ending poverty

OK, I know that it is highly atypical for me to post twice in one day, let alone one right after the other, but my last post made me remember a shower thought* I had the other day.

For as long as I can remember, "world peace" and "ending poverty" were the classic Miss America desires for all politicians to work towards. Eradication of world hunger usually made the list, too. Whether or not any of the three is truly doable in a real world situation is a matter for debate other than the one that concerned me while lathering. Without further preface, here goes:

If we were to truly end poverty worldwide and bring all people in all nations to a standard of living that the average American/European would find to be basic, what other problems would result? For instance, if all child labor ended as a result of wages being brought up for adults and those children were able to engage in more leisurely activities (school, for one), what would that do to the world's markets? Would enough rice be produced? Would there be a global devaluing of education in a generation akin to what has happened in the United States in the past half century? If all people were given the ability to live in housing that met Western standards, what increases in energy consumption and refuse production would result?

Basically, my shower thought ran a line of reasoning that led me to an uncomfortable conclusion: the world as we currently know it needs poverty to exist, to horrific extents in many places, in order to support the entire population of the globe at current standards of living. To do otherwise invites the major problem with communism: if even a small group of people choose not to comply with the system, the system will collapse.

*I don't know about you, but much of my best thinking takes place during the short amount of time I spend each day depleting the local groundwater supply.