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We live - or so we are led to believe - in an era of post-modern affluence. History has ended and all is well with the world as the commies have left the stage and we only have a few fundamentalists to mop up with surgical strikes.

Even the news headlines are beginning to doubt this truth as stories of market dominated economies crashing around the globe dominate popular consciousness.

Such headlines rarely concentrate on the less salubrious story of how the other half lives in a world of so called affluence and consumerism.

The 9th annual Human Development Report which has surfaced this week paints some of the reality but seems to have missed the headlines. The focus this year is on consumption - or lack of it.

The report confirms that the last two decades have seen little change in the world order of the haves and the have nots. Still, today, 86% of expenditure for personal consumption is accounted for by 20% of the population whilst the poorest 20% consume only 1.3%.

Such bold figures, the report reveals, hide many variations both within borders as well as between. Even in the developed countries the percentage of those who are defined by the report as poor can rise as high as 17. Here it is the USA which registers highest in the scale of 'human poverty'.

At the same time as having to maintain such inequalities, at the other end, the report states, 'A child born in New York City, Paris or London today will consume more waste and polution in a lifetime than as many as 50 children in a developping country.'

Canada, the US, Norway and France hit the top of the Human Development Index (HDI) whilst the bottom slots are occupied by Burundi, Mali, Bukino Faso, Niger and Sierra Leone. And indeed the situation has deteriorated over the last two decades with industrial countries seeing a 2-3% increase in consumption over the period whilst the average African household consumes 20% less. Here, in the developping countries, we learn that 60% lack basic sanitation, 33% have no drinking water, 25% have inadequate housing and 20% have no health service.

History had better have a future.

lingvoj
11th September 1998

CATEGORY	PPP	HDI	COL	Cars	Consumption	Population
USA	100	94	100	56	10,815	28
Germany	89	92	121	48	5,791	48
Australia	77	93	95	46	7,586	2
Italy	76	91	91	50	4,029	190
UK	72	92	109	36	5,586	239
South Africa	16	71	70	-	2,697	34
China	8	59	104	-	861	127
Zimbabwe	8	59	54	-	660	29
Bangladesh	5	36	65	-	93	836
Zaire	2	38	-	-	660	19

Key.
1/ GDP per head in Purchasing Power Parity (US=100)
2/ Human Development Index
3/ Cost of living New York=100
4/ Number of Cars per 100
5/ Consumption per head kg. coal equivalent
6/ Pop per sq km.
(source: The Economist: World in Figures 1997)

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