An Analysis Of The Documentary: The End Of Poverty

In the documentary “The End of Poverty?” an important and relevant question about capitalism is faced: Does it create inequality and poverty worldwide as an unfortunate effect of its structure or is inequality itself, between the rich (industrialized north) and poor (exploited and underdeveloped South), the principle product of capitalism beginning in the era of colonization, and spanning through the last five centuries?
The powerful documentary begins with a striking, and upsetting statement, “In a world where there is so much wealth, with modern cities and plentiful resources, how can we have so much poverty?” It then explains that the capitalistic system we have now is an economic failure, it’s seed being colonization. In 1492, when America

We now live in a world where 20% of the population uses 80% of the world’s resources. Roughly a billion people live on a dollar a day or less, and approximately 16,000 children die daily from malnutrition. The people of the world’s poorest region, a sub-region of Sahara Africa, spend twenty five thousand dollars every minute paying their massive debt to the rich countries of the north. These markers of extreme poverty have gotten worse since the 1980’s; despite the rapid technological and agricultural strides of progress of the developed world, the margin of the population suffering from chronic malnutrition has doubled in the last forty years.
It became mainstream to blame the culture and climate of poor countries/people for their poverty, as if the exploitative and corrupt dictatorships and raw-material economies (a problematic and alienated economy where third world countries produce and export raw materials to first world, developed countries to produce and export finished products) were essential to Africa and Latin America. In the documentary, its argued that all of those plights were the result of a lengthy historical

These workers, like many presented and interviewed in The End of Poverty?, must sell raw materials, and purchase finished products at higher prices, creating a trade imbalance, and requiring these countries to borrow money, furthering their debt. They then have to spend their tax dollars on debt and interest instead of health care or, more importantly, education. Low wage jobs are provided by the core, but the profits always go back to the core, and are never reinvested in periphery.
Given all of the information given in the documentary, and taking into account the social conflict theory and works of Marx and Wallerstien, I believe that global poverty is the principle product of a capitalistic system, implemented in the era of colonization and exploited up until today. I do not believe that this problem will be solved until the periphery class is given the same opportunity for health care and education as the semiperiphery and core classes. I also believe that in order of this widespread issue would benefit from an equilibrium of the population to consumption