Thom Hartmann: Welcome back, 20 minutes past the hour, Thom Hartmann here with you. Will we ever see the end of poverty? A new documentary is out, it’s opening in Portland on December 4th for those of us, for those of you who are listening on AM620 KPOJ here in Portland. And I’m assuming all across the United States, TheEndOfPoverty.com is the website and Philippe Diaz, the writer and director is on the line with us. Philippe, welcome to the program.

Philippe Diaz: Thank you for having me, it’s very nice to be here.

Thom Hartmann: Am I pronouncing your name right.

Philippe Diaz: Yes that will be fine, don’t worry. I’ve heard everything so you’re good.

Thom Hartmann: Okay, Philippe, the, in the End of Poverty, this is narrated by Martin Sheen, this documentary, you’re suggesting that poverty is not an accidental circumstance, that it was brought about very methodically and that it is maintained by institutions whose public purpose is to end poverty and yet whose private purpose is actually to maintain poverty. Am I encapsulating that well?

Philippe Diaz: Well, I think you’re making me sound a little bit like a conspiracy theory person, which I’m not at all.

Thom Hartmann: Well, I’d say they’re doing it right out in the open.

Philippe Diaz: Right, right. No, but I tried, you know, I think that people understand today fairly well that the organization like the World Bank and the IMF can play a negative role. What I don’t think they understand is that it’s not something they started like 20 years ago. This is something which started with the beginning of globalization and the beginning of globalization is 1492. I’m talking about modern time, of course. That’s what…

Thom Hartmann: Well arguably you could, I mean I think you could push this all the way back to the epic of Gilgamesh. You know, 7000 years ago in Sumeria or to the Roman empire.

Philippe Diaz: Right.

Thom Hartmann: I mean we’re simply repeating these cycles of conquest, domination, empire and, you know, in order to maintain empire you have to have a small wealthy ruling class and a large poor class.

Philippe Diaz: Absolutely. But I think it was important, I think for the people today it is important to understand what’s going on in the world today. You know I think it’s, we entrapped ourselves in a system that was built, starting in 1492, where in fact, the conquista.. you know when the Europeans, actually our ancestors, started to expand very brutally, you know, and went to conquer Latin America, Africa, and so on.

Thom Hartmann: Right.

Philippe Diaz: Because we built a system that today cannot function without the resources of the sun. You know, if today, let’s say all the countries of the south unite and say we will not give you access to our resources anymore, the economies of the north collapse immediately. America, Europe, you know, Korea, Japan etc. So I don’t think it’s a conspiracy, I don’t think at all it’s the conquistador master plan for the 500 years to come. I think that, you know, we, you know, it was a not really well thought system which brings us to the fact that today as one of our experts says in the film, we are consuming 30% more than what the planet can regenerate.

Thom Hartmann: Right.

Philippe Diaz: So you know, so, of course, until we thought, until 50 years ago when we thought that the resources of our planet were unlimited it did not really matter for, let’s say the traditional orthodox of economy, of economists. You know, they thought that, well, it doesn’t matter what we take because at the end of the day when this country need to develop they will have plenty of resources to do so. Now we know it’s not the case. And we know that, which means that if you want, because of the world population increases every year, it means simply that for us to maintain our great lifestyle, our level of waste, our level of consumption, we’ll have to plunge more and more people below the poverty line, in the countries of the south. It became a mathematical issue, it’s not a political issue or an ethical issue or anything like that. It’s a mathematical issue.

Thom Hartmann: Sure. Yeah. And you look at the population curve, I mean we were 1 billion people in 1800, our second billion only took 130 years, 1930. Our third billion only took 30 years, 1960. Our fourth billion only took 14 years, '74. Fifth billion took 13 years, 1986. 6 billion, 11 years, 1999. Um, there had to be some way to extract the, to maintain that and to have a system that could extract wealth from that growing population I suppose.

Philippe Diaz: Absolutely, and what we did in the last 500 years, we just changed the tools. Now we are not taking these resources by way of the gun or way of the cannons which were loaded on the boats of the conquistador, we take them by economical tool. It’s why, you know, I needed John Perkins for example to be in the movie because he’s this "Confessions of an Economic Hit Man". He’s this former hit man who explained how he created these fake artificial debts for the countries of the third world, you know. And we just changed the tools. Now we use the wrong tax system, the unfair economic trades, the, of course, the structural adjustment of the IMF, the loans of the World Bank, etc., etc. But because we entrapped ourselves. Again, we cannot function without these resources. And of course, the movie ends with a card which says that 18000 children die every single day from poverty-related causes. It’s clear that more and more will die every day if we don’t change our system. There’s no …

Thom Hartmann: Well, and that’s the question for the last minute or so that we have here. We’re talking with Philippe Diaz, he is the writer and director of this brilliant new movie, “The End of Poverty.” TheEndOfPoverty.com the website for showings and times and places and all that sort of thing. Um, rolls out here in Portland on December 4th in the Living Room Theaters. Um, what is the end, how do we bring about the end of poverty, Philippe?

Philippe Diaz: Well it’s, at the end of the movie we bring a lot of solutions. So there are different levels of solutions. There are political solutions, for example we have to help all of these countries to bring agrarian reform. We have to change the tax system in the world, like for example in the 20th century tax shifted from property ownership to labor and consumption. There should never be taxes on labor and consumption. There are a lot of political solutions like that that we explain. But I think the most important one is this expert who explained that unless we start to degrow, you know degrow, and stop to have a system based on growth for the sake of growth, we will never find a solution. Because, again, if we are consuming 30% more than what the planet can regenerate it means that if we continue the same way we will arrive to a massive explosion, where, it won’t be like the real estate bubble, that’s…

Thom Hartmann: I’d say in many parts of the world we’re already there. I mean you’ve got starving populations all over the world. For them the end has already come.

Philippe Diaz: Absolutely. And you know it’s what creates, you know, social unrest, terrorism, resource war, etc., etc. But unless we change our system, it will continue, it will become more and more dramatic and more and more people will die every single day because of us.

Thom Hartmann: Right. Very well said. Philippe Diaz, the movie “The End of Poverty.” The website, TheEndofPoverty.com, check it out. Philippe, thank you for being with us today.

Philippe Diaz: Thank you.

Thom Hartmann: Great speaking with you.

Transcribed by Suzanne Roberts, Portland Psychology Clinic.