Nandy (Kelsey Hunter, Week 10 Substantive)

I found Nandy's article "The Beautiful, Expanding Future of Poverty" to be an extremely interesting read.
Firstly, he says that it seems as though poverty can not be eliminated through development due to a strange phenomenon in democratic countries. These countries will tend to ignore the poor once their is a sizable majority of people within the country who either benefit from the state or the economy. I think this statement was proven to be true to a T during the Hurricane Katrina aftermath. I believe that Americans were somewhat oblivious to the crushing poverty experienced by our own country members, not only in Louisiana but in every state and every city across America. If we had not ignored the poor, the images following Katrina may not have been so shocking or perhaps wouldn't have existed at all. This is not to say that recognition of the poor is the solution to doing something about their situation.
In the conclusion, he mentions "social deafness" and "moral blindness" that come from the psychology of the development regime. I am not sure I agree that everyone experiences this, and I would hope that I am not counted among the socially deaf and morally blind. The increasing influence of ideas such as the MDGs and increased presence of NGOs and things such as microfinance tell me that the numbers of people concerned with development (and not just increasing GDP per capita) are increasing. While it may be true that these groups in some ways exacerbate the feelings of destitution of these groups, in general I feel that more groups recognize the improvement of social as well as economic welfare as keys to eliminating poverty.

I'm not sure how to tie this reading into the broader theme of "ethics" for this week, but I think that it is important to note how morality and psychological effects of poverty, destitution, and development influence our views on what is right and wrong or what is best when it comes to dealing with issues related to poverty.