Transcript

A third of workers, internationally, earn less than $2 a day.

The World Bank sets the poverty line at $1.25 a day, and on that basis asserts that poverty is declining.  But is that right? Where did that figure come from?  The New Economics Foundation estimates that it should be set at $5 a day, and others suggest $10.

Craig Barfoot talks to Dr Ben Selwyn Senior Lecturer in International Relations at Sussex University about his book the Global Development Crisis.

Rejecting the idea that ‘the poor’ need to rely on benign assistance, and that the market provides the answer, Dr Selwyn puts forward the view that the capital/labour relationship is the reason most of the world’s workers are poor, and advocates labour-centred development – where ‘the poor’ (the global labouring classes), and their own collective actions and struggles constitute the basis of an alternative form of non-elitist, bottom-up human development.

You can catch up with Ben Selwyn lecturing at Sussex in this YouTube video: here

This book pod is produced and presented by Craig Barfoot.

Tags: Globalisation, International Development, Poverty, Poverty line, World Bank