Is there ‘a rapidly accelerating and potentially fatal human crisis of global proportions?’ And if there is, are ‘the systemic forces nurturing the growth and dominance of global corporations … at the heart of the current human dilemma?’

On these questions, there is something amounting to a war of statistics seeking to prove that the world is richer than it ever has been, that many people have been lifted out of poverty, and that the economic systems in place are benefiting the world. On the other hand, statistics also show that the gap between rich and poor is widening both within and between nations and that in many countries, poverty is both increasing by numbers and by depth. Using almost any statistics ‘we certainly know that the problem of world poverty is catastrophic’. Of 6,133 million human beings in 2001, some:

• 799 million people are undernourished;

• 50,000 people daily die of poverty-related causes.

This means that ‘the global poverty death toll over the 15 years since the end of the Cold War was around 270 million, roughly the population of the US’. And the figures go on and on:

• 34,000 children under five die daily from hunger and preventable diseases;

• 1,000 million lack access to safe drinking water.

What are we to make of this barrage of statistics with their apparently contradictory messages? As with all statistics, it depends on how they are compiled and precisely what is counted.