The Brandt Line: Two Different Realities

Everybody has already heard the word "inequality”, which means difference. I would like to write an essay about global inequality. People briefly define Third World Countries those which have an underdeveloped economy. It is a known fact that underdeveloped countries are predominantly located in the southern hemisphere. There is as an imaginary line called the Brandt Line that divides the world, separating developed from underdeveloped countries (reference.com). The northern part of the world includes countries with the most industrialized economies which have access to plentiful resources such as United Kingdom or France. This can be contrasted to the South, excluding Australia, New Zealand and South Africa, in which its population is growing at a much faster rate than the resources they have acquire. Their economies are usually based on subsistence agriculture and the export of raw materials (nationmaster.com). The division between the Northern and Southern hemispheres has a relationship of subordination, which has its roots in colonialism and the new problems posed by globalization. The main cause of these differences was colonialism. Countries like Africa that had previously been conquered and were colonized by different empires had a very disrupted economy which left them in a state of underdevelopment. Following these countries’ independence, which was obtained by most countries especially in the twentieth century, they failed to take the straightest path to development, because the ruling class abruptly left those countries, causing huge delays in the socio-economic field (encyclopedia.com). In addition, the mother country that conquered the colony exploited it, transforming raw materials into finished products and selling them to other countries globally for mass profit at the expense of these countries. For example British and French people had developed mining activity towards third world underdeveloped countries. This meant that there was a lack of money circulating in those underdeveloped economies. Because of the past, these countries are still paying a high price: it prevents their citizens from having a good life,  decreasing their social conditions, and therefore leads them to a life of poverty. Developed and underdeveloped countries have corruption in common. At the same time, because of poverty, they differ in many aspects.

First of all, there are political and structural features that make it difficult to deliver effective help to underdeveloped countries. Very often, those countries are ruled by authoritarian corrupted elites. For instance, almost without exception, these governments are very far from what we would call a democracy. Lack of a free opposition and media unable to speak freely make it possible for the people in power to use the available resources, primarily money, for personal purposes. This in turn, boosts corruption that reaches levels unthinkable of in our countries, although corruption is an endemic evil in all societies. To strengthen their control of power and of the available resources, these governments devote significant parts of their GDP to buying weapons for their armed forces. For example, Africa spends $34 billion a year to buy weapons from Russia, China and the U.S. (Rizzo). Such purchases, in turn, bring further corruption. Even if without political issues in developed countries, there is still a high rate of corruption. Italy is now ranked equally corrupt as Senegal, Montenegro and South Africa, with which it shares a lowly cleanliness score of 44 out of 100 ( The Local ). Corruption is a big problem that has been around since the beginning of society. Because it is including politic and social security, it will be difficult to destroy. For example, a few years ago, the ex-Mayor of Rome was impeached for corruption because probably he was involved in the Mafia. Because of corruption, many innocent people face problems that don’t belong to them, so that the socio- economic issues are still strongly present in countries. This sad reality is going to affect everyone especially people of lower classes, because they don’t have enough sources and financial funds to overcome problems. Money issues are spread all over the world and those issues are a common problem for all countries. Therefore corruption has raised the social gap, increasing other problems within each society.

Secondly, there are many countries that do not have enough natural resources to offer their citizens all that they need to live. This means that these countries should import products from other countries, but this requires a lot of money that they don’t necessarily have, causing further debt. The other structural problem that makes it difficult to overcome some poverty problems is logistics. Transfer of crops, meat, milk and the like from the northern part of the world to the south of the planet requires skills and infrastructure, distribution techniques that  are not available in the receiving countries as it would be required. We should remember we are talking about Third World countries, which have difficulty in accessing to the world market. For example, many areas in the deserts tend to have long periods of drought, so that agricultural production drops drastically and leads to insufficient food levels to feed the whole population. 23 million primary school-age children don’t have enough food in Africa ( afp.org ). On the other hand, developed countries have more natural resources, such as water, fields to farm, mines, and so on. They especially benefit from their economy being based on industry, which is a great economic source for each country. Also, thanks to less extreme climates, the industrial areas have had more opportunities to increase their economy.  Companies like Wal-Mart has a revenue of 469.9 billion dollars and a profit of 4.12 billion (Meoni). It is evident that a sum of money equivalent to that could  help feed many people for a long period of time.  Another important difference between the Northern and the Southern World that increases the hunger in poorer countries, is the difference in demographics. In underdeveloped countries there is a high birth rate. More people means more food.

Thirdly, a poor economy not only has hunger problems, but also lacks knowledge about how to eradicate poverty. The importance of education is crucial because it fosters to a greater income and favors the transition