Idea

An idea that might just end poverty.

There are many people in South Africa who are rich and who can share those riches with those not so fortunate who have not been able to conquer poverty. — Nelson Mandela

Two hundred years ago Karl Marx presented his own economic system.
Marx had realised some fundamental flaws in capitalism and so he proposed an alternative system to capitalism that would abolish the “every man for himself” ideology.
His system proved extremely unpopular though it is now the base ideology of many modern communism and socialism countries.

One hundred years after Karl Marx, came George Orwell.
George Orwell had started out as a advocate for socialism during the Russian Revolution but ultimately changed his mind and released the book Animal Farm which was opposing what he had once fought for.

Animal Farm was a metaphor for the Russian Revolution and exposed how there truly wasn't any difference between the elitist czars and the Russian’s new system of communism; how elitism had never been removed, it just had a different face.

I am not a supporter of socialism, communism, elitism or pure capitalism.
I believe that socialism and communism are unjust to those who work harder than others and that they don’t encourage creativity.

I believe that pure capitalism endorses elitism and allows wealth inequality to thrive. I also believe that it is unfair to those born in improvised conditions.

Now my proposition will coincide with capitalism, but it will not be pure capitalism. Instead you can call it a mixture of socialism and capitalism with capitalism being more prominent.

Even in the 21st century poverty stills exists and I can no longer stand that. It brings shame to all humans that we sit carelessly sit watching television when there are children dying of starvation.

After much research I have found a system that surprisingly is over one thousand years old. It can not only help stop poverty but also save money if implemented.

Over one thousand years ago in what is now Saudi Arabia, a man from the ruling Qureishi Tribe appeared; his name was Muhammad. Muhammad brought the religion of Islam, which was supposed to be the last true Abrahamic religion.

Islam spread like wild fire across the world and became the second largest religion.

Islam brought an obligatory charity system called Zakat (Alms) which was supposed to end poverty.
Each year Muslims must pay 2.5% of any money that they have had for at least a year. If they have money but they haven’t held that for one year then they don’t have to pay Zakat.

For example, if you make $100k a year and spend money here and there but during that whole year you have held a minimum of $20k in savings you must pay 2.5% on that.

A 2012 study by the United Nations found that Muslims donate up to One Trillion Dollars each year in Zakat which is 15x the Global Humanitarian Aid contributions in 2011.

A recent study from 2013 by ICM research found that Muslims on average gave $600 in Zakat each year.

Now this is where I propose my idea.
If we could modernize Zakat into a Tax that only applies to those who can afford it we truly could end poverty.

Not only would this abolish poverty but it would also help the homeless get off the streets.

It would actually save the government money; with less impoverished citizens and less people on the streets this would lower crime rates meaning less money spent on prison systems.

Now the tax would have to be strictly enforced so the rich wont be able to try and hide their money overseas and evade the tax.
We would also have to make sure that people don’t try and scam the system.
Lastly we would have to make sure that this Alms Tax is only imposed on those that can afford it.

As I said before, the average donation in Zakat is $600 a year. On average at least two hundred million US citizens are considered “well-off”.

If each of those citizens gave $600 dollars a year to charity, 120 Billion Dollars would be collected and sent to the impoverished.

Now you may be wondering how it will be sent to the poor and what is considered “poor”. For someone to be considered “poor” they will need to be under the poverty threshold and/or not have basic necessities (food, water, etc..) and/or lastly not have housing, in that case money should be provided for housing.

Some people may say that the homeless and impoverished will just waste the money and this is a real concern.

Recently the state of Utah realised that the price of ER. Visits and Jail for the homeless people was about $16k per person and compared to $11k for housing and a social worker.

With this intelligence, the state began giving away apartments with no strings attached. Each participant in Utah’s Housing First program also receives a case worker to help them become self-sufficient, but they can keep the apartment even if they fail.

They found that by doing this they not only decreased the homeless rate by 78% but most of the participants ended up getting stable jobs and drug-free.

I think we can take Utah as an example to show that even if some of the precipitants of the money do waste it, overall the government will still save money!

While this is idea is slightly similar to the Robin Hood Tax it has some fundamental differences.
It will only apply to money that has been accumulated for over a year and should only be paid each year instead of on every transaction.
If it was done on every transaction like the Robin Hood Tax, it would victimize those that cannot afford it [the tax] and that would just make the situation worse!

This tax will also focus only on poverty instead of public services which I think gets more than enough money (In the US anyway) especially the NSA which gets $10bn per year but that's an argument for another time.

Now accompanying an Alms Tax is another idea that also comes from the Muslim world.
Islam thoroughly encourages Muslims to give money to charity.

On a recent trip to the United Kingdom I passed trough Dubai. I spent a few days there and what I found was pretty shocking.

Donation boxes such as these can be seen all through out Dubai and most of the time they’re full. We need to bring this culture of charity to the west, it is a shame to all western countries that we’re lacking in such a great ideology!

In most if not all malls that I visited I saw a large box for donations. In over 70% of shops that I visited I saw small boxes for donations in them.

If we could provide incentives to shops (maybe a percentage of the donations) to have these boxes it would be an extremely great amount of help contributed to the poor.

In conclusion I am suggesting that we try to implement incentives for shops to have these boxes and that we implement a modernized Alms Tax to end poverty and once the poverty in our own countries is gone we can start investing overseas.