Wealth and Poverty Are One

My busy week is done and so I finally have some time to write a blog entry. I’ll give you a little recap and then go into some of my thoughts and reflections from the week. On Wednesday night I got a chance to go see the world finals of the Red Bull Streetstyle competition which is a combination of soccer juggling and break dancing. It was located in downtown Cape Town at what will be the fan park for the World Cup when it is here. All I can say about the actual competition is that it was incredible. The guys competing really had some serious skill, mixing juggling while standing up, sitting down, lying down, and in a handstand, with all kinds of breakdancing moves and stalls. It was also very exciting because a South African made the final pairing so the crowd was going nuts. He ultimately lost because he had a bad round in the end. The guy who won was from Norway and he was also very good though. He won it because he performed a triple around the world. That means that he kicked the ball with his foot and then spun his foot around the ball 3 times before touching the ball again. It was absolutely insane.

On Thursday, we had a full day session of our service learning class with an organization called the CDRA. This is an NGO which seeks to provide consulting and assessment tools to other NGOs. They originally began to serve organizations around the Cape Town area, but they soon got requests from other locations and now operate to advise organizations worldwide. Our session with them was to discuss how development is defined and what it looks like practically. It allowed our class to engage with the ideas of what it means to be a white American working in these contexts and other philosophical issues inherent in the practice.

One of the things that we discussed at the CDRA has really stuck with me through the rest of this week. He made the point that wealth and poverty are one. One doesn’t exist without the other and both of them are problems. Both illustrate a way of living that is not how humans are meant to be. Our state, marketplace, and civil society are all built on the idea that the greatest use of human potential is for gaining wealth. Is that really the best use of human potential? If people act as if that is true, then poverty is created as those with more naturally take advantage of those with less. So often we talk about the problem of poverty, but very infrequently do we talk about the problem of wealth. I am not saying that people who have accumulated wealth because of their profession are necessarily the problem. I am trying to say however that keeping more than you really need is a part of the problem. Something I have really been learning here is that wealth doesn’t yield happiness. I have met many people through my time here who make very little money, often less that R200 a month (less than $30 USD), who are happy despite their condition. At the same time, they shouldn’t have to live like that when others have gained way more wealth than they need to survive. Ultimately you cannot separate both of these extremes. Wealth and poverty are one.