Two Different Poverty Reduction Approaches: Neoliberal Market Based Microfinance versus Social Rights Defender Basic Income

Yıl 2013, Cilt: 6 Sayı: 1, 39 - 48, 30.05.2016

Ayten Davutoğlu

Öz

Particularly for the last two decades along with the pivotal role of World Bank, microfinance has become one of the most popular poverty reduction strategies. There is a huge literature including empirical and theoretical studies on its efficiency and success on poverty alleviation. Despite this worldwide popularity, in a growing number of recent studies microfinance has been subjected to severe criticisms in that it has almost no success in solving inequality and redistribution problems deeply rooted in poverty. It has been accused of transforming the poor into the entrepreneur-client, being a poverty trap for the poor, reproducing the poverty cycle recursively and most crucially serving for neoliberalism. The first part of this study is allotted to these criticisms on microfinance policies. The main cause for poverty is lack of sustainable income. To generate this income for the poor to get out of poverty, there is one other alternative that has started to gain more interest in poverty reduction circle namely basic income. Basic income departs significantly from the microfinance model in that it is an income-generation suggestion based on the premise that the fight against poverty should be carried out within the context of social rights and inequality. This paper also aims to focus on the alternative paradigm of basic income poverty reduction by making a brief comparison between microfinance and basic income favoring the latter over the former.

Anahtar Kelimeler

Microfinance, neoliberalism, poverty, basic income, social rights.

Kaynakça

• Bateman, Milford (2003) '"New Wave" Micro-finance institutions in South-East Europe: Towards a more realistic assessment of impact', Small Enterprise Development, 14(3): 56-65.
• Bateman, Milford (2006) The Informalization of the BiH economy and the role of the Microfinance model paper prepared for the Economic Policy research Unit (EPRU) Seminar "Balkan Economies: Studies on Nopn-Standart Phenomena" September Sarajevo, Bosnia.
• Bateman, Milford &. Chang, H., (2008) The Microfinance Illusion. University of Juraj Dobrila and University of Cambridge: Mimeo.
• Bateman, M. (2010) Why doesn't Microfinance Work? The Destructive Rise of Local Neoliberalism. New York: Zed Books.
• Bohle, Dorothee & B. Greskovits ( 2007) Neoliberalism, Embedded Neoliberalism, and Neocorporatism: Paths towards Transnational Capitalism in Central-Eastern Europe, West European Politics, Volume 30, Number 3, May , pp. 443-466(24).
• Cammack, Paul (2010) "The Evolving Agenda of 'Poverty Reduction': from Structural Adjustment to Universal Competitiveness" Posted on June 1, Paper presented at the annual meeting.
• Chowdhury, Anis (2009) Microfinance as a Poverty Reduction Tool— A Critical Assessment DESA Working Paper No. 89 ST/ESA/2009/DWP/89 December
• Dichter, Thomas (2010) Too good to be true the remarkable resilience of microfinance, Harward International Review Spring.
• Drake, Deborah and Elisabeth Rhyne (2002) (eds.) The Commercialization of Microfinance: Balancing business and development, Bloomfield, CT: Kumarian Press.
• Feiner, Susan F. & Barker Drucilla K. (2006) "Microcredit and Women's Poverty: Granting This Year's Nobel Peace Prize to Microcredit Guru Muhammad Yunus Affirms Neoliberalism" Dollars and Sense.268 2189-2210.
• Fernando, Jude (2006) "Introduction Microcredit and Empowerment of Women:blurring the boundary between development and capitalism" In Microfinance: Prospects and Perils ed. by Jude Fernando New York Rootledge.
• Forst, Rainer (2010) The Justification of Human rights and the basic Right to Justification: A reflexive Approach. Ethics 120(4) 711-740.
• Hhandakar, Elahi (2004) Microfinance and Third World Development: A Critical Analysis, Journal of Political and Military Sociology, Summer.
• Karim, Lamia ( 2011) Microfinance and Its Discontents: Women In debt in Bangladesh USA.
• Ledgerwood, Joanna (1999) Sustainable Banking with the Poor (Project) Microfinance Handbook: An Institutional and Financial Perspective, World Bank Publications.
• Otero, Maria. (1999) Bringing Development back into Microfinance, Journal of Microfinance, Vol 1, pp.9-19.
• Prahalad, Coimbatore K. (2005) The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid: Eradicating Poverty Through Profits. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Wharton School Publishing.
• Raventos Daniel (2007) The Material Conditions of Freedom, London, Pluto Press
• Roy, P. Sarathi (2009) Microfinance: A Neoliberal Perspective, Network Quarterly Publication of IRMA January - March 2009, Vol.13, No.1.
• Stiglitz Joseph E.,(2002) Küreselleşme,Büyük Hayal Kırıklığı, Çev.Arzu Taşçıoğlu Deniz Vural. İstanbul, Plan B Yayıncılık.
• Şenses, Fikret (2009) Küreselleşmenin Öteki Yüzü: Yoksulluk, Kavramlar, Nedenler, Politikalar ve Temel Eğilimler, İletişim.
• Tobin, Sarah A. (2005) "Microfinance in neoliberal times: The experience of an EgyptianNGO"ThesesandDissertations.Paper887. http://scholarcommons.usf.edu/etd/887
• Young Brigitte, (2006) The Normative Power of Ideas in Microfinance Discourses: From Microcredit to the Commercialization of Microfinance Paper prepared for the st GARNET Conference Global Financial and Monetary Governance, the EU, and Emerging Marker Economies, Amsterdam University, September 27th-29th.
• Weber Heloise(2006) A Political Analysis of the PRSP Initiative: Social Struggles and the Organization of Persistent Relations of Inequality, Globalizations June, Vol. 3, No. 2, pp. 187-206.
• World Bank, (2009) Banking The Poor: Measuring Banking Access in 54 Economies, World Bank Publications.
• Yunus, Muhammed (1999) Banker to the Poor: Micro-Lending and the Battle Against World Poverty New York: Public Affairs.