Society and Culture

Economics vs. Culture - How Katrina Helped the Poor

By Dweep Chanana ⋅ April 25, 2006 ⋅  Email this post ⋅ Post a comment

The Asia Times is carrying a story on how Katrina did for the poor of New Orleans, what China’s growth, and urbanization, is doing for its poor (Katrina and China’s whirlwind growth). It points out a New York Times article that says:

the average evacuee has landed in a neighborhood with nearly twice the income as the one left behind, less than half as much poverty, and significantly higher levels of education, employment and home ownership…The best way to improve the lot of poor people is to move them out of poor regions into rich regions.

It is an interesting, read. But such ‘improvements’ are not without cost:

• Of course, the traditional culture of New Orleans will disappear, like most of the traditional cultures of the world.
• Perhaps 90% of the world’s languages will disappear during the next century. One is more likely to encounter KFC chicken or Domino’s pizza in downtown Shanghai than the recondite and elegant cuisine that bears the name of the city.
• Many beautiful things will disappear because poor people no longer will suffer to make them.

This is a trend one sees in India too. With urbanization and modernization, one looses traditions to the pressures of a modern life. Joint families are dispersed. Traditional foods are bought off the street, not made at home. Sarees give way to jeans and shirts.

It is funny, though, to read this sitting in Switzerland. Weeks ago, the French were fighting to preserve their way of life, protesting a law that brought about (some) labor flexibility, in the face of economic reason. In Switzerland everyone pays a high price for everything, because they prefer to have their cheese and eggs made locally.

So is this good or bad? That, perhaps, is missing his point. Sure, more money may not make the poor happy. But:

What it will do, however, is enable them to contemplate their unhappiness with a sense of empowerment. People with money, education and opportunity may be as miserable as any illiterate dirt farmer, but they have the means - how did Thomas Jefferson put it? - for the pursuit of happiness. Whether they choose good or ill is not up to this writer. But it is a vicious form of condescension to condemn people to perpetual poverty in the name of preserving traditional culture.

I wonder what the masses clamoring for empowerment will do, once empowered.