We have to end poverty

 Sarah Elgohary Christina Otto        

Sociology 201 4/14/13

My Reaction to Article 37 the Uses of Global Poverty: How Economic Inequality Benefits the West by Daina Stukuls Egitis and my answer to Critical Thinking Question # 1.     

This article was very interesting to me for many reasons. I have always known that global poverty is increasingly becoming one of the biggest social problems people face around the world today, but I did not know how severe the extent of poverty was in the world. I did not know that 1.4 billion were homeless and living in absolute poverty close to starvation every day. This is because the government only pays the poor below minimum wage providing the poor working class citizens with just enough money for them to barely be able to survive, even though the poor working class citizens work very hard for long hours .The government does not pay the poor working class citizens equally compared to the upper class white citizens and the working middle class citizens because of racism and sexism. This article is an eye opener for me; especially the astoundingly, unbelievable statistics of the gross national income of the world’s countries and the substantial gap of between them, the differences in the gross national income in countries like the United States and China the numbers really surprised me. I loved the article, although it was very hard to understand the article the first time I read it I had to look up many words in the dictionary. I still do not understand why she continuously uses the word rhetoric many the article like when she says or uses the phrases political rhetoric, rhetoric commitment, Western rhetoric assistance program . Why does she repeat the word rhetoric in many different ways in the article? I think she uses the word rhetoric to exaggerate, emphasize the fact that the governments ‘role in society is just to talk big it never really takes action we never get anything done in the capital all of the false promises government makes to reduce poverty to fix the gap of the misdistribution of wealth between rich and poor nations and the government has never done anything to end poverty. I do not like how Daina Stukuls Egitis is very critical of poverty and she looks at poverty from a functionalist perspective, in this article when she should have look at poverty from a social conflict and symbolic interaction perspectives theories in my opinion, I do like that she does not agreed that poverty is right and she thinks that poverty is not needed in the world for society to function as a whole. She says it is not absurd to ask how the existence of a poor class states serves the wealthy states that might contribute to a better understanding of global poverty and global class system. Although, I strongly want to put an end to global poverty, I do agree with Daina people need be aware of and have a better understanding of global poverty and global class system. The three most convincing uses of poverty in my opinion are points4 point 8, and point 11. 

Point 4 I never really thought global poverty would the medical field. Although, it is very sad that nations like America, England Eastern Europe use poor people in India china as guinea pigs to test how effective vaccines are to cure diseases like meningitis western countries need test subjects to produce new medicine. The poor nations need the money and the western countries need medicine for illness. I found it really interesting and surprising that the United states leads the world in drug consumption and the pharmaceutical companies which stand astride 350 billion dollar and growing conducting drug trials on ill inhabitants of poor states. They test unapproved antibiotic on sick children that is not fair.

Point8 This point was convincing to me because it actually gives poverty a positive function in society. Out of all the reasons for the uses of poverty this reason was my favorite because in my opinion, point eight was the only reason in the article that did not give the poor working class a negative side effect from the advancements of Western countries. Point8. Poverty provides jobs for specialists employed to assist advice protect poor people. Point 8 made me realize that without poverty millions of people would be without work psychologists’ sociologist social workers. In addition there would be no organizations like U.SAID and the Peace Corps would not exist without poverty. I also realized that the academics in the education system would change completely like economics, sociology, international affairs, political science because these fields actually write about and decipher poverty. Journalists and novelists build career around poverty it is functional for society. These reasons for poverty actually make sense to me. 

/*Point 11 the poorer countries which reproduce at higher rates than Western countries are useful scapegoats for real potential environmental threats. I know that female in third world countries reproduce many children because of lack of education about birth control pills. I learned from point 11 that third world countries reproduce a lot because of high child mortality rates. Overdevelopment of the West may be a bigger threat to the environment, though the growth of third world populations and a limited supply of resources, which I thought that, was very interesting. I found it very sad that the poor divert attention from the environmental problems caused by western overconsumption. I still want to greatly reduce global poverty, but I liked the article it was very informative convincing, and educational I learned a lot from the article it changed my perspective on poverty in society.