Essay on Poverty in South Africa 

All around the world countries are faced with domestic challenges to improve life for their citizens. One of the biggest problems that these countries face is poverty. There are many causes and effects of poverty in every country and implementations to reduce or eliminate it in severe areas. Issues are increasing with no definite idea on how to truly diminish poverty.

Trying to reduce or eliminate issues in countries has its boundaries and must be observed in its own way. Looking at a country like South Africa poverty is a domestic issue that can be combated. Poverty in urban and rural areas in South Africa can be reduced through the help of trade liberalization, productive knowledge, and the understanding of informal land markets. South Africa’s, economic and political history dating back to the beginning of the 1900s, suggests the early government’s unethical and immoral behavior in its system and policies of apartheid, keeping those oppressed to never find salvation.

South Africa’s, position currently has been set up by an early capitalist economy. Those who are now affected by this seem to have no way out of impoverished urban and rural areas. Looking at the data and findings suggested by other scholars’ comes the understanding of this information to one day apply it to areas in poverty. Remember people who were born into poverty struggle to make a living and don’t have proper form of education because the lack of state involvement I certain areas. Looking at how the best way to pull urban and rural areas out of poverty is to look at its current economic position applying new laws and policies, opportunity for use and much more for effective long-term improvements.

These fall under the strategies to defeat poverty but to understand how we can change the economic structure of South Africa there needs to first be an understanding of trade liberalization Trade liberalization can improve South Africa’s economic status and be beneficial to their financial growth. South Africa, over the past decades have been struggling to find a neutral, yet beneficial position of trade liberalization. Technical factor, productivity, and the reduction of tariff recorded data suggest possible solution to how South Africa can reduce poverty rates, increase the positive impacts on micro economy and welfare gains.

All the positive outcomes for South Africa’s economy are collected and distributed across a long-term effect rather than short term. The of use complex algorithms that gather specific information that may seem limiting, but non, the less provide data of short and long-term effects of trade liberalization being subjected to 4 specific scenarios of trying to reduce poverty. Trade liberalization can help to the reduction of tariffs of imported goods and change in trade policies. There needs to be an increased protection on industries looking to increase wealth so that with time they may be able to compete in global markets without these protections (Mabugu et al., 259).

Excessive wages are one of the reasons why unemployment is so high. Where people are getting paid more than they should, but even then, the amount they earn still doesn’t qualify them to meet housing, transportation, and nutritional needs (Mabugu et al., 259). The four recordings of data represent the changes in GDP and reduction of poverty. South Africa’s, situation with unemployment rates and such have shown a decline in skilled and unskilled labor. Tariffs are an important aspect of the reduction of poverty, as it may or may not decide the total capital South Africa’s economy may see and its prices on exports and imports. The position S. A is now having to be identified because there must be a bases underlining future decisions that should be made in order to help S. A regain its economic integrity within itself and other external countries.

The data given explains which is best to follow according to S. A situation/relationships mentioned earlier. The economic wealth and poverty of a town can be correlated with the population’s relationship with productive knowledge. Talk about the economic wealth of the countries affected by poverty. Urban areas that lack in productive knowledge won’t have the ability to help themselves get out of poverty. Productive knowledge is something that cannot be taught or obtained through books or schooling, it is much in a sense related to a person’s experience. The important thing about urban areas having a high productive knowledge is that it’s correlated to enterprise richness, which then equivalates to that area’s wealth/ poverty status. Trying to generate a strong economy is tough when small, low populated urban areas don’t show any promise of rapid growth. Population plays a role in towns ability to generate opportunities to increase enterprise and enterprise types. Population sizes in towns dictate enterprises ability to generate wealth because the more people needed for each enterprise indicates a level of poverty therefore reflects the lack of productive knowledge the people have in being able to multiple enterprises (Toerien, 66).

Another disadvantage people in poverty face is that larger towns that do grow rapidly won’t have trouble with trying to generate wealth because of their ability to manage so much more enterprises. The strategies to hopefully act against low enterprises in towns would be to create more that are already present and introduce new ones that haven’t been successful in other towns. Although a small piece of advice it could potential be very useful in the long run. Looking where those who don’t have the opportunity to create or manages these enterprises, we can more thoroughly look at informal land markets that quite possibly could improve very impoverished areas.

Through the analyses of informal land markets can be understood in their own terms to understand how it’s relationship towards the state and communities in which formal/informal land markets are transacted between parties then can be fully recognized and implemented to reduce urban poverty. What needs to be done about urban poverty in South Africa is the regeneration of wealth across it’s affected states. There is a way to this, but the idea and practice of informal land markets have been discredited by the state being practiced.

Most people who do this are in low income communities. By first understanding what informal land market are will it then help to understand why it can be harnessed to generate wealth and reduce poverty. Informal land markets are properties of land that do not abide by the policies and laws of the state (Marx, ). What this means is that people who find unoccupied land can claim it for themselves and try to establish this informal ownership of it seeking to create wealth. This unorthodox approach to reducing poverty has been frowned upon in a sense for what it is rather than what it could mean for the future of urban communities. The formalization of informal land markets has shown no promise towards achieving low poverty rates, but it can, if applied and understood correctly. What needs to be understood is that informal land markets have sets of theoretical challenges. These need to prevail in order to see informal land markets in thier own terms.

Next, understanding these theoretical challenge’s similarities and differences in their focus of analysis allow to find possible solutions towards urban poverty. Looking at a way to analyze informal land markets in their terms rather than their relationship to formal land markets is challenging, but they can both be used together in a sense. To approach this, we need to understand what legalist and structuralist are and their approach towards informal land markets. Legalist approaches are based on the view that divisions in society between formal and informal practices are legal and bureaucratic rather than the structural outcome of the economic and political forces in society.

Next a Structuralist approach are more concerned with the informalities of political economies and the structuring of these social and political dynamics of the economies in specific and exploitive ways. Legalists want to find ways to reduce poverty using informal land markets but there are some constraints because of structuralist approaches and the state’s absence identified by legalist. The constraints that can be more thoroughly explained is that these terms can be used together so that there can be more involvement of the state in informal land markets (Marx, 339). Trying to do this would be difficult and would come to no prevail because informal land markets do not obey the formality and would otherwise be addressed by that other than its ability to generate wealth in its economy.

Another solution that can work is by changing the relationship with agencies from the state with informal land markets. Marx argues that informal land markets are imbedded in a broader regulatory environment where the state is just an external factor and that this is what’s acknowledged legalist. Simply, informal land market must be understood for its purpose of generating wealth for low income communities rather than changing its informalities because of the state’s responsibility to exercise their laws and policies. By changing the states view on informal land market can only then people in urban poverty be reduced.

Two legalist approaches can help with this because of their practicality if considered embedded into a broader social environment by the state and structuralist. Communities in poverty to create these informal land markets, but they must do it because their state does not offer any form of development, so matter must be taken into their own hands. The first approach is to clarify informal land markets by the state and changing their relationship towards that. A study done by Marx draws on recorded markets in informal settlements that have unregistered lands across South Africa.

These three private lands are Durban, which hold 862 households, Ekurhuleni holding 3129, and Cape Town 4565 (Marx, 344). These strict residential areas have numbered shacks built from plastics to metal sheets, and the analysis shows them full of informal land markets, but the numbering of shacks is done to establish some type claim on their informal property. Just to get an idea of how much these purchases are done across settlements in South Africa a study from Marx expresses the percentage of households informally purchasing and renting land, where 28 percent in happens Durban, 38 percent in Ekurhuleni settlements, and 15 percent in Cape Town (Marx, 344). Residents do this to establish some sort of claim of their informal land hoping that if asking the state can provide some sort of future development, resulting in a stronger claim towards these residents.

According to the case studies, “The longer that people had to wait for development without any apparent change in their claims to property, the weaker they perceived their claim to be” (Marx, 345). The second approach is to lower transactions of informal properties because it can increase market failure and cause people to make even more informal transaction. To change this reducing land market transaction can alleviate poverty. In further research by Marx: There were Clear ways in which state actors were reducing transaction costs by creating assurances between the parties and legitimating exchanges. One example is the involvement in an informal settlement of the local ward councilor providing an assurance of the bona fides of the seller’s property rights and hence the legitimacy of the sale. States need to use the potential of informal land markets and reduce their cost of transaction so that residents in urban poverty can have a way out of this neglected system. Informal land markets need to be integrated into political and economic situations and need to be practiced and understood in their own term in order to reach the potential of reducing poverty in South Africa.

Considering the situations created by early capitalist powers, trade liberalization, productive knowledge, and understanding how informal land markets are steps that should be practiced by impoverished urban and rural areas. The evidence given provides mostly long term effects. Nonetheless change needs to be made in these areas because since the exploitation South Africans in the early 1900s do we see a conquest of agricultural land being taken from by capitalist powers leaving Africans without land and pushing them deeper into poverty at the same time establishing an apartheid society. This would involve in the segregation of colored and non-colored Africans or Africans (Christie and Gordon, 400). To get an idea of just how mistreated Africans were in the early 1900s a Carnegie investigation was done on both poor whites and poor blacks.

What was surprising was how almost both were receiving the same treatment in mistreatment. Recorded was how easy it took poor whites to get out of poverty. In just 45 years poor whites declined majorly from poverty due to the help of the political system (Christie and Gordon, 404). There is a huge gap of inequality here that still to this day hasn’t been fully addressed. For problems to be solved there needs to be a level of understanding so that strategies can be implemented to create change. What needs to happen for South Africa, more specifically their impoverished areas are the combination of economic growth and redistribution of state policies (Christie and Gordon, 404). Other changes should be included are changes in job creation to raise employment levels, provide public investment in infrastructure. Altogether these strategies given would be to the building block in really eliminating poverty in South Africa.