The End of Poverty? (2008)

French Filmmaker Philippe Diaz, in an illuminating documentary [The End to Poverty?] traces globalisation back 500 years to the Spanish and Portuguese conquests of the Americas. Diaz shows how the colonial North used the South's resources to build its industrial base and how its continued control over resources, global trade and debt rules prevents developing countries from ending poverty. The title is a play on a book by economist Jeffrey Sachs - without the question mark - who, Diaz told IPS, "runs all around the world with Bono and these guys claiming that if we bring mosquito nets and fertilisers, it will end poverty..." Aside from seeing solutions in agrarian reform, tax system changes, and an end to natural resources monopolies, Diaz calls for de-growth. That's not just eating or driving less, bu t creating another way of living to avoid what he predicts as the coming resource war when the poor rise up against their repression.
IPS - November 14