John Berger: Poverty Engineered by Rich
on Saturday, May 23, 2015John Berger Money Quotation saying the wealthy are engineering poverty and imposing it on the world – it isn’t naturally caused by lack. John Berger said:
“The poverty of our century is unlike that of any other. It is not, as poverty was before, the result of natural scarcity, but a set of priorities imposed upon the rest of the world by the rich” — John Berger
In this quote, author and art critic John Berger is analyzing global poverty in the late 20th century from a critical perspective. His view is that contemporary poverty diverges from historical scarcity-driven deprivation in that it is no longer due to genuine lack, but rather is a direct result of economic priorities and systems imposed by wealthy nations and groups.
Berger implies that surplus abundance exists to alleviate want on a world scale, yet political and corporate interests have structured international relations, trade, and resource allocation in a way that concentrates prosperity disproportionately among the already-rich.
His perspective suggests global poverty persists not from any natural lack of provision, but as a consequence of priorities and power dynamics that privilege profit and control over basic welfare and need. The quote conveys Berger’s belief that modern poverty stems from imposed inequities rather than absolute scarcity.
Birthday: November 5, 1926 – Death: January 2, 2017