A hand up

In his Sept. 3 column “Hard to Swallow,” Jacob Levin characterizes the Oxfam Hunger Banquet as putting forward “an oddly Marxian message” that one’s social status is determined by pure chance and that there is no way to change one’s position.

I appreciate Mr. Levin’s reminders that many people have worked their way up from poverty and that wealth is not a zero-sum game. However, let’s not forget that many people are born into horrible poverty and face huge barriers to advancement.

Many children in developing countries are raised in families that have no land, no assets and no access to regular employment. These families often cannot provide their children with adequate food or medical care and can’t afford the fees charged for primary school enrollment. Their children often grow up sickly, illiterate and with few channels for advancement. Poor people want a better life for their families. The best foreign aid programs support them in that quest.

For example, micro-finance programs have now made tiny loans to tens of millions of very poor people so they could start and grow their own businesses.

Once people have some capital, they can use their own hard work and intelligence to work their way out of extreme poverty. This is hardly a “Marxian” intervention.  But without that first loan, many remain stuck in poverty.

Programs to prevent or treat diseases like AIDS, malaria, polio and tuberculosis can keep people healthy enough to work. Programs that help developing countries do away with school fees could enable the 75 million children who are not now in school to acquire a basic education.

People can and will work their way out of poverty. But most of them need a hand up.

Programs like the Hunger Banquet remind us that more than a billion people live on less than a dollar