> humanity could progress faster if we focused instead in eliminating poverty, creating more possibilities for everyone...Those with the wealth and the power to change this, don't have an interest in spreading out welfare and therefore making themselves less wealthy and powerful in the process, but enriching themselves or at least maintaining the status quo, and that usually comes at the expense of keeping those less fortunate where they are.
A lot of goods and services that we take for granted in the west, like commodities in our daily lives: cheap cocoa, cheap coffee, cheap exotic fruits, cheap sneakers and clothing, cheap electronic gadgets, all rely on an underclass of less fortunate people who have no choice in life but be prisoners in a neo-slavery system where they have to work in their given conditions for the give pay, with no way up or out.
Please google and check out the human exploitations going on in cocoa and coffee farming at your own discretion.
Do you think the kids and adults working on those farms for pennies in the beating sun and bitten by mosquitos, wouldn't rather do something else with their lives than picking coffee beans, like go to school/university and work in an office? But if we would spread welfare for them to have that choice, who would then choose work in those bad conditions for nothing to provide western consumers with cheap commodities? Robots aren't even remotely there yet. Same with mining minerals to make iPhones, PlayStations and EVs.
If we were to make their lives and jobs fair while also watching over the environment, then the price of commodities would explode, so the mega conglomerates who own these markets, like Nestle or Apple for example, would have to take a missive hit on their profits, or the western consumers would have to stomach the explosion in prices, or both simultaneously, neither of which are acceptable trade-offs in the west, so we keep the status quo of having to rely on perpetual underclasses of people slaving away in poverty for us, while pretending we're great humanitarians and benefactors.
I said "we" here, because it's not just the great evil billionaires like Bezos, Jobs, Saudis, and so many others who profit from and enable this exploitation, but also the western governments like US, Switzerland, Netherlands, etc. where they're HQ but have the audacity to lecture them on human rights and environment concerns, plus the individual shareholders, employees, taxpayers and consumers who enable them as well.
Sure, a lot of people in poor nations got out of poverty "thanks" to globalization and mega conglomerates outsourcing of less desirable manufacturing and services there, but let's not forget they didn't do this out of the goodness of their hearts, but to extract even more profits. People getting out of poverty was just a happy side effect.