There is an inherent instability in capitalism — cycles of boom and bust lead to human misery. The asymmetric relationship between corporations and the people who make them profitable leads to income and wealth inequality. Wages remain stagnant, while corporate profits go up. Millions knock on doors looking for jobs with no success, while the economy’s superstars take home seven-figure salaries. Political representatives debate imposing tax on the highest earners while ignoring the unemployed. Economic pundits, especially those developing poverty reports, consider financial crises, recessions and inflation time-bound, unaware of the fact that these financial woes push millions into the poverty trap. The 2014 Human Development Report released Thursday by the UN Development Programme (UNDP) has overlooked this phenomenon yet again. There is a considerable agreement in the report that poverty rises because of discriminatory treatment of vulnerable sections of society, but there is a lack of appreciation of the fact that this vulnerability is inherently part of the system and creates class differences. Approximately2.2 billion people worldwide are “poor or near-poor”, according to the UNDP report. The 85 richest people have as much wealth as the 3.5 billion poorest. The latest Human Development Index (HDI) included in the report reveals that almost 1.5 billion people in 91 developing countries are living in poverty with overlapping deprivations in health, education and living standards. According to the report entitled “Sustaining Human Progress: Reducing Vulnerabilities and Building Resilience”, the risk of nearly 800 million people falling back into the poverty trap is imminent if setbacks occur. Women and migrants are the most vulnerable groups in this respect. The report has asked nation states to take collective global actions in response to vulnerabilities to secure human development progress. UNDP Administrator Helen Clark wrote in the foreword to the report: “By addressing vulnerabilities, all people may share in development progress, and human development will become increasingly equitable and sustainable.” The report recommends universal access to basic social services, especially health and education; stronger social protection including unemployment insurance and pensions; and a commitment to full employment with the fact in mind that the value of employment goes far beyond the income it generates. Corporations work for profit and the powerful. They automate, outsource jobs, and replace higher-paid workers by recruiting domestic and foreign substitutes willing to work for less. These normal corporate actions generate rising poverty as the other side of rising profits. For the UNDP to ignore these facts and blame countries and their economic systems for rising poverty suggest that the organisation is appeasing its ‘masters’, the powers that be in today’s world, like it always does. *