Difference Between Rich and Poor in Developing Nations

Host: One reason too little has been delivered is that foreign aids from
the rich countries to the poor have actually declined since Rio.
Some say it’s because with the end of the Cold War, the rich don’t
need to bribe the poor not to go communist anymore. Other say,
it’s really a lot simpler than that.

J.K.: Well, no one should doubt it's very disappointing. And no one
should look for a deep complex sophisticated reason. There is a
strong tendency in both private and public affairs for people who
have income and have wealth to want more and to be negligent as
far as the people who have less. As I said, that works between
individuals and unfortunately it works as between nation and
states.

Host: Meantime, the people with wealth have been getting richer much
faster than the poor have been escaping poverty and equality on the
increase both between and within nations. It’s happening in
Jo’burg too. Poor Alex losing out to Sandton by the Summit would
be held close to DJ Mantis Station.

Female: The world summit first of all is going to be held at Sandton
Convention Center. And from here in Alex to go to Sandton, it's 15
minutes drive, you know. It’s not far from here.

Sandton, it’s a shopping center. It’s the mall where by people from
Alex, we really really go to Sandton to have a good time there. We
buy at Sandton, everything at Sandton. Sandton is a very nice
place.

Female: Alex and Sandton, they are two different worlds. It's like there
you're cream. And when you're there, you wear a nice clothes and
everything. You're cream. You're walking on nice grounds, you
know. And you're respected regardless of whether you come in a
shed place. Nobody knows you come from Alex. You know you're
respected. But the minute somebody knows you come from Alex,
you get judged.

Male: Ten minutes out in Sandton, five minutes out in Alexander, so
within the material, the space of the houses, the streets, the cars, so
it's the desire for everybody to live in Sandton.

Every day when you wake up, you want to live in Sandton.

Host: It's two worlds though sometimes people do have their doubts
which they’ve really rather living.

Female: I would live there but most of the time I would be here because
here, we know each other here. There's like that thing of knowing
each other and you feel at home when you're here even though it's
dangerous, but it's -- it's an environment that you're used to. You
use to come in here to -- you know. So there you don’t know a lot
of people. People are just close, up in their houses and everything.

Host: Extremes of wealth and poverty, the argument goes, “Need not just
to a fragment of society, but to huge precious on the world’s
resources”. And societies that is so unequal may prude on
sustainable politically too.

Male: In the long run today, it is obvious that the basic life support
systems that everyone depends on, the rich and the poor are in a
great threat. A large part of that threat is from affluence, from large
scale use for of these resources by the rich but also in part from the
damages done by poor people.

A way of life on this planet in which there are a few rich people in
a large number of poor people is not sustainable life I believe from
an ecological point of view and certainly not from a political point
of view.

Paul: I think it’s a misuse of the term ‘sustainable’ to talk about that.
We’d like to think that inequality and injustice are unsustainable.
Unfortunately, history says that’s not true. It maybe a bad thing,
but it’s not something that you should confuse. Inequality in the
world is not unsustainable the way that fishing out the entire world
such the fish is unsustainable.

Host: Does it matter if we’re more unequal if we’re also richer?

J.K.: I would have always come out for pressure, for a more equal
national and international society. Partly for reasons that have very
little do with economic, I think every civilized country should have
a few screams of anguish from the very rich.