Viewing poverty reduction in a different way

Poverty reduction is a global concern. Who should undertake the task of poverty reduction? Well, the answer is ready. The responsibility for reduction of poverty is either vested in the government or the well-off classes. Then the question is, who is poor and who are not? Drawing a clear distinction between the poor and the rich is not as easy as we are used to thinking. One standard definition of poverty is the deprivation of basic needs. Going beyond this basic measurement, we can think of more sophisticated measures such as poverty as capability-inequality. Whatever the measures are, all of them underline the critical message that poverty reduction is a responsibility in which only the present institutions, governments, and well-off people participate. If we compare the well-being of a simple day-labourer and a doctor, then we can say, on the basis of this comparison, that the doctor should be brought into the scheme of income redistribution policy such as higher taxation --- so that some of his income can be redistributed to the day labourer to improve his well-being. None can even imagine that the day labourer should be brought into such a scheme because there is clear proof that the day labourer is worse off than the doctor. But society is like a complex web in which each and every person constitutes a small node connected by the relation among them. The characteristic feature of this web is that it doesn't possess any end. If this is so, then the so-called redistribution policy doesn't reflect this web clearly. In the web, there is no clear distinction between the rich and the poor; there are poorer among the poor and there are rich among the poor, and similarly there are richer among the rich and there are poor among the rich. We should remember that the existence of poorer among the poor and richer among the rich is derived not from the 'perspective of relative judgement' but from the 'perspective of social complex' web to which we all belong. To elaborate, it is not true that the doctor is responsible for reducing the poverty of a day labourer, but the day labourer too has a role.  That means it is a task that must be carried out by all of us, not merely by the government and elites in our society. Let us see how we can share such a kind of concern.
Poverty reduction in most cases can be taken as synonymous with the degree of commitment. The stronger the commitment, the greater is the degree of poverty reduction, and the less the commitment, the less is the degree of poverty reduction. Commitment guides the purpose of the uses of economic resources. For example, a doctor committed to provide better service to people, especially the poor people, will use his education in medicine to help the disadvantaged. Why does he do so? The commitment that he bears in his mind guides the use of his knowledge of medicine and utilising it to help the poor. Not only the doctor, this is true for an educator, a states-person, a minister, a bureaucrat, a day labourer, a teacher, a columnist, a reader, a vegetarian, a feminine activist, a social activist, an environment activist, a corporate manager, a chief executive officer and so on. In other words, each and every economic entity in a society is responsible for poverty reduction. And the degree of poverty and inequality at any point of time can be determined by just measuring the level of commitment of the nation as a whole. It is such a powerful instrument that one can infer the effectiveness of other instruments in reducing poverty. For example, the effectiveness of the popular micro-credit model of poverty reduction can be assessed by determining its commitment to poverty reduction. The micro-credit model often turns out as an ineffective instrument not because it is a bad instrument for poverty reduction, but because it lacks the strong commitment to poverty reduction. A strong commitment to poverty reduction could have made micro-credit model a far better instrument for poverty reduction than it is now. It is true not only for micro-credit, but also for other instruments and approaches in the reduction of poverty.
Now it is clear what is meant by the relation between two nodes in the social web. The nodes are connected with each other by commitment. When an orange seller sells oranges to a fish seller, the orange seller not only sells oranges but also commitment - the commitment for mutual betterment. In the same manner, when a fish seller sells fishes to an orange seller, the fish seller sells commitment with fishes. The commitment in this sense means the contribution that fish seller brings for the orange seller and the orange seller brings for the fish seller. We can more clearly depict this in the following manner:
The figure shows that the fish seller sells fishes with commitment and it is also true for the orange seller. In economic terms, their commitment to each other is reckoned as contribution. The picture indicates that commitment is equal to contribution where the contribution is both-way directional: The fish seller and the orange seller contribute to each other while transacting simultaneously. This two-person demonstration makes our point clear why poverty reduction is a duty in which each and every person in a society must participate. It is not a task the burden of which only the elites and the government must bear and the rest will watch and enjoy benefit.
POVERTY ALLEVIATION THROUGH MICRO REVOLUTION: Poverty alleviation must happen through a micro revolution - engaging each and every person in society in the poverty alleviation task. This necessitates the analysis of the complex social web to which we all belong and reside. To reduce poverty, we need to understand at first what society is and how it works and what is the relation among economic entities. What is the relation between a fish seller and a day labourer or between a day labourer and a doctor, or between a teacher and a columnist, or between a corporate manager and a simple rickshaw puller?  What does the exchange between a fish seller and day labourer mean? Is it simply a monetary transaction in which the fish seller sells only fishes and a day labourer sells his labour, or does it imply something more than that? That is why poverty reduction must be seen through a micro revolution in which every entity participates to form a society of economic equality and justice. And we can come to organise such a revolution only when we bear a strong commitment to poverty reduction, where commitment in effect translates into social contributions.  
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