Vandana Shiva Quotes

Latin America has not achieved the development that it deserves... I'm not optimistic for all of Latin America, not only for Central America.

Much of the conventional analysis of India's stature in the world relies on the all-too-familiar economic assumptions. But we are famously a land of paradoxes, and one of those paradoxes is that so many speak about India as a great power of the 21st century when we are not yet able to feed, educate and employ all our people.

Yes, over the centuries economic progress has reduced some gross disparities - modern Americans are relatively unlikely to simply starve to death (though it can happen), so in that sense the gap between rich and poor has narrowed. But the question isn't whether society is, in some sense, more equal than it was in 1900. It's whether it is radically more unequal than it was in 1970. And of course it is.

So far from being an isolated phenomenon the late war is only an example of the disruptive result that we may constantly expect from the progress of science.

There are many countries in the world that when they reached the middle-income stage, they witnessed serious structural problems such as growth stagnation, a widening wealth gap and increasing social unrest.

Progress and Poverty was the most closely knit, fascinating, and convincing specimen of argumentation that, I believe, ever sprang from the mind of man.

Western–style redistributive programs-progressive taxation, social security, unemployment insurance-should be encouraged, but at least in the short run, they have limited potential. There simply is not enough to tax, and nearly no one can be trusted to transfer revenues.

More people in more countries, both developing and developed, have experienced larger increases in living standards than in any prior fifty year period.

Reducing poverty is a political challenge. It involves overcoming class-based interests in inequality and it requires effective institutions to deliver resources to and create opportunities for the poor, frequently in the face of local opposition. When poor women are the target of these kinds of interventions, resistance can be even more intense than opposition to pro-poor measures…. Notions of gender equality are profoundly counter-cultural in many societies …. Efforts to promote women’s equal entitlements to resources and equal opportunities to flourish in their productive and private lives encounter considerable social resistance. This resistance is often shared by development workers - from the top-level decision-makers to the "street-level" workers who implement policy

China still faces mountains of problems. Some are historical legacies. Others might be the byproducts of our rapid development…. We still have a long way to go. Maybe it’s even good for individuals or nations to have a certain sense of insecurity. This can turn into motivation to work hard.

Economic inequality is a corrosive force that undermines economic growth, puts a brake on the fight against poverty, and sparks social unrest.

In going to America one learns that poverty is not a necessary accompaniment to civilization.

Capitalism with near-full employment was an impressive spectacle. But a growth in wealth is not at all the same thing as reducing poverty. A universal paean was raised in praise of growth. Growth was going to solve all problems. No need to bother about poverty. Growth will lift up the bottom and poverty will disappear without any need to pay attention to it. The economists, who should have known better, fell in with the same cry.

The heart of the matter, as I see it, is the stark fact that world poverty is primarily a problem of two million villages, and thus a problem of two thousand million villagers.

You have to be interested in inequality. The issue of inequality and that of poverty are not separable.

Progress is more plausibly judged by the reduction of deprivation than by the further enrichment of the opulent

Let us consider under what disadvantages Science has hitherto labored before we pronounce thus confidently on her progress.

Making rich people richer doesn't make the rest of us richer.

The measure of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much, but whether, as Franklin Roosevelt said, we provide enough for those who have too little.

It’s innate in me to be a Democrat — a true Southern populist kind of Democrat. There’s not a lot of those anymore. I’m not saying I’m right or wrong. That’s just the way I feel. The issues that matter to me are the social safety nets for people, health care, middle-class concerns. We need to take care of the middle class and the poor in our country. The chasm is getting larger between haves and have-nots, and that’s something we need to close down a little bit.

Every optimist moves along with progress and hastens it, while every pessimist would keep the worlds at a standstill. The consequence of pessimism in the life of a nation is the same as in the life of the individual. Pessimism kills the instinct that urges men to struggle against poverty, ignorance and crime, and dries up all the fountains of joy in the world.

Even in the era of the first black president, racism is still the most intractable issue in USA. Regarding poverty, half of all Americans are either in or near poverty. Poverty is certainly worse for African-Americans now than it was during King's lifetime.

The first thing that you need to deal with is the issue of equity and poverty.

The rich know not how hard it is to be of needful rest and needful food debarred.

In Guatemala, the gap between rich and poor must be eliminated, or we will continue to be the example of conflict in America.