Abstract:
The article focuses on economic structures that crush the poor, especially global economic
structures that trap and keep people in poverty. The concept of poverty occupies centre stage in
South Africa and many other developing countries. There is no longer a middle class. One is either
rich or poor. Globalisation has created a system or program that continues to crush the poor, while
also breeding greed and selfishness. The rich always accumulate resources while the poor struggle
to make ends meet. These problems are created by the World Bank, the International Monetary
Fund, and Structural Adjustment Programs, to name a few. These structures have introduced a
system of inequality that widens the gap between the rich and the poor because of self-interest,
which continues to crush the latter. The end result is that the concept of Ubuntu or Botho among
African communities is destroyed. Injustice becomes the order of the day.
Description:
This article was initially a
presentation to the Poverty
Symposium 2013, directed
by Prof. Dr Johann-Albrecht
Meylahn, Department of
Practical Theology, Faculty
of Theology, University of
Pretoria, Pretoria,
South Africa.