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Population and Poverty: Malawi
- James G Danaher (2 October 2007)
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Achieving health equity with more liberty, wealth, and ethics.
- Anonymous Cuban professional (5 October 2007)
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James G Danaher, Retired NHS GP 33 Ashby Road Ravenstone Leicestershire LE67 2AA
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Population and Poverty: Malawi “In Malawi the standard of living (daily calorie consumption) is perhaps the lowest that ever existed in human history. This is a consequence of medical advances which allow population to increase even during chronic famine.”1 The population increase in Malawi in consequence of these medical advances is dramatic, as can be seen when we compare the demography of Malawi and Ireland. The land area of Malawi is not all that greater than that of Ireland (94,080sqKm to 68,890sqKm)2 and in 1950 their populations were about the same. The United Nations low estimates3 for their populations are: Ireland 2.9 million in 1950; 3.8 million in 2000; and an estimated 5.3 million in 2050. Malawi 2.8 million in 1950; 11 million in 2000; and an estimated 27 million by 2050. Ireland is prosperous. Malawi is poverty-stricken and semi-starved, and will remain so for the foreseeable future. Many factor contribute to these differences, but a major factor must be that the population increase in Ireland is small, and the population increase in Malawi is huge and unmanageable. Sadly, over the last fifty years, almost no one has wanted to be involved in the difficult task of providing Malawians with effective family planning. 1.Charlton, Bruce G Capitalism is a force for good. BMJ 2007;335:628 2.CIA World Fact Book 3.www.unpopulation.org Gerald Danaher 33 Ashby Road Ravenstone Leicestershire LE67 2AA jgd@gerrydanaher.com Competing interests: None declared |
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Anonymous Cuban professional
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I thank the BMJ Editors for publishing the Maryon-Davis’ editorial (linking the WHO Commission on Social Determinants of Health’s Interim Statement), and the Charlton and Danaher’s comments,[1-4], which I shall comment as follows. The WHO commission statement,[1-2] is very comprehensive, rigorous, and positive, but it did not discuss some of the causes of the causes of ill-health. For example: Terror and lack of ethics as poverty are bad for health; and liberties, wealth, and ethics are the things that can cure the remainder terror, poverty, social and health inequities, ill life and health in the developing world. It could be discussed the need of the observance, verified by the correspondent United Nations (UN) Commission, of all the human individual economic, civil and political liberties and rights, as crucial factors of remaining social and health inequities and ill life and health in poor countries. It could be also debated also the historical role of capitalist wealth growth reducing the great feudal inequities between few rich and huge poor classes through a gradual increasing equity toward the overall wealth mean within the middle class. Formerly, most of the world’s people of middle and rich classes now were poor with inequities. Had a free and moderate China retained its two million political exiles, which have moved to Taiwan since 1949, it might now be as integrally advanced with free information technology (IT) as Hong Kong or Japan. Similarly, a free and peaceful Russia, and free and united Korea and Cuba, would have been as developed with free IT as the US, as South Korea or Singapore, and as Iceland (table) or South Florida, respectively. Socialist China’s state capitalism from 1978, without individual liberties for all, more in the North West and Central regions, is achieving much wealth, but it is not curing its terrified civil society, misery, equity at the bottom, health inequities, and ill life and health. If Malawi and other poorest countries could implement a modern capitalism system improving their institutional legal, economic, social and political chaos, as happened in Ireland and other affluent countries since 1750, the high birth rate Malawi has would freely decrease by the spontaneous planning of the families by themselves. Whether this is so clear, why near a hundred of poor countries still are retarded in different degrees of primitive feudalism, non capitalist and capitalist stagnation? In the last century, while the UK, US and most developed countries were working hard and spreading spontaneously economic wealth, social prosperity, technology, science, trade, and political democracy worldwide, Russia and their satellites were, and some still are, recruiting developing countries, conspiring, imposing an inverse globalization, re-tyrannizing and re-impoverishing the world with social fallacies.[5] The world has advanced thanks to democratic capitalism, liberating humanity in more than 50% from despotic governments and in more than 60% from the generalized famines, poverty, epidemics and inequities still in the mid-1700s.[6-8] These achievements could be better known by the world’s poor if are discussed there too. The trial of the Soviet totalitarian-terrifying socialism has failed everywhere to satisfy the basic individual liberties, rights, needs, levels and quality of life and health, according to the UN and WHO integral definitions. Social democrat and socialist programs in the developed Europe, Canada and Asia-Oceania, respecting individual rights and socially distributing plentiful wealth are very different things, although is uncertain, if the growth rhythms in the long-term could be able to maintain them. Cuba, once advanced,[9] since 1959 has 99% of natives living, working and aging equal in a watched over and terrified civil society, as ‘cattle’ with low infant and infectious mortalities and high longevity, due to its specially preserved capitalist trends for propaganda purposes. Natives are captive in re-impoverished cities and villages, hungry, indoctrinated, psychopathic and corrupted (‘owned and spurred on’ by aristocrat ‘red’ families and cronies monopolizing all liberties, wealth, first-class living and health standards as the foreigners), suffering a worse equity at the bottom than the Cuba of 1750. The only way to decrease the great social and health inequities that remain in the poor non capitalist countries is through a capitalist human development, because the socialist human involution compels to the great feudal inequities again. In Sub-Saharan Africa, it was proven decades ago that socialist involution needed a basic capitalist growth and infrastructure, and enormous subsidies that any country had. All the UN agencies and their 200 country members and teams have had very difficultly to resist the Russian, Chinese, Cuban and allies massive ideological subversion, misinformation, and pressures.[5] It is the hour that the UN agencies and countries face and assume a clear position before the ideological division and chaos that these retrograde countries still promote in their assemblies and commissions. The ancient hopes of the great religious leaders, and thinkers as Plato, Moro and others, to calmly reduce the social and health inequities, in spite of the hate and violence instigated by the Marx and Lenin’s doctrine of envy, enforced by bellicose followers to seize the wealth of our countries, have been gradually materialized with more liberty, wealth, and ethics perfecting the free market economy in the last 250 years. This author has enough intra-national and international evidences analyzed to scientifically and statistically support a broader exposition of these comments, if necessary. Thank you. References: 1. Maryon-Davis A. Editorials. Achieving health equity for all. BMJ 2007;335:522-523. (accessed 3 Oct 2007). http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/335/7619/522 2. Commission on Social Determinants of Health. Interim statement. Achieving health equity: from root causes to fair outcomes. 2007. (accessed 3 Oct 2007). http://www.who.int/social_determinants/resources/csdh_media/csdh_interim_statement_07.pdf 3. Charlton BC. Capitalism is a force for good. BMJ 2007;335: 628-629. (accessed 3 Oct 2007). http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/335/7621/628-b 4. Danaher JG. Rapid Response. Population and Poverty: Malawi. BMJ 2007 (2 October 2007). (accessed 3 Oct 2007). http://www.bmj.com/cgi/eletters/335/7621/628-b#177491 5. Anonymous Cuban Professional. Rapid Response. UN and WHO Leaders could Welcome a Bioeconomic-Psychosocial Paradigm. BMJ 2006 (15 November 2006). (accessed 3 Oct 2007). http://www.bmj.com/cgi/eletters/333/7576/1015#149265 6. Landes DS. The Wealth and Poverty of Nations: Why Some Are So Rich and Some So Poor? 1st Ed. New York: W.W. Norton Co. & Inc., 1999. 7. Fogel RW. The escape from hunger and premature death, 1700–2100: Europe, America, and the third world, 1st Ed. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004. 8. Sachs JD. The End of Poverty. Economic Possibilities for Our Time. 1st Ed. New York: The Penguin Press, 2005. 9. Anon. Cuba's delayed transition needs. Lancet 2006;368:1323. (accessed 3 Oct 2007). http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140673606695445/fulltext Table Relation of freedoms with economic and IT growth in some countries
Sources: 1. Groningen Growth Development Center. Total economy database; Angus Madisson historical statistics database, 2007. (accessed 3 Oct 2007). http://www.ggdc.net/ 2. Heritage Foundation. Indexes of economic freedom. WCAS, 2007. (accessed 3 Oct 2007). http://www.heritage.org/research/features/index/countries.cfm 3. United Nations Development Program. Human development index tables, 2007. (accessed 3 Oct 2007). http://hdr.undp.org/hdr2006/pdfs/report/HDR_2006_Tables.pdf 4. Freedom House. Freedom in the world 2006. Annual global survey of political-rights and civil-liberties, 2006. (accessed 3 Oct 2007). http://www.freedomhouse.org/uploads/pdf/charts2006.pdf
Competing interests: None declared |
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