangerous, while the industrial eolic and solar energy are not enough developed. So far, the research with hydrogen has been a success, especially in the transport sector, but still it is in the beginning.

The other great problem is that for developing the agriculture the forests are razed and without the forests the live is not possible.

It is necessary a balance between the necessity of producing the essential goods, the use of the natural resources, the creation of jobs and fair wages. Those are great challenges for the creative capacity, especially for the thinkers, scientists, politicians, economists, entrepreneurs and the mass media.

Difference between underdevelopment and poverty, how the mass media can promote the development

This is a common scene in the undeveloped countries. You can observe the different kind of cars; it reveals that that is not a poor community.

The poverty is the material scarcity; essentially, the lack of money, infrastructure, employment and natural resources.

The underdevelopment is other thing. The underdevelopment is the lack of basic education, but not of scholarly or academic education, no. It is the absence of the education that come from the family, the moral and the religion; the ignorance of the basic norms of life.

The development is an attitude toward the life. A poor nation is not necessarily an undeveloped nation. The poverty does not mean underdevelopment. There are poor but developed nations. In change, there are rich ---in terms of money-- but undeveloped countries. The difference between both is the concepts previously expressed.

In all the nations coexists developed and undeveloped sectors of the population. But in the undeveloped countries the last one is the majority. I would like to illustrate with some concrete examples the difference between one and other.

The main characteristic of the undeveloped societies is the ignorance or disdain for the basic rules of life.

For example, they do not respect the environment. It is common to see how the people walk and lead its dogs by the streets without chains, muzzles and the worse is that they do not pick up the excrement of its pets. You can appreciate this type of situations in many streets in many undeveloped nations.

Neither, they do not know or do not respect the essentials norms of health. It is also often to observe how the people sneeze or cough and do not cover its mouth; spite in any place; do not wash its hands with regularity, do not maintain the restrooms clean and do not follow the rules of food hygiene. The consequence is a high level o infectious illness.

The aggression to the environment is ever present. For example, in the undeveloped societies the peasants cut down the trees and burn the agricultural lands because they think that in this form they can obtain best harvests. The outcome is the contrary.

In the cities the controls regarding the autos and trucks contamination are very weak and the authorities do not make serious efforts to impose it.

The garbage is the other great problem. Usually you can appreciate it in the streets because the people throw the waste and, moreover, the systems of recollection are not effective. The garbage is not selected in plastics, glass or organic.

The industries throw their pollutants to the atmosphere or direct to the rivers, lakes and seas.

The deforestation is something ordinary and the people cut the trees without restrictions.

These situations happen exclusively not only in the undeveloped nations. Some of them also occur in the developed countries. For example, the industrial countries are the main generators of the dioxide of carbon emissions, principal cause of the climatic change. Other nations as China have the world record of the waters contamination.

The concepts previously mentioned reveals two aspects:

a) That the underdevelopment is not only an economic problem but essentially a cultural and educative challenge.

b) That for tackle the underdevelopment problem it is necessary to carry out a deep process of change in some negative custom that survive in the countries population. The mass media, and especially the radio and television, are the adequate channels for reaching the objectives of the development. They may be used for promoting a new culture of respect to the environment and in the promotion of habits of health, among other priorities. This is a form of creating a best world.

The responsibility in the creation of this kind of projects is essentially of the international agencies of development, as United Nations and the World Bank. Of course the governments of the countries has too a responsibility but it is necessary that an international institution assume the responsibility of coordinating the initiative.

In the next article I will explain what type of campaigns might be realized through the world mass media for promoting the development, protect the environment and create new habits of health.

The ecological employments are an effective road for combating the world poverty

The environment crisis because of the contamination and the overexploitation of the natural resources is a reality. The extreme poverty of the world population majority is the other sad situation.
The environment crisis and the poverty are closely tied. A solution for both situations might be possible. The unique manner of resolving the poverty is by mean of the employment. Without employment and just salaries the welfare is not possible.
But the creation of new jobs require three conditions: a) financial support b) natural resources and c) know how (technology). The modern world has scarcity of the two first mentioned resources and a concentration of the third (know how) in the most developed countries.
Which might be the solution?
I think that the creation of millions of green, ecological new jobs is possible in the world. (In this point it is necessary highlight that for achieving this goal we do not need more petroleum.)
How?
First of all it would be necessary to create a Global Program of Employment and Protection of the Environment. This kind of program only can be developed by the international agencies, the United Nations, World Bank and the IMF.
The first action of a program like this must be:
a) To create and to carry out ---with the support of the national governments--- a Global Program of Reforestation. The benefits for humanity of this activity in terms of employment and protection of nature it does not have limits. The creation of millions of new jobs and a great advance in the control of the global warming would be, among other, the results.
b) In a second stage, the Program of Employment and Protection of the Environment might develop other activities, as the developing of new jobs for protecting the water resources and managing the garbage.

The mentioned programs would generate millions of new jobs worldwide; protect the environment and diminishing the world poverty.
I would like that this idea might be considered as a contribution to the next Copenhagen Climate Change Conference in December 2009.