[MUSIC] So today we begin the the really substantial part of the class. Last week we were talking about the conceptual background for this course, and what is a social good, what is this idea about the commons. And how has the, the worry about depleting the commons affected our thinking about shared resources, privatization, and really the conditions through which we react to changes in the world, on a global scale that affect us all as individuals. And, we did that in a fairly abstract way. We talked about philosophy, we talked about economics, we talked on a conceptual level. This week we're moving into the, the heart of the matter in one of the most difficult areas really of for thinking about social change, and that is poverty, and the relationship of poverty to philanthropy and to foreign aid. How to we mitigate the effects of poverty? And even as I say that, I realize that for some people, that's not going to be enough. They, they really talk about eradicating extreme poverty, and the possibilities for doing that. And, I'm going to show you some of the clips from the Social Good Summit. Especially a short clip from the President of the World Bank Jim Kim about the progress we've made already in eradicating poverty. Reducing the level of extreme poverty. And then we will talk about the, the work yet to be done and, and whether one should be hopeful about that or not. We're also going to talk about some of the critics of the of the, the of foreign aid of, of a, of a, you know, they, the critics who, who question whether the changes we've had, in regard to extreme poverty, the reduction of extreme poverty, have, whether those changes can be attributed to aid, to social actions, to foreign aid, or not. And we'll talk about some of the major theorists or, or, or economists working in this area who will help us understand what's at stake in thinking about what we can do in regard to extreme poverty. Finally, we'll talk about or a new approach to this subject through randomized experimentation. Or randomized controlled trials. That takes the big picture, certainly in mind but tries to attack the big problem of extreme poverty, capital E, capital P. Tries to attack that problem by small step by step measures that you are testing along the way to make sure that what you're doing actually has a positive effect on the problem you're trying to solve. Now, as we start this, I feel I should say, once again, that your, your teacher, [LAUGH] in this course on Coursera. Your professor in this class is no expert in the area. And for some of you you'll say, well gee, I'll turn this off right now or go onto to some other class and at Coursera or elsewhere but I hope you won't. I hope you'll, you'll stick with us because the, the, the experiment we're doing in this class is that your professor Michael Roth is learning along with you. Is that, you know, I will be talking with some of great experts and have been talking with some of the great experts in this field and I will try to introduce us all to these, to the work in the field as I learn along with you. So I will be having conversations with academics and activists. and, and some of which we'll record, and put online for the class, because I am learning along with you. And at Wesleyan, we have had this tradition for a long time. We, we started in the 1950s having programs where some of the professors, team teaching, in that case. Some of those professors were always non-experts. Because we have felt at Wesleyan for a long time, that one of the most important things you, you do when you're teaching in a university is model learning. You're not just professing, you're not just giving out information, you, you can get information just by doing searches online. What we're trying to do is to show our students here on campus how we learn with them. And the excitement of learning together, and hope that that excitement is is productively contagious [LAUGH] if I can put it that way. So here we go. Talking about this week extreme poverty. What we can do about it. Big challenges. Small experiments, and, and whether radical change is, is still possible. So, I, I should say from the outset that the the problem of extreme poverty is, is very closely tied to the, to the problem or the fact of inequality. Now be, because extreme poverty becomes much more glaring to those who are not living in it when they are further away from the condition of poverty. In other words as inequality grows, as it has over the last couple of hundred years, and in extreme ways in the last decades. As inequality grows the persistence of extreme poverty becomes more, obviously, morally reprehensible economically poisonous and socially unacceptable politically unacceptable. And so inequality in the, in the last decades in the industrialized world as, has, has grown precipitously. I, I can say just about in the United States there has already been a, a, a move against this, right? Have you, many of you watching will have heard about Occupy Wall Street and other occupy movements that are, are really grow out of the outrage of the accumulation of wealth by a very small fraction of the population while even more great numbers, greater numbers of people fall into poverty. The inequality is growing in the developed world in a sig, significant way in recent decades. What we also see is that the inequality between the developed world and the developing world has also become a more obvious more obviously persistent problem that we, that we in the developed world and in the developing world are trying to address. These are cycles of deprivation that we are dealing with here. We're not, there, there, there is the shock of finding people living in conditions that are morally reprehensible, that are just depriving people of the of a, a chance at a, at a decent life, and that's very important, but we also have to note that the, the persistence of poverty is the is, is the cutting off of potential in the world. That there are millions of people who are dying too young, who have no access to education, who live stunted lives because of disease and, and, and and a lack of access to to basic material conditions that they are living lives that all of us can see as lives of deprivation. Lives that continue a cycle of a lack of development. I guess what I'm trying to communicate here is that it's the condition of poverty is bad enough, but we also have to recognize as Amartya Sen is said some years ago now, that the, that the persistence of poverty is also the robbing of human potential. And poverty is not just a lack of money. It is not having the capability to realize one's full potential as a human being. So that even when life goes on, we must recognize the cutting off of potential that is a result of living in poverty. That lives that are not fully lived means fewer contributions to economic development, future, fewer contributions to culture, fewer contributions to science. And poverty deprives us all of those contributions. It's contagious in that sense, right? It's contagious, because we don't, we don't have the benefit of a life fully lived. Nor does the person whose life is, is, is, is, is filled with suffering, because of that poverty. Extreme poverty is our, is our focus this week. And I, I, I think that it, it's important for us to see, that extreme poverty is persistent although there, there have been important points of progress in, in the last decades in, in reducing the numbers of people who live in extreme poverty. Unemployment, hopelessness, little economic growth. These are some of the characteristics of the regions where there is extreme poverty. What is extreme poverty? The definition used by the World Bank, and by many other organizations, is living on less than a $1.25 a day. Okay, $1.25 US dollars a day is the, is the conventional definition of, of extreme poverty, and what we'll use in this class. Let me just give you some figures on the scale of this problem. 21%, 21% of the world's population is extremely poor. 21% of the world's population. Now as you know, that, that is not distributed equally across the globe. 75% of the world's extremely poor live in South Asia or Africa. Three quarters of the world's extremely poor live in South Asia or Africa. About three quarters of, of of the poor live in rural areas and I, I think that's important to note. We often have images of poverty in big cities and sure, surely especially in the developing world many urban centers become magnets for people who are trying to escape poverty. And poverty can persist in, in the, in the areas just around urban centers, but three quarters of the poor live in rural areas and that means, it's important to know that their very important problems are sanitation, clean enough water, access to decent transportation, and access to markets. We'll come back to this again and again, this, this week. Access to markets in general, or the creation of markets, in general, is an important topic for us. We have to not just see a poverty as a lack of wealth or a lack of money. It's, it's a lack of access to markets for, for many of our economists because without access to markets you don't have access to economic development. You may have access to food when somebody gives you a bowl of rice. You may have access even to fertilizer when, if somebody gives you that. But what's really important for moving out of poverty in a sustained way is not just access to stuff that reduces your suffering, but access to mechanisms that will allow for economic growth. That's the important thing that we have to underscore through, throughout our discussions of, of poverty this week. [BLANK_AUDIO] Well, we're here today with Mike Nelson, who teaches in the government department here. He's a specialist in, African economic development. And teaches courses dealing with politics and economics, especially in the developing world. And, Professor Nelson, very good to have you here today. >> Thank you. >> Thanks for. >> Thanks for inviting me. >> Thanks for being part of this conversation. As you know, this course is, is called How to Change the World. And what we're trying to do is understand some of the key global challenges facing people all over the world. The students in this class which will number in the tens of thousands, as we record this there are, almost 30,000 people signed up already and more will probably sign up in the coming weeks. Most of the students in this class will be living outside of the US. And many of them have concerns about extreme poverty about economic development and how to address what for a long time people thought was an intractable issue, but my sense is from reading the literature that there's different reasons why people are hopeful about >> Sure >> Dealing with extreme poverty And maybe you can help get us started by saying a little bit about the landscape of work in this area. What do, what do, when you, when you teach a group of beginning students here at Wesleyan, what are some of the things you really want them to know about poverty as we start off? >> The issue of poverty is, of course, a global issue. And well it often is referred to in the context of developing countries. One of the, the, the messages that I think its useful for people to recognize is that the landscape is much more diverse than that. Most of the poor live, actually in middle income countries increasingly. And we're seeing that partly because good things that are happening in the world. A lot of countries that used to be lower income countries are improving their status. Their, their, their economies are growing and so they are moving into the kind of the middle income area. But if you look at the top three countries where the, the, the poorest of the poor live it's going to be China, India, and Nigeria. Three very populous countries. >> Right. >> And so if we think about how we're, we're crafting solutions or, or, or, or approaching the, the challenges associated with extreme poverty, that's one thing to recognize as well. And and in those countries and in much of the developing world, it is more of an endemic problem. It is more of a, a permanent problem for, for the people that experience it. We, we have our own versions of extreme poverty here in the United States, which I'm sure you were aware of as well. You know, if you were to look at where we set the poverty line, just to kind of contextualize this, we set it at around $17 per day, per person. If we were to look at how the US Census Bureau defines it, it's more along the lines of about $8.50 per day, per person is deep poverty. >> Uh-huh, right. >> And then some researchers out of Michigan took a look at what were poverty levels were in the United States and they found out that well if we look at $2 per day per person in the United States. It's really closer to one and half million households or as many as three and a half million children in the United States in any given month might be having that kind of experience. >> Right. >> And for them of course it's not as structural. >> Right. >> They might be moving through this as a transitional phase. Whereas for many of the populations that, you know, we're going to be talking about today it's definitely more of a permanent experience and and something that requires maybe different approaches. >> And I think the, one of the traditional pictures of poverty is that it, it it's, it, it's rural it's in places where there is very little access to either transportation or technology. And, I guess what you're reminding us today is there's some truth to that, but there also especially in developing countries, and in pla, in developed countries, like the United States poverty can be found in very different kinds of places. >> Yeah, and, and, urbanization is happening very quickly across Africa, the continent I know best for instance, and a lot of the new urban are urban poor. >> Yeah. >> And they're living at, at these very low subsistence levels. >> So what, what claim does the existence of a significant number of people living in poverty or with the treat of extreme poverty, what, what claim does it have on people who don't go through that experience? Why, what, what, what, what, why should we be paying attention to this? >> When I approach this subject with my students I often like to talk about it in the context of, of different world views that people often do have. And so, so there's a world view out there that tells us that boundaries should not matter. Whether they're political boundaries. >> Mm-hm. >> Whether they are boundaries related to religion or family even for some philosophers and thinkers on these issues. That those boundaries don't set our moral obligations and where our, where our moral obligations and where our moral responsibilities lie. And so, what is happening or occurring in the life of someone on the other side of the world but we've never actually met. >> Mm-hm >> We may have some responsibility for in the same way that have responsibility or may feel that we have responsibility to people that are in our more local communities and families. >> Mm-hm. >> and, and that's something that I think it's, it's very abstract, it's very difficult for people to connect to. >> Right, yeah. >> But that, that kind of a view which Charles Bytes who did work on this back in the 70s and 80s, calls it kind of a cosmopolitan. >> Right. >> World view Is one though that I think animates much of the discourse on development and aid and how we approach and think about the our, our obligations to, to handling the situation of extreme poverty. You know, there, there, there are other perspectives in world views of it too. We could go to the opposite extreme which is to say that our moral responsibilities lie primarily within our own communities. >> Right. >> And we have to recognize there is a moral imperative there. And one that's easier to connect to socially, culturally in, in many respects. It's one of the reasons why we're more likely in America to give money to to, to, to research on cancer. >> Right. >> Than we might be to preventative measures dealing with malaria. >> Yeah, that's great. Great example. >> And if you know, if you're thinking about, you know, where could we have the most impact with our own giving as individuals. It might be that latter scenario, but it's hard to make that, that connection. >> Yeah. It's interesting you put you raised that that framework because yesterday, as we taped this, yesterday was giving Tuesday, you know, >> Yeah. >> This organized event through the 92nd street Y and the UN Foundation and other partners that are a part of this class that we're, we're, we're putting together. And I I saw within my own family, you know, what was attractive to my daughter as I asked her to go online and find organizations that she felt were worthy and then see if there's outside validation that they were organized well and the money would be used well. And it was a really interesting experience as she, you know, is attracted to little kids, you know. And she's attracted, like many people, to individual stories. So, when we say that one billion people live in extreme poverty, you know, that's, that's disturbing and shocking, but it is rather abstract as because it's, it's such a big number. When she sees as she did yesterday when we were looking at Heifer, organization. You can buy animals for a village or for a person. Now she found a child and was able, she said I want to give money so this, this family can get some, some, some chicks, because the chickens will produce eggs, which will etc, etc. And then you start a virtuous circle. And I, it is interesting how the internet can actually make the other side of the world seem quite close. And for some like, my daughter's a teenager. She's used to actually connecting to people who, strongly, who are not just in the neighborhood. >> No, absolutely. And, and I think we're seeing that those connections are continuing to develop. >> Yeah. >> I mean, larger numbers of Americans, it seems, are having experiences abroad, and that's also leading to different kinds of feelings of and perhaps expanding our, our range of thinking about the populations to whom we feel morally responsible to. >> How did you get interested in Africa? How did you work start there? >> For me it was partly accident. I was finishing up my undergraduate education at UC San Diego and I was trying to think about what I was interested in. I knew I was interested in international politics. But I also knew that I had never really lived in any other part of the world. >> Right. >> And so I applied to be a Peace Core volunteer. And and so I thought they would send me to Latin America or East Asia. I had been taking Madarin and Spanish in college and they offered me an opportunity to go to Ghana and that brought me to Ghana. And it really opened my eyes to a whole range of different things including the fact that while there is some association-ship between wealth and happiness, >> Mm-hm. >> I experienced a village where there was no wealth but there was actually quite a bit of happiness. >> Uh-huh. >> That was nice to see, but it also was frustrating to see the kinds of challenges that these really wonderful, friendly people were facing on a daily basis. Challenges that we don't even think about. >> Give me some examples. What kind of challenges are they facing? >> One of the tasks that was set up for me was working on water and sanitation development. >> Right. >> And so we formed this water and sanitation committee. And just the process of trying to come collectively together as a village to save for projects, for future projects. So that they could contribute collectively to a well, or to latrines, that kind of thing. >> Right. >> It was a big challenge. Because it required that they take on personal responsibility for choices >> Right. >> That are, are not easy choices when they're thinking about, well do I put this money here this month? >> Yeah. >> Or do I use it for something else? >> Right. >> You know, and, and Duflo and Banerjee talk about >> They do, yeah! >> A similar thing in their book, you know? But I, I definitely saw it in my own experience. Where just that process of kind of saving for those those things that would really improve their lives. >> Yeah. >> In the long run was, was a, was a, was a big challenge. Education was another area where the incentives aren't aligned to bring good teachers. >> Right. >> Into these villages. And I've seen some improvement. I've gone back. I was just back actually this last summer, and they're, they are very big improvements that have happened in that village. Both in terms of water provision and in terms of economic development in general. But it's, it, it, it's been a hard slow road for them and, and that's the other thing I noticed there.
