of China, and many African dictators, past and present, are remarkable in many regards — what is instructive is their basic problem with corruption. Freedom from want cannot exist in these kinds of societies because not only is there no equality of opportunity, but no distribution of opportunity anywhere beyond the self-preening and militarily protected dictators’ circle, however large or small, defined by ethnicity, tribe, family, religion, or political allegiance. Are there serious analogous exclusionary examples among the 0.20 percent of the top 1 percent in many countries of the West? I think so.
The principal target for countries seeking to advance freedom from want must be a recognizable minimum definition of “equality of opportunity” rights for each society, intelligently sustained and constantly evaluated and updated. There will be local leaders who fight progress in the name of preserving local control. The failure to ratify a good-faith $2 billion funding agreement between the Government of Canada and the Assembly of First Nations’ national chief in 2012 for a properly financed national Aboriginal school board and curriculum was caused, in part, by local band council chiefs who vetoed the agreement because they were upset about not getting their share and not being duly consulted by the chief of the AFN. While the consensual and consultative culture of our First Nations in Canada is to be celebrated, localism that stands in the way of higher standards of education nationwide for First Nations children should not be celebrated.
There are, of course, divergent definitions as to what “equality of opportunity” really means. To be fair, different societies and cultures, with their different geographies and histories, will, within the context of available resources, have different answers to this question.
For some in developing countries, ensuring that most of the population has more than two dollars a day to meet subsistence needs will appear a reasonable interim step in the effort to free people from want. For others, measures of access to education, basic food, and shelter form a more practical composite indicator.
The efforts of national governments to intervene in the economy in order to improve the lifestyle of the poor with such strategies as income minimums can run into “localism” champions, who do not always have local opportunity in mind. In fact, they may be seeking to preserve their own local privilege and the economic dominance they hold by virtue of inherited property or community standing. Non-unitary states and nascent or recent democracies, where trust in those who govern from afar is not yet robust, often find the obstacles to opportunity fairness erected by these opposing figures paralyzing. Of course, every well-developed, economically vigorous, long-standing democracy will have deep political divisions on this issue of equality of opportunity. However, countries where the gaps between rich and poor are stagnant or growing have not only the most heated debates but also the most glaring inequities in relative terms.
The fact that the poorest Canadians, Americans, and Europeans live on more money than poorer populations in parts of Africa or rural China does not in any way diminish the absence of freedom from want for the lower income classes of the Canadian, American, and European populations. Having to negotiate through Plexiglas for enough to feed one’s children under welfare programs in rural Ontario or Swiss cantons may seem less daunting than what is faced by the rural poor in Afghanistan. But for the families in North America confronting that hurdle, many of whom also face a series of problems caused by such things as substance abuse, educational failure, poor health, and dramatically shorter life spans than their better-off Canadian and American neighbours, the comparison of their situation to others elsewhere around the globe is the essence of a meaningless measure. It provides no comfort and less hope. And the absence of hope equals the absence of freedom from want. In the more developed states, the direct attack on freedom from want — the core challenge of confronting poverty head-on — in both absolute and relative terms — is frustrated by the ideologies on the right and left that simply and directly get in the way.
Governments, whether local, regional, or national, often find it hard to address the core inequality of opportunity; it is politically difficult to confront. Many find it easier to address the supposed contributing factors to poverty rather than poverty itself. In some ways, this is like replacing rational triage in a trauma centre or the emergency department of a hospital, trying to stop a patient’s bleeding or diminish her pain with detailed inquiries into the patient’s nutritional status.
In many countries, unless the suffering individual falls into a commonly approved category, such as a senior citizen, veteran, disabled person, et cetera, the notion of dealing directly with the reality of poverty is considered too politically risky. What we find in these places, and my own Canada definitely falls into this category (as does the United States), is that poverty is not seen as a treatable cause for all the negative pathologies that produce crime and health problems. So, instead, well-intentioned billions are spent in a dehumanizing welfare system, in educational investment, and in special programs aimed at the impacts of or the alleged causes of poverty rather than on poverty itself. Some public sector unions on the left prefer investing in plans where the professionals, through government, hire civil servants (usually unionized) to run targeted programs aimed at different aspects of the lives of the poor. Efforts to stem family violence, anti-substance abuse initiatives, work programs tied to welfare (or food stamps in the United States) are all seen as preferable to topping up the low incomes, however insufficient, of the genuinely poor. Interesting mythologies are constructed that, when broken down, assume that poor people cannot be trusted to spend an anti-poverty top-up responsibly. There is a Victorian presumption that those living in poverty are imbued with an intrinsic “moral weakness.”
On the right, “paying someone to do nothing” is considered the ultimate fiscal and moral sin, and so automatic top-ups are set aside as creating huge disincentives to work. The problem with this bias is that it is utterly disconnected from facts on the ground. The vast majority of people living under the poverty line in Canada, the United States, and most other countries are actually working — sometimes holding down more than one low-paying job. Single mothers with infants or toddlers are discouraged, by welfare rules in various jurisdictions, from working at all. And in many of the micromanaging, condescending rules that govern welfare eligibility, breaking out and trying to earn more or improve one’s education is officially discouraged by clawbacks and cancellation of benefits. This is a prime example of the state actually working against equality of opportunity and discouraging people from reaching up in order to create it for themselves. This is the state, despite the best of intentions, actually engaging, through perverse rules, pettifogging bureaucracies, and institutionalized condescension to destroy freedom from want. So, the most developed and wealthier states do not necessarily have a lot to teach less developed states. In fact, there are some lessons they can learn.
In Brazil, there is a program called Bolsa Familia, originally instituted by President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva in 2006. It is the largest conditional cash transfer program in the world. The money is most often, and preferably, given to the female head of the household. With it come two conditions: all children must be vaccinated and all must be enrolled in school. The eligible amount is about US$12 monthly per child (to a maximum of three children) and it is given to those families who are considered below the poverty line. For those in extreme poverty, there is an additional, unconditional sum of about US$36 to assist with food, shelter, and gasoline. In order to reduce the corruption often associated with social programs, the assistance is provided in the form of a debit card, which can be used to withdraw funds from the government-owned savings bank. Bolsa Familia has been listed as one factor responsible for Brazil’s reduction of poverty, which fell by 27 percent in Lula’s first term, and has been touted as the reason for an increase in the number of educated and literate young people who, because they remained in school longer, were able to qualify for more than menial employment.
Another project is being attempted in Namibia, though on a much smaller scale. In the village of Otjivero, population one thousand, a coalition of churches, trade unions, and NGOs, all proponents of BIG (Basic Income Guarantee), have provided unconditional grants of about US$18 per month to every member of the village for two years. The results thus far have been more than hoped for. In six months, school attendance improved dramatically, malnutrition, especially among children, decreased, and people were able to increase their economic activity, through small business start-ups or finding employment outside their village. Poverty in that one village, in Namibian