Poor might benefit from appetite for goods

We stand in the middle of the greatest boom the world has seen - and perhaps on the brink of a tremendous fall

We stand in the middle of the greatest boom the world has seen - and perhaps on the brink of a tremendous fall. But even as economies in South-East Asia and Russia teeter, and stock markets grow jittery, we should not forget the extent of the recent economic miracle.

Since 1975, the global consumption of goods and services has increased six-fold, as the latest Human Development Report points out. "People are consuming more in food, energy, education, transportation, communication and entertainment than ever before. They are also living longer and enjoying greater personal freedom because of better access to health services and education, productive resources, credit and technologies."

Consumption, says the administrator of the UN Development Programme, Mr Gus Speth, is a "runaway train". Even in poor communities, demand has exploded. What was considered a luxury 20 years ago is now a necessity: a car for France's middle-classes, a wrist-watch for every rural family in India, a refrigerator for every family in China.

Some economists say this expanding universe of consumption cannot continue. But in the absence of the predicted "big bang", many in the "small is beautiful" lobby have crossed sides to claim their share of the dividends of consumption.

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The latest is UNDP, which now proclaims consumption as "the life-blood of human advances" and hopes this runaway train can be used to drag one billion people out of poverty.

This is a "somewhat free market view", admits the principal author of the report, Dr Richard Jolly, and one which non-governmental organisations have been slow to accept. But he says it offers a "message of conditional hope" to those most affected by the negative effects of consumption, such as pollution, environmental degradation and the disappearance of resources.

But unless patterns of consumption are changed, the poor who never benefited in the first place will be the first to suffer. For example, the poorest one-fifth are responsible for just 3 per cent of carbon dioxide emissions, yet many live in low-lying regions that are most vulnerable to the rising sea levels associated with global warming. Egypt and Bangladesh would shrink dramatically; the Maldives and Tuvalu would disappear beneath the waves.

UNDP wants consumption patterns that reduce environmental damage and protect consumer rights. Pollution should be taxed, energy subsidies removed and advertising more strictly regulated.

The report contains a mass of mind-boggling and appalling statistics. How can the richest 84 people be wealthier than China, with its population of 1.2 billion? How can the West spend more on pet food than the world needs for basic health and nutrition?

But there is also a thoughtful contribution by the veteran economist, Mr John Kenneth Galbraith, which cuts to core truths on the poverty debate. For Galbraith, who 40 years ago published the classic study of Western materialism, The Affluent Society, the problem of poverty is "not economics; it goes back to a far deeper part of human nature".

"As people become fortunate in their personal well-being, and as countries become similarly fortunate, there is a common tendency to ignore the poor. Or to develop some rationalisation for the good fortune of the fortunate."

Responsibility is assigned to the poor themselves, Galbraith writes. "The fortunate individuals and fortunate countries enjoy their well-being without the burden of conscience, without a troublesome sense of responsibility. This is something I did not recognise writing 40 years ago."

But this is not "the full story". Decolonisation left many countries without effective self-government. "Nothing is so important for economic development and the human condition as stable, reliable, competent and honest government. This in important parts of the world is still lacking. Nothing is so accepted in our times as respect for sovereignty; nothing, on occasion, so protects disorder, poverty and hardship."

Galbraith calls for "a larger sense of common responsibility" for those suffering from the cruelty of bad government. "Sovereignty, though it has something close to religious status in modern political thought, must not protect human despair."