Can Whealth Re-distribution Work?

It is not unfamiliar term in the tongues of most politicians,social activists, and people who run for different power positions depending on the systems they operate in. Questions that ring in my mind are, Can wealth re-distribution help in solving poverty issues? Is there a constant amount of wealth that can neither grow nor get reduced with time? How are factors of production contributing towards striking an equilibrium in the distribution of resources? What are some of the historical mistakes that we keep repeating that have propelled poverty to what it is in the 21st century? Can we talk of poverty as a national/international issue or just break it down to individuals at length a family but more basically a family member? If wealth redistribution has failed, what else do we have? Or are we running out of options? How can the post millennium goals help us in improving life standards of the people.

As philosopher Machiavelli puts it, "Never has anything great achieved without danger." It is that time that the word "poverty" must be done away with as it is a hopeless word that undercuts peoples potentials towards becoming economically stable. That is why there has been debates after debates on weather to talk of "third world countries, poor countries, countries in the east, developing countries etc." A name plays a lot in ones status and future expectations in prosperity. A lawyer whom we share names with once told me that if you cant live by the standards of your name then you better change it to something that suits you best. Any moment you brand a person as poor, they will live to the standards of poverty never aiming at getting out of it. Reasons: there is an automatic inequality that comes with it, there is a power imbalance and inferiority complex that develops and these are some of the characters of failure in life that can not help but worsen the economic situations of a person. So how is power and wealth redistribution tie to into all these? First, there are major assumptions that must be made when we talk of wealth redistribution. one of the assumption is that the world has hit its plateau level of wealth generation therefore the only way out is to spread these wealth to people who do not have it. second, the efforts of achieving hire standards than what we already have is surreal, the natural resources and new scientific innovations can not help improve the world economic status. So why talk of wealth redistribution then? Wealth redistribution has been widely used to climb the political platforms and to cling to power thrones. That is how much it can help. Assuming that everybody is a consequentialist, wealth redistribution can only benefit one person who is the person in power. The value created in this theory is of greater magnitude towards one person and leaving out hundreds, thousands millions and even billions who it should benefit. The people who use these ideas to sit on their mettle if asked to redistribute their wealth, non of them can and non of them will be willing to do so. There might be, but I have never heard of anybody who is wealthy who willingly redistributed his wealth to people in the lower part of the economic pyramid. People have donated to charities but this is different from wealth redistribution. Charity organizations get donations as acts of kindness and as a way of reaching out to the needy by giving alms. Wealth redistribution on the other hand is the theory, policy, or practice of lessening or reducing inequalities in income through such measures as progressive income taxation and antipoverty programs. This is a theory that has failed. So can we stop at that? Poverty must be fought, it cannot just go through dialogues and talks. It needs action and first a change of the spirit of the people. empowering those in the lower part of the economic pyramid and empowering them to get better in the scales of development. To achieve this, wealth redistribution must be done away with. People need to develop the theory of wealth generation since nobody is willing to redistribute their wealth. This can be done through introduction of small scale income generating projects at family levels in the grassroots targeting people on the ground. This can work if micro finance at this level is changed to suit those who live on less than a dollar day. For success and positive change, consumer behavioral advice must be given to the people on how to spend and invest their wealth for greater benefits. We cannot expect somebody who is leaving on less than a dollar a day to know how to use the extras he is getting when his income rockets to five dollars a day. This financial advice will help them develop more on how to be wealth generators and optimists instead of relying on non starter theory of wealth redistribution that has failed. As much as we might think that some millennium goals have failed, we might be wrong, as most of the goals were not fully met but the there is a significant change in terms of achievements. An example is free primary school enrollment especially girls', infant, health and mortality rates, there are a lot that has been done. The challenge now is how to make better decisions that will help us reach post millennium goals. These goals can be best achieved if we swing to grass-root development projects, develop wealth generating entrepreneurial ideas instead of wealth redistribution theory. Even though economists say that the worlds recources and factors of production are scarce, the earth has got potentials in the resources it rests on to support all that are living today. All we need to learn is how to generate income on daily basis not how to rely on others for distribution and relief.