Poverty: all people being equal versus getting people out of poverty

The misery of poverty to an individual citizen does not need any further elaboration. Poverty is the most prominent political economic issue of our time. This chapter explains alternative proposals to reduce or even eliminate poverty. A continued growth in economy can reduce the number of people under the poverty line. Underneath any such success lies the continuing advances in technology. India, China, South Korea, and many others have witnessed the drastic poverty reduction through this mechanism. As for India, the number of people under the poverty line was as high as 60%, which declined remarkably to 10% at the present. An equal redistribution of the wealth of the nation is often proposed as another way to reduce the poverty, but a reasoned analysis as well as experiences have revealed severer consequences of such redistribution on the economy, politics, and poverty.