Poverty and politics has long been seen as quite related. Political power influences the magnitude of poverty. At least it is quite famous here in India. But certainly, poor people have never enjoyed political power and conversely, powerful people never have been poor. And, the people who live poorly even after being in political power, we call them modest not poor or poverty stricken. That certainly means political power is inversely proportional to poverty. Not all can be given political power but certainly autonomy or a more horizontal distribution of power can certainly affect magnitude of poverty in a positive way. The most poor nations definitely have a rigid vertical distribution of power.
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I agree this post because our country was forced a coup by the military government during 1962 to 2008. During that time, the political power totally is in the hand of the military government. That is why, our country has encountered many sanctions of US and the European counties at that time. Due to the effect of that period, our country has downgraded the economy and was recognized as the least development country in the world.
But the poverty is also related with the education of the country. For example, Thailand country is also forced a coup many times by the military. But the economy is not effected totally by it because Thailand has a bit strong education and there are many human resources to balance.
I would slightly disagree with you over this, Ameya. Poverty and political power may have certain inverse correlation but I would still debate the causality. You see, political power is sometimes gained by playing certain poverty cards as well in a complex way. Take for example, reservation, which can be extended example of direct correlation between two.
In my opinion, you are taking backwardness and poverty to be alike. There is quite a difference between backwardness and politics. poverty is strictly in economic and material terms and is a distinct sub-set of a super set i.e. backwardness which includes social, educational and economic spheres. The reservation politics or any politics in that context has been debated on "social backwardness" pertaining to a long history of caste discrimination. If it had been on strictly poverty, it would not have been a this much complex issue. Even the major argument against reservation and it's politics is to give on the basis of economic and financial capabilities.