Poverty

"Live Free and Starve" by Chitra Divakaruni suggested that disallowing factories to hire children would be a worse fate for the kids than the current state of their lives. The author brought up points that pulled at the heart strings but failed to provide substantial evidence for her argument. After reading the article I was still not convinced that instituting a law of sorts that protected child rights would have a great negative impact. I was left pondering the possibility of such a law and if it were real would monopoly that factories have take a blow? Would they not be forced to hire adults or raise the individual wages? The work must be done, someone has to do it, and I have a feeling there would not be a shortage of able workers who are not children but rather the care takers of kids. I do agree with a point that she brings up, even if it is to be used as a straw man. "A Bill like the one we've just passed is of no use unless it goes hand in hand with programs that will offer a new life to these newly released children." I sincerely agree with the author, things of that nature need to be addressed by the UN. Peter Singer wrote an article on the topic on poverty titled "The Solution to World Poverty" that addresses the issue of poverty from a slightly different angle. He makes the argument that every working adult in the modern world has the potential to help bring an end to world poverty. "For a household bringing in $50,000 a year, donations to help the world's poor should be as close as possible to $20,000." The large figure comes after subtracting approximately $30,000 for necessities; the rest goes to charity. With the argument given by Singer, anybody who does not give this extremely is consciously committing murder. In the way he described the situation of giving and morality I found myself agreeing with his argument. On the other hand, I do not think every human with the opportunity has the obligation to attempt saving the world. Towards the end of his article he states that we must not try denying we do not have the ability to end poverty for many but rather to realize it and accept it as truth. I agree with this, the capability to donate $20,000 is available but we don’t do it and often have no problem with that. We should not try and make excuses.

With the second article I realized mid-way through that I was becoming very agitated with the author and his article. I agreed with the majority of what he was saying but was still irritated. Quickly, I understood why. The style of writing Singer used reminded me of a classmate who has the tendency to irritate me. After realizing this I tried to not let it completely color the way I was interpreting the article or Singer's points that he laid out.