Click here to see which theaters are screening The End Of Poverty?. You can also go to their official website to learn more about the film, director Philippe Diaz, and how you can get involved in real solutions to help combat poverty.
I've seen this film and think highly of it, though I see its major contribution as in raising questions rather than answering them. Might I suggest that you take a look at two websites created by the Schalkenbach Foundation, which funded the film?
The first is http://www.povertythinkagain.com/ which provides a Georgist -- that is, after the ideas of Henry George -- perspective on the film, and the second is http://whyglobalpoverty.com/contents/ which offers a companion book; see also the http://www.schalkenbach.org/ website and bookstore.
Henry George's ideas are vital to any useful understanding of why we have poverty, and how we might go about ending it. Most of the "solutions" we hear about today -- including the Millennium Development Goals, microcredit, foreign aid, etc. -- are nibbling at the leaves of poverty, not hacking at its roots. The film "The End of Poverty?" shows the roots, but only hints at how to hack at them.
To get to the root and eradicate it, the quickest route is exposing oneself to Henry George's ideas. His landmark book, "Progress & Poverty" is one source; his speeches, including "Thou Shalt Not Steal" and "The Crime of Poverty" are two good starting points. George speaks to issues of privilege, of monopoly, of natural resources and that most vital resource: urban land. Our failure to treat the value of these resources as our COMMON treasure lies at the root of an amazing range of problems we face today, and which most people consider intractable: poverty, joblessness, sprawl, sustainability, boom-bust cycles in our economy, wealth concentration, income concentration, to name a few. They are not intractable, if only we take off our blinders. George will do that, and I commend his work and ideas to your attention.
And this film will also open the eyes of many viewers, I hope. Searches on "quotable notables," "quotable nobels," "lvtfan" and "wealthandwant" will provide you starting points.
Fri, December 11, 2009 
Reader Comments (1)
I've seen this film and think highly of it, though I see its major contribution as in raising questions rather than answering them. Might I suggest that you take a look at two websites created by the Schalkenbach Foundation, which funded the film?
The first is http://www.povertythinkagain.com/ which provides a Georgist -- that is, after the ideas of Henry George -- perspective on the film, and the second is http://whyglobalpoverty.com/contents/ which offers a companion book; see also the http://www.schalkenbach.org/ website and bookstore.
Henry George's ideas are vital to any useful understanding of why we have poverty, and how we might go about ending it. Most of the "solutions" we hear about today -- including the Millennium Development Goals, microcredit, foreign aid, etc. -- are nibbling at the leaves of poverty, not hacking at its roots. The film "The End of Poverty?" shows the roots, but only hints at how to hack at them.
To get to the root and eradicate it, the quickest route is exposing oneself to Henry George's ideas. His landmark book, "Progress & Poverty" is one source; his speeches, including "Thou Shalt Not Steal" and "The Crime of Poverty" are two good starting points. George speaks to issues of privilege, of monopoly, of natural resources and that most vital resource: urban land. Our failure to treat the value of these resources as our COMMON treasure lies at the root of an amazing range of problems we face today, and which most people consider intractable: poverty, joblessness, sprawl, sustainability, boom-bust cycles in our economy, wealth concentration, income concentration, to name a few. They are not intractable, if only we take off our blinders. George will do that, and I commend his work and ideas to your attention.
And this film will also open the eyes of many viewers, I hope.
Searches on "quotable notables," "quotable nobels," "lvtfan" and "wealthandwant" will provide you starting points.