Reflection on World Poverty
Contents
1. An Intolerable Contrast
2. Unequal Distribution of Income
3. The Problem of World Population
4. The World Food Crisis
5. The International Poverty Line
6. Not by Bread Alone
7. The UN Millennium Development Goals.
Universal Vedic Prayer
Asato Ma Sad Gamaya,
Tamaso Ma Joytir Gamaya,
Mrityor Ma Amritam Gamaya,
Om Shanthi Shanthi Shanthi.
O Lord, lead us from the Unreal to the Real,
Lead us from Untruth to Truth,
Lead us from Darkness to Light,
Lead us from Death to Immortality,
Oh God, let there be Peace, Peace, Peace.
I. An Intolerable Contrast
• The Rich man and Lazarus (Lk 16. 19-31)
Read in three parts – 19-22, 22-27 , 28-31
While we are listening, let us think of the situation in the world.
• Jesus paints two pictures – one man enjoying life – one man living in misery
- both die and the picture changes abruptly.
- why this reversal? what is the parable really saying?
- what sin had the rich man committed? his brothers?
Short break
• The Two Faces of India - 84 slides shown in 12 minutes .
- the first face that we are proud of (buoyant music)
- then these slides are shown alternately with the
second face that we are ashamed of (sad music)
o When are we going to put the two faces side by side
And see the contradiction?
Interaction: 1. What struck you most in these contrasts
2. What pictures would you like to include to make the slides better.
Note: A low-budget production, The Two Faces of India were seen by approx 30,000 students and young adults. The program and discussion have been recalled from time to time, even 20-25-30 years later.
“You used that contrast, I would like to use another contrast I have just seen.”
It had become their problem. It had altered their of looking at reality.
o I shared this idea with an American lady photographer as we stood on top of the south tower of Meenakshi temple, Madurai “That is a good idea,” she said. “May I borrow it?” Juxtaposing contrasts was new at the time, today many are doing it.
Group Exercise
o Note down three of the sharpest contrasts you have come across. Is there a causal link between the two faces?
Break
II. Unequal distribution of income
Capitalism, globalization, the World Bank, the IMF and WTO support an unequal distribution of the earth’s wealth.
How do we visualize this unequal distribution of income? The cover of the 1992 UN Human Development Report did this in a striking way. It showed a champagne glass, or a wine glass, which was very broad at the top but tapered down to a narrow stem at the bottom. It was divided into five bands, each representing 20% (1/5th) of the world’s population. This wine glass represented the world’s income and how this income was distributed. Just to give two statistics.
The richest 20% of the world’s population enjoy 82.7 % of the world’s income. But
the poorest 20% of the world’s people receive only 1.4 % of the world’s income. (The other quintiles are 11.7 %, 2.3 % , 1.9 %.)
Widening Gap
In 2001, Robert Hunter Wade, Professor at the London School of Economics, wrote an article for the IMF journal Finance and Development entitled ‘The rising inequality of World Income Distribution’. in which he cited the cover of Human Development Report 1992. He then asked the question, “Has this inequality increased or decreased in the past twenty years?” There was no easy categorical answer, because different experts have used different criteria to measure wealth and poverty. But Prof. Wade and others have concluded that inequality is increasing.
Prof. Amartya Sen, Nobel prize winning economist, says that whatever the trend, it is the sheer magnitude of inequality and poverty, on a world scale, that is unacceptable. The concentration of world income in the hands of the richest 20% is shocking and cannot be legitimized. (The contrast becomes even more shocking when we look at the top 5%, and the top 1%).The World Bank, IMF and other organizations have paid little attention to this reality, which affects the greater part of humanity. The World Bank even says that “this should not be considered negative”, which means it ignores the political instability it can cause and the flow of migrants (legal and illegal) to developed countries. It also ignores the economic base of terrorism.
UN Human Development Report 1992
Richest 20% receive 82.7% of the World’s Income
Poorest 20% receive 1.4% only
“The world has a lot of difficulties,” says David Kennedy, Prof. of History at Stanford University. “Many of them are environmental. But a lot of them are economic, political and cultural. One can sum up these complicated issues by pointing to the ‘haves’ and the ‘have nots’ which is also referred to as the North/South divide. This points to the stark difference in the standard of living between the developed world and the developing world. If we don’t find a way to incorporate those who work for $ 1 a day, and there are at least a billion of these people, the world will be in for very tough confrontations.” (abridged)
Do reports on terrorist violence, connect these attacks with economic disparity? Do they link it with the cost of security to the West? The Canadian government has said it spent $1 billion to ensure the security of the leaders gathered for the G-20 Toronto Summit on 26-27 June 2010.
Earlier, economists had said that the prosperity at the top would filter down. But the UN Human Development Report ’92 says global economic growth rarely filters down,
The Swedish economist-sociologist Gunnar Myrdal, winner of the 1974 Nobel prize for economics, wrote a grim statement in The Challenge of World Poverty, Penguin, 1970.
“It has never occurred in recorded history that a privileged group, on its own initiative and simply in order to give reality to its ideals, climbed down from its privileges and opened its monopolies to the unprivileged. The unprivileged have to become conscious of their demands for greater equality and fight for its realization.” (p. 88)
If this statement is accurate and stands the test of further scholarship, what are its implications for various types of peoples’ movements? Do they have a correct assessment of the power of the privileged classes in economic, political and above all military terms? Are they fighting guns, tanks, bombs and missiles with bows and arrows, hoarse voices and weary feet? Are they merely creating more martyrs?
Break
III. The problem of World Population
Refer to UN Population Fund, United States Census Bureau.
World population : 6.83 billion – expected to peak at 9 billion around 2040
China : 1.4 billion by 2010, 19.6% of the world’s population
India : 1.18 billion 17.3%
Between them, China and India have nearly 37% of world population
USA 309 million
Japan 127 million
Germany 81 million
UK 62 million
The World Population is growing at 1.14% (75 million) per year
There is Negative population growth in Central and Eastern Europe.
Japan and Western Europe are moving towards negative population growth.
Population density per square kilometer- Bangladesh – 1069, India 353 , Holland 400.
Overview: World in 2008 6.8 billion
Africa 973 million
Asia 4,054 million
Europe 732 million
North America 337 million
Latin America 577 million
Oceania 34 million
27% of the world’s population is below 15 years of age
Overpopulation?
Thomas Malthus (1766–1834), an English political economist and demographer, published a treatise anonymously in 1798. It was entitled An Essay on the Principle of Population. He predicted that population growth would outrun food supply by the mid 19th century “because population increases in a geometric ratio, while the means of subsistence increases in an arithmetic ratio.” His treatise raised a storm of criticism, and Malthus published five editions to answer these criticisms and convey his positions.
Karl Marx argued that Malthus did not fully recognize the human capacity to increase food supply, though Malthus had indicated that he was aware of this aspect. Engels criticized Malthus sharply and predicted that science would solve the problem of adequate food supply. The controversy raged on for decades, so that by 1885 James Bonar called Malthus “the best abused man of the age.”
In 1968 Paul Ehrlich made similar predictions in his book The Population Bomb. Critics were quick to point out that the predictions made by Malthus and Ehrlich did not happen in the way they had foretold. The Green Revolution improved crop yields beyond our fondest hopes.
But the questions Malthus had asked still haunt humanity. Researchers point out that our ability to grow more food is not limitless. The Green Revolution relies heavily on petroleum based fertilizers, pesticides, and fuel driven irrigation. In spite of every effort to produce food more than one billion human beings are malnourished (FAO 2009). On 19 March 2009, the chief scientific advisor to the UK government, Prof.John Beddington, told a gathering of politicians and environmentalists that a growing world population will cause a “perfect storm” of food, energy and water shortages by 2030. World population will reach 8.3 billion, and demand for food and energy will increase by 50%, and for water by 30%. The poor will be the worst affected. This "perfect storm" could unleash public unrest, cross-border conflicts, and mass migrations of people fleeing from the worst-affected regions. Unless something is done, John Beddington warned the world is heading for major upheavals which could come to a head by 2030. Asked whether he is a modern Malthus, he said, “Not quite, because I am reasonably optimistic.” We know the problems and we have the ability to generate solutions.
IV. World Food Crisis
The world has to find 70% more food for an extra 2.3 billion by 2050.
At present 1/6th of humanity, more than a billion people, are mal-nourished. (FAO 2009)
India’s Nutritional Status
There is much trumpeting about India’s growth rate – 8 - 9 % GDP growth.
But less is spoken about the darker side – one third of the world’s poor is found in India.
43% of its children are affected by malnutrition while
8 % by over-nutrition and obesity
- Hindus and Muslims tend to be malnourished. SC and ST are at greater risk.
- Sikhs, Christians and Jains are less prone to malnutrition.
2.1 million children die before the age of 5, which means 4 die every minute.
India and China
According to recent World Bank research, India has 456 million (42%) living below the international poverty line of $ 1.25 per day. (Martin Ravillion and Shaohua Chen, 2008)
It has 1/3rd of the world’s poor living on less than $ 2 a day. This is a higher proportion than sub-Saharan Africa.
- China has reduced poverty from 84% in 1981 to 16% today. (WB, TOI, 27-8-08)
- India is reducing poverty by 1% a year. What use is democracy on a hungry stomach?
China has been called ‘ the factory of the world’. Will China overtake the USA?
It is not likely. China represents 6% of World GDP. The US represents 24-25%.
Number of Billionaires in India
In the past year, the number of Indian billionaires, in US Dollar terms, has doubled. It now has 49 billionaires, coming after the US (40% of the total), China (89), Russia and Germany. The combined wealth of Indian billionaires is equal to US $ 222 billion.
V. The International Poverty Line (abridged from Wikipedia)
In August 2008, it was estimated that 1.4 billion of the world’s population were living below the ‘poverty line’, as newly defined by the World Bank. That meant they were living on less than $1.25 per day.
The ‘poverty line’ is the minimum level of income necessary to achieve an adequate standard of living in a given country . In practice, like the definition of poverty, the official or common understanding of the poverty-line is significantly higher in developed countries than in developing countries.
In the past, the international poverty line was roughly $1 a day. In 2008, the World Bank came out with the revised figure of $1.25 at 2005 purchasing-power parity (PPP).
Determining the poverty line is usually done by finding the total cost of all the essential resources that an average human adult consumes in one year. This approach is needs-based in that an assessment is made of the minimum expenditure needed to maintain a tolerable life. This was the original basis of the poverty line in the United States. The calculation was later simplified to being based solely on the cost of food. But in developing countries, the most expensive of these resources is the cost of housing. Thus economists pay particular attention to the real estate market and housing prices, because of their influence on defining the poverty line.
The poverty line is a useful for assessing welfare and unemployment insurance.
Defining the poverty line
The poverty line can be defined in different ways:
• It can be based on social security and welfare benefits.
• A relative income. The OECD and the European Union uses 60% of national average household income as a basis
• A basket of goods deemed necessary to live at the socially accepted minimum. This is called a cost of basic needs poverty line, and it varies according to the price of food, clothing, and other items in the "basket".
• An absolute figure based on a national poverty line is found in some countries. It is fixed and it is adjusted only for inflation. When the World Bank calculates global poverty it uses the average poverty-line found among the poorest countries.
Absolute poverty
A measure of absolute poverty quantifies the number of people below a fixed poverty line. For the measure to be absolute, the line must be the same in different countries, cultures, and technological levels. Such an absolute measure should look only at the individual's power to consume and it should be independent of any changes in income distribution. Such a measure is possible only when all consumed goods and services are counted and when PPP-exchange-rates are used. The assumption behind such an absolute measure is that mere survival needs essentially the same amount of resources across the world and that everybody should be subject to the same standards, if meaningful comparisons of policies and progress are to be made. But there are also disadvantages. How compare the needs of a Norwegian in winter with those of a person in the tropics?
The term absolute poverty is sometimes used as a synonym for extreme poverty. Absolute poverty is the absence of enough resources to secure the basic life necessities.
According to a UN declaration that resulted from the World Summit on Social Development in Copenhagen in 1995, absolute poverty is "a condition characterised by severe deprivation of basic human needs, including food, safe drinking water, sanitation facilities, health, shelter, education and information. It depends not only on income but also on access to services."
David Gordon's paper, "Indicators of Poverty and Hunger", for the United Nations, defines absolute poverty as the absence of any two of the following eight basic needs:
• Food: Body Mass Index must be above 16.
• Safe drinking water: Water must not come solely from rivers and ponds, and must be available nearby (less than 15 minutes walk each way).
• Sanitation facilities: Toilets or latrines must be accessible in or near the home.
• Health: Treatment must be received for serious illnesses and pregnancy.
• Shelter: Homes must have fewer than four people living in each room. Floors must not be made of dirt, mud, or clay.
• Education: Everyone must attend school or otherwise learn to read.
• Information: Everyone must have access to newspapers, radios, televisions, computers, or telephones at home.
• Access to services: This item is undefined by Gordon, but normally is used to indicate a complete range of education, health, legal, social, and financial (credit) services.
For example, a person who lives in a home with a mud floor is considered severely deprived of shelter. A person who never attended school and cannot read is considered severely deprived of education. A person who has no newspaper, radio, television, or telephone is considered severely deprived of information. People who meet any two of these conditions are considered to be living in absolute poverty.
Relative poverty
A measure of relative poverty defines "poverty" as being below some relative poverty threshold. For example, the statement that "households with an accumulated income less than 50% of the average income are living in poverty" uses a relative measure to define poverty. Measuring relative poverty is almost the same as measuring income inequality:
Measures of relative poverty classify individuals or families as "poor" not by comparing them to a fixed cutoff standard, but by comparing them to others in the population.
The term relative poverty can also be used in a different sense to mean "moderate poverty" – for example, a standard of living or level of income that is high enough to satisfy basic needs (like water, food, clothing, shelter, and basic health care), but still significantly lower than that of the majority of the population.
VI. Not by bread alone
No man can live as an island. No one can isolate himself from the basic problems of humanity. “Not by bread alone does man live” (Mt 4.4) said Jesus to Satan who tempted him. His words are often quoted to point to the primacy of the spiritual over the material. But a man reminded his discussion group, that even to think and say those words to Satan, Jesus needed bread.
When the Syro-Phoenician woman asked Jesus to cure her daughter, he said
Let the children be fed first. It is not right to take the food of the children
( the richest, the top 20%, the top quintile of the world’s population who enjoy 82.7% of the world’s income)
And throw it to the dogs (the remaining 80% who receive only 17.3% of the earth’s wealth) Undaunted by these harsh words, the woman replied, Lord, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s scraps. Usually Jesus had the last word. This is the only instance when someone got the better of him – and that too a woman, an outsider, a Syro-phoenician by birth. (Mk 7.24-30)
VII. UN Millennium Development Goals (adopted by 192 nations, 2001)
o Goal 1: Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger
o Goal 2: Achieve universal primary education
o Goal 3: Promote gender equality and empower women
o Goal 4: Reduce Child Mortality Rate
o Goal 5: Improve maternal health
o Goal 6: Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria, and other diseases
o Goal 7: Ensure environmental sustainability
o Goal 8: Develop a global partnership for development
VIII.Documentary: BBC World Debate on UN Millennium Development Goals
The UN goals emphasize the role of education and the role of women
3rd July 2010 Alvino Noronha,cssr.
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
Oxford and UNDP launch a better way to measure poverty
Oxford and UNDP launch a better way to measure poverty
14 July 2010
London, 14 July 2010: The Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI) of Oxford University and the Human Development Report Office of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) today launched a new poverty measure that gives a “multidimensional” picture of people living in poverty which its creators say could help target development resources more effectively.
The new measure, the Multidimensional Poverty Index, or MPI, was developed and applied by OPHI with UNDP support, and will be featured in the forthcoming 20th anniversary edition of the UNDP Human Development Report. The MPI supplants the Human Poverty Index, which had been included in the annual Human Development Reports since 1997.
The 2010 UNDP Human Development Report will be published in late October, but research findings from the Multidimensional Poverty Index were made available today at a policy forum in London and on line on the websites of OPHI (www.ophi.org.uk).
The MPI assesses a range of critical factors or ‘deprivations’ at the household level: from education to health outcomes to assets and services. Taken together, these factors provide a fuller portrait of acute poverty than simple income measures, according to OPHI and UNDP. The measure reveals the nature and extent of poverty at different levels: from household up to regional, national and international level. This new multidimensional approach to assessing poverty has been adapted for national use in Mexico, and is now being considered by Chile and Colombia.
‘The MPI is like a high resolution lens which reveals a vivid spectrum of challenges facing the poorest households,’ said OPHI Director Dr Sabina Alkire, who created the MPI with Professor James Foster of George Washington University.
The UNDP Human Development Report Office is joining forces with OPHI to promote international discussions on the practical applicability of this multidimensional approach to measuring poverty. ‘We are featuring the Multidimensional Poverty Index in the 20th anniversary edition of the Human Development Report this year because we consider it a highly innovative approach to quantifying acute poverty,’ Dr Jeni Klugman, Director of the UNDP Human Development Report Office and the principal author of this year’s Report, said. ‘The MPI provides a fuller measure of poverty than the traditional dollar-a-day formulas. It is a valuable addition to the family of instruments we use to examine broader aspects of well-being, including UNDP’s Human Development Index and other measures of inequality across the population and between genders.’
OPHI researchers analysed data from 104 countries with a combined population of 5.2 billion (78 per cent of the world total). About 1.7 billion people in the countries covered – a third of their entire population - live in multidimensional poverty, according to the MPI. This exceeds the 1.3 billion people, in those same countries, estimated to live on $1.25 a day or less, the more commonly accepted measure of ‘extreme’ poverty.
The MPI also captures distinct and broader aspects of poverty. For example, in Ethiopia 90 per cent of people are ‘MPI poor’ compared to the 39 per cent who are classified as living in ‘extreme poverty’ under income terms alone. Conversely, 89 per cent of Tanzanians are extreme income-poor, compared to 65 per cent who are MPI poor. The MPI captures deprivations directly – in health and educational outcomes and key services, such as water, sanitation and electricity. In some countries these resources are provided free or at low cost; in others they are out of reach even for many working people with an income.
Half of the world’s poor as measured by the MPI live in South Asia (51 per cent or 844 million people) and one quarter in Africa (28 per cent or 458 million). Niger has the greatest intensity and incidence of poverty in any country, with 93 per cent of the population classified as poor in MPI terms.
Even in countries with strong economic growth in recent years, the MPI analysis reveals the persistence of acute poverty. India is a major case in point. There are more MPI poor people in eight Indian states alone (421 million in Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Orissa, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, and West Bengal) than in the 26 poorest African countries combined (410 million). The MPI also reveals great variations within countries: Nairobi has the same level of MPI poverty as the Dominican Republic, whereas Kenya’s rural northeast is poorer in MPI terms than Niger.
The recently released 2010 UN Millennium Development Goals Report stressed that the MDGs will be fully achieved only by addressing the needs of those most disadvantaged by geography, age, gender or ethnicity, OPHI researchers point out. ‘Our measure identifies the most vulnerable households and groups and enables us to understand exactly which deprivations afflict their lives”, said Dr. Alkire. “The new measure can help governments and development agencies wishing to target aid more effectively to those specific communities.’
More poor in eight states than 26 African nations
The Economic Times, 13th July 2010
NEW DELHI: This data is certain to have a sobering effect on policy wonks who never get tired of trumpeting the growth story and prompt them to recognise the chasm between prosperous India and struggling India. A UNDP survey says that eight Indian states have more poor than 26 African nations put together.
A new Multi-dimensional Poverty Index (MPI) conceived and created by the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative with UNDP support to measure global poverty has said that acute poverty prevails in Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Orissa, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal. Together they account for 421 million, 11 million more “MPI poor” than in the 26 poorest African countries.
This will form part of the findings of the 2010 UNDP Human Development Report, which will be published in late October. The research findings from MPI were made available in London on Monday.
The MPI assesses a range of critical factors or “deprivations” at the household level: From education to health outcomes to assets and services. Taken together, these factors provide a fuller portrait of acute poverty than simple income measures, according to UNDP. The measure reveals the nature and extent of poverty at different levels — from household up to regional, national and international level.
This new multidimensional approach to assessing poverty has been adapted for national use in Mexico, and is now being considered by Chile and Colombia. “The MPI is like a high resolution lens which reveals a vivid spectrum of challenges facing the poorest households,” agency reports quoting OPHI Director Dr Sabina Alkire, who created the MPI with Professor James Foster of George Washington University and Maria Emma Santos of OPHI said.
The UNDP Human Development Report Office is also joining forces with OPHI to promote international discussions on the practical applicability of this multidimensional approach to measuring poverty.
“We are featuring the Multidimensional Poverty Index in the 20th anniversary edition of the Human Development Report this year because we consider it a highly innovative approach to quantifying acute poverty,” agency reports from London quoting Dr Jeni Klugman, Director of the UNDP Human Development Report Office and the principal author of this year’s Report, said. The MPI provides a fuller measure of poverty than the traditional dollar-a-day formulas. It is a valuable addition to the family of instruments we use to examine broader aspects of well-being, including UNDP’s Human Development Index and other measures of inequality across the population and between genders.
The research organisation’s officials analysed data from 104 countries with a combined population of 5.2 billion (78% of the world total). About 1.7 billion people in the countries covered — a third of their entire population — live in multidimensional poverty. This exceeds the 1.3 billion people, in those same countries, estimated to live on $ 1.25 a day or less, the more commonly accepted measure of ‘extreme’ poverty. Half of the world’s poor as measured by MPI live in South Asia — 51% or 844 million people — and one quarter in Africa.
New poverty index finds Indian states worse than Africa
Hindustan Times, July 13, 2010
More people are mired in poverty in eight Indian states than in the 26 poorest African countries, according to a new UN-backed measure of poverty. The Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) looks beyond income at a wider range of household-level deprivation, including services, which could then be used to help target development resources. Its findings throw up stark statistics compared to regular poverty measures.
The study found that half of the world's MPI poor people live in South Asia, and just over a quarter in Africa.
There are 421 million MPI poor people in eight Indian states alone -- Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Orissa, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal -- and 410 million in the 26 poorest African countries combined.
The researchers said that the extent of poverty in India had often been overlooked, by figures comparing percentages of poor people in countries as a whole rather than sheer numbers.
According to the index, 64.5 per cent of people in sub-Saharan Africa are MPI poor. In South Asia, 55 per cent of people are MPI poor. Both figures are higher than the number considered extreme income poor -- living on less than 1.25 dollars per day.
The new index was created by the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI) at Oxford University in southern England, and the Human Development Report Office of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).
"Our measure identifies the most vulnerable households and groups and enables us to understand exactly which deprivations afflict their lives," said OPHI director Sabina Alkire.
"The new measure can help governments and development agencies wishing to target aid more effectively to those specific communities."
The MPI will be used in the forthcoming 20th anniversary edition of the UNDP Human Development Report. It supplants the Human Poverty Index, which has been used since 1997.
The index takes into account that people living in MPI poverty may not necessarily be income poor: only two-thirds of Niger's people are income poor, whereas 93 per cent are poor by the MPI, it found.
It also showed that "multi-dimensional poverty" varies a lot within countries. In Delhi, 15 per cent of people are MPI poor, compared to 81 per cent in Bihar.
Delhi, Kerala, Goa have least number of poor: UNDP
Indian Express, July 15, 2010
Amidst acute poverty across South Asia, the five states of Delhi, Kerala, Goa, Punjab and Himachal Pradesh have the least number of poor people in India, according to a new measure of global poverty developed at the University of Oxford for the UNDP.
The new measure, called the Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI), has been developed and applied by the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI).
It will be featured in the forthcoming 20th anniversary edition of the UN Development Programme Human Development Report.
A detailed analysis using the MPI reveals that South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa have comparable intensities of poverty, according to an OPHI working paper titled 'Acute Multidimensional Poverty: A New Index for Developing Countries'.
In terms of human lives, South Asia has the world's highest levels of poverty.
Fifty-one per cent of the population of Pakistan is MPI poor, 58 per cent in Bangladesh, 55 per cent in India, and 65 per cent in Nepal.
The analysis states: "We find that Delhi has an MPI equivalent to Iraq (which ranks 45), whereas Bihar's MPI is similar to Guinea´s (the 8th poorest country in the ranking).
"In terms of headcount, in Delhi and Kerala 14 per cent and 16 per cent of the population are MPI poor, respectively, whereas in Jharkhand 77 per cent of the population are MPI poor and in Bihar, 81 per cent".
Other 'top ten' states with the least number of poor in India are Tamil Nadu, Uttarakhand, Maharashtra, Haryana and Gujarat.
The analysis by MPI creators reveals that there are more 'MPI poor' people in eight Indian states (421 million in Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Orissa, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, and West Bengal) than in the 26 poorest African countries combined (410 million).
"Just to provide a sense of perspective, the population of the poorest Indian state Bihar, with 95 million people, exceeds the sum of nine of the ten poorest African countries," according to the authors Sabina Alkire and Maria Emma Santos.
Further analysis shows that in India, the Scheduled Tribes have the highest MPI (0.482), almost the same as Mozambique, and a headcount of 81 per cent.
The Scheduled Castes have a headcount of 66 per cent and their MPI is a bit better than Nigeria.
Fifty-eight per cent of other Backward Castes are MPI poor.
About one in three of the remaining Indian households are multi-dimensionally poor, and their MPI is just below that of Honduras, the paper says.
As many as 39 per cent in India live in a poor household where at least one child or woman is undernourished.
The paper adds that 25 per cent in India, and 15 per cent in Nepal live in a household where one or more
children are not attending school.
Half of the world's poor as measured by the MPI live in South Asia (51 per cent or 844 million people) and one quarter in Africa (28 per cent or 458 million).
Niger has the greatest intensity and incidence of poverty in any country, with 93 per cent of the population classified as poor in MPI terms.
The MPI reveals the nature and extent of poverty at different levels: from household up to regional, national and international level.
This new multidimensional approach to assessing poverty has been adapted for national use in Mexico, and is now being considered by Chile and Colombia.
"The MPI is like a high resolution lens which reveals a vivid spectrum of challenges facing the poorest households," said OPHI Director Sabina Alkire.
14 July 2010
London, 14 July 2010: The Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI) of Oxford University and the Human Development Report Office of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) today launched a new poverty measure that gives a “multidimensional” picture of people living in poverty which its creators say could help target development resources more effectively.
The new measure, the Multidimensional Poverty Index, or MPI, was developed and applied by OPHI with UNDP support, and will be featured in the forthcoming 20th anniversary edition of the UNDP Human Development Report. The MPI supplants the Human Poverty Index, which had been included in the annual Human Development Reports since 1997.
The 2010 UNDP Human Development Report will be published in late October, but research findings from the Multidimensional Poverty Index were made available today at a policy forum in London and on line on the websites of OPHI (www.ophi.org.uk).
The MPI assesses a range of critical factors or ‘deprivations’ at the household level: from education to health outcomes to assets and services. Taken together, these factors provide a fuller portrait of acute poverty than simple income measures, according to OPHI and UNDP. The measure reveals the nature and extent of poverty at different levels: from household up to regional, national and international level. This new multidimensional approach to assessing poverty has been adapted for national use in Mexico, and is now being considered by Chile and Colombia.
‘The MPI is like a high resolution lens which reveals a vivid spectrum of challenges facing the poorest households,’ said OPHI Director Dr Sabina Alkire, who created the MPI with Professor James Foster of George Washington University.
The UNDP Human Development Report Office is joining forces with OPHI to promote international discussions on the practical applicability of this multidimensional approach to measuring poverty. ‘We are featuring the Multidimensional Poverty Index in the 20th anniversary edition of the Human Development Report this year because we consider it a highly innovative approach to quantifying acute poverty,’ Dr Jeni Klugman, Director of the UNDP Human Development Report Office and the principal author of this year’s Report, said. ‘The MPI provides a fuller measure of poverty than the traditional dollar-a-day formulas. It is a valuable addition to the family of instruments we use to examine broader aspects of well-being, including UNDP’s Human Development Index and other measures of inequality across the population and between genders.’
OPHI researchers analysed data from 104 countries with a combined population of 5.2 billion (78 per cent of the world total). About 1.7 billion people in the countries covered – a third of their entire population - live in multidimensional poverty, according to the MPI. This exceeds the 1.3 billion people, in those same countries, estimated to live on $1.25 a day or less, the more commonly accepted measure of ‘extreme’ poverty.
The MPI also captures distinct and broader aspects of poverty. For example, in Ethiopia 90 per cent of people are ‘MPI poor’ compared to the 39 per cent who are classified as living in ‘extreme poverty’ under income terms alone. Conversely, 89 per cent of Tanzanians are extreme income-poor, compared to 65 per cent who are MPI poor. The MPI captures deprivations directly – in health and educational outcomes and key services, such as water, sanitation and electricity. In some countries these resources are provided free or at low cost; in others they are out of reach even for many working people with an income.
Half of the world’s poor as measured by the MPI live in South Asia (51 per cent or 844 million people) and one quarter in Africa (28 per cent or 458 million). Niger has the greatest intensity and incidence of poverty in any country, with 93 per cent of the population classified as poor in MPI terms.
Even in countries with strong economic growth in recent years, the MPI analysis reveals the persistence of acute poverty. India is a major case in point. There are more MPI poor people in eight Indian states alone (421 million in Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Orissa, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, and West Bengal) than in the 26 poorest African countries combined (410 million). The MPI also reveals great variations within countries: Nairobi has the same level of MPI poverty as the Dominican Republic, whereas Kenya’s rural northeast is poorer in MPI terms than Niger.
The recently released 2010 UN Millennium Development Goals Report stressed that the MDGs will be fully achieved only by addressing the needs of those most disadvantaged by geography, age, gender or ethnicity, OPHI researchers point out. ‘Our measure identifies the most vulnerable households and groups and enables us to understand exactly which deprivations afflict their lives”, said Dr. Alkire. “The new measure can help governments and development agencies wishing to target aid more effectively to those specific communities.’
More poor in eight states than 26 African nations
The Economic Times, 13th July 2010
NEW DELHI: This data is certain to have a sobering effect on policy wonks who never get tired of trumpeting the growth story and prompt them to recognise the chasm between prosperous India and struggling India. A UNDP survey says that eight Indian states have more poor than 26 African nations put together.
A new Multi-dimensional Poverty Index (MPI) conceived and created by the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative with UNDP support to measure global poverty has said that acute poverty prevails in Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Orissa, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal. Together they account for 421 million, 11 million more “MPI poor” than in the 26 poorest African countries.
This will form part of the findings of the 2010 UNDP Human Development Report, which will be published in late October. The research findings from MPI were made available in London on Monday.
The MPI assesses a range of critical factors or “deprivations” at the household level: From education to health outcomes to assets and services. Taken together, these factors provide a fuller portrait of acute poverty than simple income measures, according to UNDP. The measure reveals the nature and extent of poverty at different levels — from household up to regional, national and international level.
This new multidimensional approach to assessing poverty has been adapted for national use in Mexico, and is now being considered by Chile and Colombia. “The MPI is like a high resolution lens which reveals a vivid spectrum of challenges facing the poorest households,” agency reports quoting OPHI Director Dr Sabina Alkire, who created the MPI with Professor James Foster of George Washington University and Maria Emma Santos of OPHI said.
The UNDP Human Development Report Office is also joining forces with OPHI to promote international discussions on the practical applicability of this multidimensional approach to measuring poverty.
“We are featuring the Multidimensional Poverty Index in the 20th anniversary edition of the Human Development Report this year because we consider it a highly innovative approach to quantifying acute poverty,” agency reports from London quoting Dr Jeni Klugman, Director of the UNDP Human Development Report Office and the principal author of this year’s Report, said. The MPI provides a fuller measure of poverty than the traditional dollar-a-day formulas. It is a valuable addition to the family of instruments we use to examine broader aspects of well-being, including UNDP’s Human Development Index and other measures of inequality across the population and between genders.
The research organisation’s officials analysed data from 104 countries with a combined population of 5.2 billion (78% of the world total). About 1.7 billion people in the countries covered — a third of their entire population — live in multidimensional poverty. This exceeds the 1.3 billion people, in those same countries, estimated to live on $ 1.25 a day or less, the more commonly accepted measure of ‘extreme’ poverty. Half of the world’s poor as measured by MPI live in South Asia — 51% or 844 million people — and one quarter in Africa.
New poverty index finds Indian states worse than Africa
Hindustan Times, July 13, 2010
More people are mired in poverty in eight Indian states than in the 26 poorest African countries, according to a new UN-backed measure of poverty. The Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) looks beyond income at a wider range of household-level deprivation, including services, which could then be used to help target development resources. Its findings throw up stark statistics compared to regular poverty measures.
The study found that half of the world's MPI poor people live in South Asia, and just over a quarter in Africa.
There are 421 million MPI poor people in eight Indian states alone -- Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Orissa, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal -- and 410 million in the 26 poorest African countries combined.
The researchers said that the extent of poverty in India had often been overlooked, by figures comparing percentages of poor people in countries as a whole rather than sheer numbers.
According to the index, 64.5 per cent of people in sub-Saharan Africa are MPI poor. In South Asia, 55 per cent of people are MPI poor. Both figures are higher than the number considered extreme income poor -- living on less than 1.25 dollars per day.
The new index was created by the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI) at Oxford University in southern England, and the Human Development Report Office of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).
"Our measure identifies the most vulnerable households and groups and enables us to understand exactly which deprivations afflict their lives," said OPHI director Sabina Alkire.
"The new measure can help governments and development agencies wishing to target aid more effectively to those specific communities."
The MPI will be used in the forthcoming 20th anniversary edition of the UNDP Human Development Report. It supplants the Human Poverty Index, which has been used since 1997.
The index takes into account that people living in MPI poverty may not necessarily be income poor: only two-thirds of Niger's people are income poor, whereas 93 per cent are poor by the MPI, it found.
It also showed that "multi-dimensional poverty" varies a lot within countries. In Delhi, 15 per cent of people are MPI poor, compared to 81 per cent in Bihar.
Delhi, Kerala, Goa have least number of poor: UNDP
Indian Express, July 15, 2010
Amidst acute poverty across South Asia, the five states of Delhi, Kerala, Goa, Punjab and Himachal Pradesh have the least number of poor people in India, according to a new measure of global poverty developed at the University of Oxford for the UNDP.
The new measure, called the Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI), has been developed and applied by the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI).
It will be featured in the forthcoming 20th anniversary edition of the UN Development Programme Human Development Report.
A detailed analysis using the MPI reveals that South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa have comparable intensities of poverty, according to an OPHI working paper titled 'Acute Multidimensional Poverty: A New Index for Developing Countries'.
In terms of human lives, South Asia has the world's highest levels of poverty.
Fifty-one per cent of the population of Pakistan is MPI poor, 58 per cent in Bangladesh, 55 per cent in India, and 65 per cent in Nepal.
The analysis states: "We find that Delhi has an MPI equivalent to Iraq (which ranks 45), whereas Bihar's MPI is similar to Guinea´s (the 8th poorest country in the ranking).
"In terms of headcount, in Delhi and Kerala 14 per cent and 16 per cent of the population are MPI poor, respectively, whereas in Jharkhand 77 per cent of the population are MPI poor and in Bihar, 81 per cent".
Other 'top ten' states with the least number of poor in India are Tamil Nadu, Uttarakhand, Maharashtra, Haryana and Gujarat.
The analysis by MPI creators reveals that there are more 'MPI poor' people in eight Indian states (421 million in Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Orissa, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, and West Bengal) than in the 26 poorest African countries combined (410 million).
"Just to provide a sense of perspective, the population of the poorest Indian state Bihar, with 95 million people, exceeds the sum of nine of the ten poorest African countries," according to the authors Sabina Alkire and Maria Emma Santos.
Further analysis shows that in India, the Scheduled Tribes have the highest MPI (0.482), almost the same as Mozambique, and a headcount of 81 per cent.
The Scheduled Castes have a headcount of 66 per cent and their MPI is a bit better than Nigeria.
Fifty-eight per cent of other Backward Castes are MPI poor.
About one in three of the remaining Indian households are multi-dimensionally poor, and their MPI is just below that of Honduras, the paper says.
As many as 39 per cent in India live in a poor household where at least one child or woman is undernourished.
The paper adds that 25 per cent in India, and 15 per cent in Nepal live in a household where one or more
children are not attending school.
Half of the world's poor as measured by the MPI live in South Asia (51 per cent or 844 million people) and one quarter in Africa (28 per cent or 458 million).
Niger has the greatest intensity and incidence of poverty in any country, with 93 per cent of the population classified as poor in MPI terms.
The MPI reveals the nature and extent of poverty at different levels: from household up to regional, national and international level.
This new multidimensional approach to assessing poverty has been adapted for national use in Mexico, and is now being considered by Chile and Colombia.
"The MPI is like a high resolution lens which reveals a vivid spectrum of challenges facing the poorest households," said OPHI Director Sabina Alkire.
Supper Class
What Power Looks Like
Do 6,000 people control the destinies of 6,000 million?
Money, power and politics. Is there a global super class rooted in business, finance and the media that is reshaping the modern world?
They ride on Gulfstream private jets, arrange the global agenda, and manage the credit crisis of nations. They have more in common with each other than with their countrymen. They are the Superclass.
Who are they?
Are Bill Clinton, Rupert Murdoch, the Pope and Osama bin Laden part of a new global power elite, asks Laura Miller.
How can we call them a class? Would they not need a shared identity and a shared ideology? A class means people who share a number of traits – a lot of power, wealth, the culture they participate in, the places they frequent. Usually they come from well known families, are well connected, are notably rich, often form part of government. They belong to self-serving clusters or clubs, they have huge influence, and they constantly network with each other. They need not share the same views, and they can move in and out of the super class. They gather regularly at conferences like Davos, go to the same schools, serve together on corporate and nonprofit boards, and above all constantly do business with each other - to the point that they have become a kind of culture in themselves, a "class without a country”. These people are "the new leadership class for our era."
"Davos man" is a term coined by the scholar Samuel Huntington to describe the type of person who attends the Davos conference in Switzerland. These are people who "have little need for national loyalty, view national boundaries as obstacles that thankfully are vanishing, and see national governments as residues from the past whose only useful function is to facilitate the global operation of the elite.”
Is it not alarming that a small group should set up rules and self-regulating procedures and have enough influence to have them accepted by governments? The power structure in the world is not what we think it is. It is an unjust structure which has led to an inequitable situation, pain and death. This is because of the absence of adequate international institutions to provide regulation, guarantees and transparencies. These norms are in force in national markets, but they are lacking at the international level.
· Power and Decision Making in a Core Group
To get an idea of how the elite of the world acts at a time of global crisis, it's instructive to watch Timothy Geithner at work. He is the President of the New York Federal Reserve Bank. He has been at the center of frantic behind-the-scenes efforts to stop the spread of the
Speaking to Geithner while I was researching my book, he sketched in fascinating detail how the world's power elite rallies when the markets are in trouble. Recalling an earlier crisis in the global securities markets, Geithner said the Fed brought together the leaders of the world's 14 major financial firms, from five countries, representing 95 percent of all the activity in global markets. The Swiss, the British, the Germans were there. Interestingly, no Asians were there, not even the Japanese. The Chairman of Goldman Sachs "jokingly called them ' the 14 families,' similar to those in 'The Godfather'." "And we said to them, "You men have got to fix this problem. Tell us how you are going to fix it and we will work out the regime. You know that if you move as individuals, everybody else will move with you."
There was nothing in writing, no rules and no formal process. No one asked the Fed to act, but the Fed let everyone in the markets know it was acting. The beauty of the process was its absolute efficiency, seeing what a tight circle of large firms with "some global reach" could get done, fast—with an executive committee of only four running the weekly conference. "There is no formal mechanism we could have used to force this on anybody, so we had to invent it. I think the recipe for going forward is that you have to have a borderless, collaborative process. It does not mean it has to be universal,” said Geithner. "You just need a critical mass of the right players. It is a more concentrated world."
Geithner's description of the financial elite in crisis mode came many months before the recent collapse of Bear Stearns, yet foreshadowed in an uncanny way how Treasury boss Henry Paulson, Fed boss Ben Bernanke, JPMorgan boss James Dimon and other bank heads came to an agreement regarding Bear Stearns which it could not refuse. The conversations were limited to the central players, the big decision makers whose influence would make the most difference on Wall Street and worldwide. Fast action was needed.
The Fed's evolving crisis-management underscores not only the move toward more public-private collaboration on big global issues, but also the concentration of power among a very select group of players—in this case, the heads of the world's biggest financial institutions.
· Many Forms of Power
There are a few thousand people worldwide like those invited by Geithner. They are not only in business and finance, but also in politics, the arts, the nonprofit world and other fields. They are part of a new global elite that has emerged over the past several decades. I call it the "superclass." They have vastly more power than any other group on the planet. Each of the members is set apart by his ability to regularly influence the lives of millions of people in multiple countries worldwide. Each actively exercises this power, and often amplifies it through relationships with other superclass members. This new class of elites is both more permeable, and more transient, than elites in the past. The age of inherent lifelong power (like the royalty) is largely behind us. To be a member of this superclass one has to hold on to power just long enough to make an impact, either by leading a revolution or launching a revolutionary Web site.
The pope is a member of the superclass, as is Osama bin Laden, who can undoubtedly claim influence over current international affairs, even if he sometimes lives in a cave. The Russian illegal arms dealer Viktor "Merchant of Death" Bout is a member, as are Rupert Murdoch and Bill Clinton, who, while no longer President nevertheless heads the Clinton Global Intiative, a new form of international philanthropy.
· How does one become a member
So how does one become a member? As always, being rich certainly helps. Many superclass members are wealthy, wealthier than any elite has ever been. The top 10 percent of all people, for example, now control 85 percent of all wealth on the planet. But wealth is only part of the equation. Power is the other factor in any true elite, and if we want to understand the superclass, we need to look at those who have influence that crosses borders. The influence of most of the elites in history was predominantly national or even local in nature. Exxon Mobil CEO Rex Tillerson runs operations in 180 countries worldwide, a far cry from the Pennsylvania oil field and U.S. kerosene market of the man who founded his company—John D. Rockefeller.
The superclass include heads of state and religious and military leaders - even the occasional pop star, like Bono, but the core membership is businessmen: hedge fund managers, technology entrepreneurs and private equity investors.
That such a group exists is indisputable. It includes the heads of the biggest financial institutions, the top 50 control almost $50 trillion in assets. The heads of the world's biggest corporations are also members; the top 2,000 support perhaps 500 million people, generate almost $30 trillion in sales and have well over $100 trillion in assets - the list also includes top government officials with real cross-border influence: heads of state, leading diplomats and military chiefs, but also central bankers like Geithner and Bernanke, and their counterparts like Chinese Central Bank Gov. Zhou Xiaochuan, reappointed this week, and the other top economic officials responsible for the world's fastest-growing economy and its nearly $1.5 trillion in reserves.
They are joined by media barons like Rupert Murdoch, whose global network of newspapers, Web products, movie studios and TV stations reach hundreds of millions of people every day. They include tech entrepreneurs like Facebook wunderkind, 23-year-old Mark Zuckerberg, whose company is redefining what global community means. Alongside them you'll also find those who have different forms of power - religious leaders from the Pope to
A growing number of tycoons from the emerging markets would make the mark like several Indians - like steel titan Lakshmi Mittal, feuding billionaire brothers Mukesh and Anil Ambani, and global auto magnate Ratan Tata. Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich, Saudi oil investor Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, and Chinese real-estate billionaire Yang Huiyan would be part of the superclass, among others.
· 6,000 people control the destiny of 6,000 million
One can debate endlessly who is in and who is out. Indeed, given that so much power today is institutional or job related (and thus fleeting), any ranked list is out of date almost as soon as it's finished. Yet I and my researchers have ended up with a core group of somewhere between 6,000 and 7,000 people—meaning that each one is "one in a million."
A glance at this high-powered class illuminates several key trends. Political elites may be the primary powers where national governments remain dominant—in places like
This concentration of wealth and economic influence has translated into a concentration of power, a trend helped by the fact that the power of national governments is on the wane in many parts of the world. The rise of transnational activities (both public and private), a broad move away from state intervention in national markets and the effective reduction in the state's ability to use force due to the high price of modern warfare, have all contributed to the declining power of the individual nation-state. In turn, those whose organizations are built for global activity, like multinational companies or financial institutions (or terrorist networks or NGOs), have gained a relative advantage over individual governments and governmental organizations.
· Everyone knows everyone
"When we were walking through the Davos party we knew more people than when we were walking across the village green in the town we live in?" said Mark Malloch-Brown, former Deputy Secretary General at the United Nations and now a senior official in the British Foreign Ministry. In fact, Davos is a village green for the superclass.
In these conclaves, priorities are not only for their own constituencies, but for entire regions and the world at large. Possibly the premier gathering in
Thanks to this kind of social interaction, large portions of the global superclass are well acquainted with each other. Says Stephen Schwarzman, CEO of Wall Street's Blackstone Group, "The world is pretty small. In almost every one of the areas in which I am dealing you find it is just 20, 30 or 50 people worldwide who drive the industry or the sector." You'll find they also serve on the boards of an additional 140 other major companies and 22 universities. To Schwarzman, being a member of the superclass means being able to "get to anybody in the world with one phone call."
In general, the power players on the other side of the dinner table will still be white, male and from either the
Rational as it may seem to set up such systems, they aren't directly answerable to the people at large - they're undemocratic. Of course, as several of the superclass complain, most of the officials who are democratically selected by the masses don't really understand - and perhaps aren't even capable of understanding - the complex global issues that need to be dealt with. American congressmen, senators and even presidents know how to get elected by capitalizing on fears of gay marriage and illegal immigrants, but they understand little of high-level economics or science.
Nevertheless, the likelihood of forming a world government to handle the situation is remote. International institutions - the U.N., the IMF and the World Bank - are weak. The answer is not global government, but good "governance," writes David Rothkopf.
· Is there a remedy for Inequality?
How are we to insulate the public from these special interest groups? We need to create institutions that effectively represent the people at large. We need to move away from the four hundred year old system devised during the Thirty Years War when the nation-state was made the absolute entity. We have to come up with regulatory and enforcement mechanisms. We have to create other forms of balance to these concentrations of power. The media could be one form of balance.
In his book, Superclass: The Global Power Elite and the World They Are Making, (2008) David Rothkopf argues that geography, pedigree, networking and luck have created the superclass. He examines the nexus between money, power and politics, so his book is about power, not about wisdom. When there is an absence of wisdom, its place is taken up by influence and political pressure When a super class of 6,000 people control the destinies of 6,000 million people on the planet, it is the vast majority who suffer.
Rothkopf insists that elites ought to look out for the disadvantaged. "If global decisions serve only the powerful," he writes, “it won't just be unfair, it will produce a backlash." One such "backlash" is the administration of Venezuela's Hugo Chavez, a leader who is part of "the global network of antiglobalists," who taunt and thwart the global elite. No wonder one of the book's chapter sections is titled "Is a Crisis Inevitable?"
Rothkopf's idea is that the superclass ought to be smart enough to foresee such crises and head them off. It should recognize that "order and legitimacy are the allies of both business and those who seek social stability." This is not easy.
Of course, the power elite are not entirely indifferent to the world's problems. The Davos conference often spotlights issues like poverty in Africa and global warming, and high-profile charities such as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Clinton Global Initiative suggest that at least some of the superclass feel obliged to step in where national governments have failed.
This article draws on three sources:
1. David Rothkopf, What Power Looks Like, 2008.
Rothkppf himself was a former undersecretary of commerce in the Clinton administration and an officer in an assortment of "advisory" firms, so he is an insider of sorts. He is a visiting scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and the positions he holds require some restraint in his views. As a result, "Superclass" isn't as condemnatory as Naomi Klein's anti-globalization manifesto "No Logo," let alone the conspiracy theorizing of "The Iron Triangle" by Dan Briody. But Rothkopf doesn't fawn over his subjects either. He does not publish his list of 6,000 names. “because the day after it was published, the list would be obsolete.”
2. Laura Miller: The rise of the Superclass, 2008, senior writer for Salon.
3. Stephen Sackur interviewing David Rothkopf, BBC, Hard Talk,
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