[user104658]

Originally Posted by Zee

It's a rather simplified and not exactly congruous way to look at it I know, but I just see the continued desperation in Africa as a scaled down version of how the "first world" operates - you have a very small group of people with all the wealth and power who are determined to keep everyone else (relatively) poor to continue their way of life as the rich elite. Take away vast amounts of money (though certainly not in every case, looking at Mugabe as an example given in this thread) and it's the same concept - a small powerful elite keeping everyone else poor in order to maintain their grip on being a powerful elite.

Completely correct; take the USA as a prime example. They don't have children dying every day of starvation but they do have many hundreds of thousands of children living in relative poverty. They also have countless people dying every year of curable ailments because they can't afford treatment.

The USA is also home to over 50% of the world's multi-billionaires.



To use a scaled down and more local example; there are working families in the UK choosing between eating a decent diet and keeping their homes warm in winter. Meanwhile, politicians earning over £60k a year are claiming fuel expenses for their homes and thinking nothing of it.