2015: The year the pyramid bottoms out
The phrase ‘bottom of the pyramid’ was first used in 1932.
It was coined by Franklin Delano Roosevelt during a radio address that called for more attention to be given to building the economy “from the bottom up and not from the top down, that put their faith once more in the forgotten man at the bottom of the economic pyramid.”
I discovered this fact earlier this afternoon as I was doing some research for a vision statement. I was struck by a few things:
- This phrase doesn’t match up with the world we live in anymore (if it ever did). We need a better way to talk about the ~4 billion people who make up this bracket — this catch-all term does not properly articulate the diversity of such a huge amount of people in vastly different cultures and locations (often within the same country). Using the imagery of a pyramid to describe the economic position of people living in a hugely complicated global marketplace ties into an easy-fix mentality that ignores the complexity factors mentioned above.
- It is strange that such a vital contemporary topic relies on such an outdated phrase. Inequality is arguably the great public debate of our age. The idea that the entire world and everybody on it are interconnected through global commerce was painfully brought to the wider public consciousness back in 2008. How is it possible we are using a phrase about America in the 1930s to discuss these issues?
- We’re playing out old battles. The quote above from FDR could be contemporary, sadly, which is perhaps why we’re stuck with his terminology. But the struggles are different — they are much less nationalised, they are being played out on a much vaster scale and we have a huge array of new technologies that are helping people to deal with them.
We should have a better way of talking about poverty and about these vital, worldwide issues that alter how much people have to eat or whether they can go to school or even how much it costs to fill up your car.
I propose we update the term using a thoroughly modern method: crowdsourcing. Medium is an amazing source of smart people — why not ask you guys to come up with some new ideas?
Use #redefiningBoP on Twitter to send your suggestions. I look forward to reading them.
Update 2015.01.13:
I posted a blog covering the online discussion I ended up having on this topic as well as some learning.
Resources
Some great articles about this issue:
- Lean vs fat economies. The Atlantic
- If not the ‘Third World’, then what should you say? NPR
- Developed vs Developing — why we need to do better. Development Intern
- The End of the Developing World. New York Times
