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INTERNATIONAL DESK
Good
News
for
the
AverageMan
T
HE CHANCES
are most
P/ain
Truth
readers consider them–
selves to be average people.
And the chances are they are com–
pletely wrong!
lt takes the average American
worker 12!12 hours of labor to earn
the money to feed his average family
of four for a week, the statisticians
tell us. He needs another 20 hours to
buy a suit, but only 22 minutes to buy
his wife a pair of hose.
If
you are an
average Canadian, Australian or
West European it will take you a
little longer.
Yet the average person in the
industrialized world has his problems
these days. Infiation eats into his pay
packet. His borne is becoming harder
to buy and maintain.
Even so very few of our readers are
average. The reason is simple to
understand.
In Washington,
D.C. ,
at the in–
tersection of 18th Street and Con–
necticut Avenue, there is a world
population clock.
lt
does not show
the passing of time. Instead, it
counts people by measuring the
increase
in
the world's population–
three every second-more than
10,000 an hour.
On Friday, March 15, at
ll
:45
a.m., this clock calculated that the
world 's population passed 4,500 mil–
lion for the first time. The truly
average man is somewhere among
them. And if we could find him,
those of us who think we are average
might begin to understand what it
means to be "above average."
The average man and his family
live in Asia. More than half of the
world's population is there. He is
certainly among the 75 percent of
all people who live in what is
called- ra ther optimistically- the
"developing world." Tbough more
and more of tbe world's peop1e are
moving to cities, as rising prices and
unemployment drive them from ru–
ral areas, we can expect the average
family to be still peasants- making
a precarious living from about two
acres of land. The income will be
about $400 a year. (Note: a
year,
not a montb.)
Since worldwide literacy is now
s1ightly better than 50 percent, the
average man can probably read and
write-to a limited extent. His wife,
however, cannot- literacy among
women in the developing world lags
far behind men. His children might
have the chance to go to school-at
least until the age of 12.
But
their
attendance might not be too regular,
for they are often sick. On any given
day, half the world's children are
sick. Ma1nutrition is the major cul–
prit.
Our average family is not starving,
although there may be times when
they go hungry. Their diet is far from
adequate. From half to two thirds of
the world's population have a protein
deficient diet. (That statistic does not
include those in rich countries who
opt to exist on junk food.) Our
average man will never own a car or
a te1evision, but be might bave a
transistor radio. He can expect to live
about 58 years, during which time he
will have four or five children. He
may bave had one or two more who
died before they reached the age
of 5.
He will never have known a real
vacation. Nor will he ever live in
anything better than a shack. He will
never, of course, have a telephone,
subscribe to a magazine or own a
refrigerator. Hot and co1d running
water is an unimagined luxury- if he
is fortunate he shares a tap with his
neighbor. And of course, he has no
insurance or investments and little if
any savings.
lnfiation worries him too. A West–
ern family may spend 25 percent of
income on food.
If
food prices dou–
bled, it would certainly make things
difficult. But spare a thought for the
average housewife who must spend
more than 50 percent of the family
income on food
today.
Wbat is she
going to do tomorrow if prices dou–
ble?
Now before you sympathize too
much with the lot of tbe average
man, remember that be is at least
average. Life is hard-he is surviving
(barely}- but he is making it. Below
him are the below average-about
one thousand million people- nearly
a quarter of mankind.
They have incomes of around $70
a year. They live constantly on the
brink of starvation. Among tbem
children die like flies-about one
every 10 seconds at a conservative
estímate. (In the time it takes you to
read this article, about 50 children
will have died of hunger.) Their own
life span is only about 40 years.
Illiterate, disease ridden, destitute–
for them the question is, " Is there life
before
death?"
Our average man considers him–
self lucky not to be among them.
But he is worried. Each time there
is a crop failure, a natural disaster,
a war or a hike in the price of
oil- more average families slide off
into the abyss to join the hopelessly
poor .
Overall, the world is becoming a
more wretched place.
Plain Truth
readers know this. They also know
that it is going to get worse-and
then it is going to get much better.
But the average man doesn't know
this good news. He would be happy
(Continued on page 45)