There is need for world development because there are over 600 million people living in the poverty and only 25% of countries in the world are classed as developed. All the other developing countries share problems these are a high level of malnutrition; as even though the world produces enough grain to enable every human to consume over 3000 calories per day 80 % of this is used only by the developed world. 3rd world countries also have a high level of illiteracy this is due to the large amount of debt that the countries s of the developing world are in. This has lead to the campaign to abolish world dept. Another thing that all 3rd world countries have in common is the lack of clean drinking water facilities because of this over 25 million people die each year from water borne illnesses. Another problem associated with the 3rd world is that there is a lack of medical care. This combined with the poor water facilities lead to serious health problems. All these problems together clearly show that there is a major need for world development.
A teaching that both Jews and Christians shear is that many strict members of both religions give 10% of their financial earnings each year to charity and aid groups. In this way religious aid groups such as Christian aid are funded. These groups carry out a verity of work associated with world development, such as build churches, missionary training canters and, more recently, factories that produce medicines, in countries that cannot afford to import the medication. . Christian aid also provides aid during emergencies such as floods, earth quakes, and wars. The work is carried out by church going volunteers and students. World development is needed so that all people get an equal chance in life.
Jewish tradition has always been aware of the importance of allowing poorer people access to loans. Indeed, in Maimonides’ famous description of the eight levels of charity, the highest level is lending money to, or going into partnership with, a poor person so that they can become self-supporting. In biblical times, the laws of the sabbatical year and the jubilee were created. In the sabbatical (seventh) year there was to be a remission of debts: “At the end of every seven-year period you shall have a relaxation of debts, which shall be observed as follows. Every creditor shall relax his claim on what he has loaned his neighbour; he must not press his neighbour, his kinsman, because a relaxation in honour of the Holy One has been proclaimed.” (Deuteronomy 15). In the jubilee (50th) year, land, which had been sold to pay of debts, was to be returned to its original owners, and slaves were to be freed. This is told in the book Levticus between chapters 24 & 25. The sage Hillel maintained a spirit of this tradition in Talmudic times, even as he radically altered the law. He created the law of the prosbul to ensure that commercial credit would still be available even just before a sabbatical year. The great academies of the time accepted that the poor needed to have access to credit, but also that lenders were right to expect it to be paid back. But through all this legislation, biblical and rabbinic, it is clear that one aspect of lending and borrowing money was completely forbidden — the charging of excessive interest. We must assume that the sages recognized how easy it was for interest to escalate and ruin people. In modern times we know that reasonable rates of interest are essential to enable normal financial life to continue.
I do not agree with the quote “There should be no rich people in the world as long as there is poverty in the world”. I believe this because if there where no rich people, the whole world would be living in poverty. Economically there would be little money as no one would have enough money to pay any one or invest, so no new money would be produced, and so there would be no way that any one could get out of poverty, similar to the great depression of the 30’s; There would be no richer people who would be able to finically support poorer people and pull them above the poverty line. There would be no houses r power or any of the luxuries that we enjoy to day, civilisation would repress to the stone age as I have mentioned earlier: there would be no incentive to work as there would be no one who could afford to pay wages of any sort, because wealth does not only come from money, it could be in the form of food, clothes etc.
There Christian teaching on wealth is that riches are not a bad thing, but Jesus stated that the difficulty that rich people, who would not help others, would have getting into heaven. On the other side of the argument it could be said that wealth corrupts, and the people that have it often only ant more and will not willingly give away their money to any man, woman, child or charity. As the old cliché say “Absolute power corrupts absolutely”.
