Jordan Peterson

[luiz]

It doesn't matter who's definition it is. The point is that its not a meaningful metric. Invoking "the World Bank" as an authority doesn't change that. This metric you're touting is like saying a roach infested restaurant has on average, 2 less roaches than prior years, and calling that a "infestation decrease". As I've already demonstrated, $2 a day is about as arbitrary as it gets in terms of defining "poverty" and $1.90/day is a meaningless figure that was specifically chosen to support the narrative that "poverty" is decreasing. It's like saying that your soccer league has "substantially improved" because the top team used to win 90% of their games by at least 30 goals but now they win 90% their games by at least 28 goals. You can argue "improvement" but the improvement you're pointing to is meaningless. Tell me what percent of teams/games win against the top team compared to prior seasons... Or in this case, give me the statistics for how many more people are making $30-50K/year. There's nothing "dramatic" about an "increase" from $1 a day to $1.90 a day. You're still sick, homeless, uneducated and starving with no hope of improvement or escape.

You're not understanding what is written. You can define poverty anyway you want. Making less than $5 per day. Making less than $100 per day. Pick anyone. The percentage of poor people has been dramatically falling in China and India since they liberalized.

And BTW, in many parts of the world an increase of $1per day to $1.9 per day is indeed dramatic. It can be the difference between life and death. The US is not the whole world.

 

[Yeekim]

Or in this case, give me the statistics for how many more people are making $30-50K/year.

I won't go digging around for this, but I'd be willing to make a small bet that the number of those people has increased as well.
EDIT: Also, lol @ $50K/year as an upper limit for poverty.
For reference, a government minister in my little Eastern European country makes €54k a year before taxes.

 

[metalhead]

You're not understanding what is written. You can define poverty anyway you want. Making less than $5 per day. Making less than $100 per day. Pick anyone. The percentage of poor people has been dramatically falling in China and India since they liberalized.

Started falling well before any "liberalization" in the economy. And is still very much a state-controlled, closed economy.

I don't think anyone disputes that distributing wealth to citizens raises people out of poverty. What they're objecting to is you are trying to fit China into a box that comports with your worldview, but it really doesn't belong there. They are very much not a market capitalist economy. Few people would dispute that.

 

[Sommerswerd]

You're not understanding what is written. You can define poverty anyway you want. Making less than $5 per day. Making less than $100 per day. Pick anyone.

I've already told you which one I picked, and you haven't come up with anything to address that. So maybe the numbers for those haven't changed much, or have gotten worse? The only chart you posted refers to $1.90/day, which I've already demonstrated is meaningless.

And BTW, in many parts of the world an increase of $1per day to $1.9 per day is indeed dramatic. It can be the difference between life and death. The US is not the whole world.

No. Don't try to play that game. I'm well aware that the US dollar is many times the value of some other currencies. That's irrelevant because the chart you posted clearly states that it takes that (and inflation) into account to come up with an "international dollar" figure. Here is your chart:

Spoiler :

Our civilization seems to be working

So for the purposes of the chart $1.90 in China buys exactly the same thing as what $1.90 buys in the US... which is jack squat. So again the figure is meaningless, and your attempt to obscure the issue by pointing to the differences in currency values fails. The chart accounts for that. So it seems that you're the one who is "not understanding what is written." You don't even understand the chart that you posted.

I won't go digging around for this, but I'd be willing to make a small bet that the number of those people has increased as well.
EDIT: Also, lol @ $50K as an upper limit for poverty.
For reference, a government minister in my little Eastern European country makes €54k a year before taxes.

Well 54K Euros is actually 63K dollars, but putting that aside, I never said that 50K should be the upper limit for poverty. I've said repeatedly that I'm not interested in these arbitrary, self-serving (for folks trying to argue "dramatic" decreases in poverty) definitions of "poverty". What interests me is things like "middle class" and "living wage" and how that has changed, if at all... and since you aren't "going digging", I'll stick with my position, thanks

 

[luiz]

Started falling well before any "liberalization" in the economy. And is still very much a state-controlled, closed economy.

I don't think anyone disputes that distributing wealth to citizens raises people out of poverty. What they're objecting to is you are trying to fit China into a box that comports with your worldview, but it really doesn't belong there. They are very much not a market capitalist economy. Few people would dispute that.

China is a capitalist dictatorship. It's most certainly capitalist, and it most certainly changed its economic system post Deng. That's what nobody denies.

As for India, poverty was falling quite slowly and inconsistently before the liberalization of 1991-2. This study (hardly from libertarian types) estimates that poverty reduction is 4 times faster since liberalization.

https://voxeu.org/article/revisiting-poverty-reduction-india-60-years-data

 

[luiz]

I've already told you which one I picked, and you haven't come up with anything to address that. So maybe the numbers for those haven't changed much, or have gotten worse? The only chart you posted refers to $1.90/day, which I've already demonstrated is meaningless. No. Don't try to play that game. I'm well aware that the US dollar is many times the value of some other currencies. That's irrelevant because the chart you posted clearly states that it takes that (and inflation) into account to come up with an "international dollar" figure. Here is your chart:
So for the purposes of the chart $1.90 in China buys exactly the same thing as what $1.90 buys in the US... which is jack squat. So again the figure is meaningless, and your attempt to obscure the issue by pointing to the differences in currency values fails. The chart accounts for that. So it seems that you're the one who is "not understanding what is written." You don't even understand the chart that you posted.

Eh, where is it written that they took what $1.9 dollars can buy in the US, and not in a weighted global average? Or in just poor countries?

You really think the World Bank people are morons and you caught them, huh? They actually reached the $1.9 figure by looking at the basic needs in the 15 poorest countries in the world, and calculated that meeting them would require $1.9 per person per day.

At the World Bank, we take the information on basic needs collected from the 15 poorest countries and then we average them. That comes out to be about $1.90 per day per person, and that is what we call the global extreme poverty line.

 

[inthesomeday]

>When your economic system is so good that some people in the world’s poorest countries (all of which are poor because of your economic system) can afford their basic needs by working 20 hours a day in a sweatshop

 

[Lexicus]

You really think the World Bank people are morons and you caught them, huh? They actually reached the $1.9 figure by looking at the basic needs in the 15 poorest countries in the world, and calculated that meeting them would require $1.9 per person per day.

I have already posted a whole article on why this measure is not actually meaningful. The World Bank aren't idiots but they sure do have ideological commitments.

 

[luiz]

>When your economic system is so good that some people in the world’s poorest countries (all of which are poor because of your economic system) can afford their basic needs by working 20 hours a day in a sweatshop

Actually the poorest people in the world would dream of working in a sweat shop. Their situation is much worse than that of sweat shop workers. They dream of the day capitalism will arrive.

 

[inthesomeday]

Actually the poorest people in the world would dream of working in a sweat shop. Their situation is much worse than that of sweat shop workers. They dream of the day capitalism will arrive.

This is... pretty disgusting, man

 

[luiz]

This is... pretty disgusting, man

No, it's a reality check. You're clearly not aware of what extreme, pre-capitalistic poverty looks like.

The 15 poorest countries in the world are not full of sweatshops, they basically don't have a working economy besides subsistence agriculture and some extractivism. Sweatshops would be a bring improvement. If we could bring say the Congo or the Central African Republic to the same level of development as Bangladesh, that would be a magnificent achievement.

 

[Lexicus]

This is... pretty disgusting, man

As far as capitalist apologism goes, it's not that bad. What luiz doesn't understand, because he's learned the capitalist version of history, is that no one but no one "dreams" of working in a sweat shop. There is no instance in history of people choosing to go from subsistence farming to sweatshop labor without the ability to make a living by subsistence farming first having been destroyed. In contemporary period this has typically been accomplished by opening up the subsistence farmers to direct competition from huge agricultural corporations; in early modern times it was accomplished through Enclosure inside Europe, and by loading indigenous peoples with debt, taxes, and corvée service in the colonies.

You're clearly not aware of what extreme, pre-capitalistic poverty looks like.

You clearly aren't, either. There's a lot more to life than GDP per capita...

 

[luiz]

As far as capitalist apologism goes, it's not that bad. What luiz doesn't understand, because he's learned the capitalist version of history, is that no one but no one "dreams" of working in a sweat shop. There is no instance in history of people choosing to go from subsistence farming to sweatshop labor without the ability to make a living by subsistence farming first having been destroyed. In contemporary period this has typically been accomplished by opening up the subsistence farmers to direct competition from huge agricultural corporations; in early modern times it was accomplished through Enclosure inside Europe, and by loading indigenous peoples with debt, taxes, and corvée service in the colonies.

You clearly aren't, either. There's a lot more to life than GDP per capita...

I'm quite familiar with extreme pre-capitalistic poverty. I've seen it in the Brazilian northeast (granted it's almost disappeared there) and specially in Angola and Mozambique, where it abounds.

You mention there is more to life than GDP per capita, and I totally agree. But how do social development metrics in the Congo and CAR compare to those in Bangladesh, Vietnam or the Philippines? Not very favorably, you will agree. Surely they'd benefit from reaching the same development point as the latter countries.

 

[metalhead]

China is a capitalist dictatorship. It's most certainly capitalist, and it most certainly changed its economic system post Deng. That's what nobody denies.

Yes, and while they do invest in capital improvements, the vast majority of the economy is still state-owned. You're focusing on the "capitalist" part; surely some of the credit here belongs to the "dictatorship" part.

China's "capitalism" is completely different from what we have in Western democracies. It is not market capitalism. China is a pretty clear counterpoint to those who claim that you need free markets to lift people out of poverty. The state is obviously quite competent to do so as well, using China as an example.

 

[Lexicus]

You mention there is more to life than GDP per capita, and I totally agree. But how do social development metrics in the Congo and CAR compare to those in Bangladesh, Vietnam or the Philippines? Not very favorably, you will agree. Surely they'd benefit from reaching the same development point as the latter countries.

Congo and CAR both contain active combat zones. Congo in particular was the site of the most deadly war since 1945, which ended less than two decades ago.

To present the problems in Congo and CAR as stemming from a simple lack of capitalism is to paint a rather incomplete picture...

Meanwhile, @topic

 

[inthesomeday]

No, it's a reality check. You're clearly not aware of what extreme, pre-capitalistic poverty looks like.

You’re right, because it hasn’t existed on earth since the late 19th century, when European imperialism finally got capitalism to every corner of the world. If you mean to say, “you’re not aware of what poverty looks like in countries that haven’t yet developed their own stable, native capitalist class” you might be a little more correct.

The 15 poorest countries in the world are not full of sweatshops, they basically don't have a working economy besides subsistence agriculture and some extractivism. Sweatshops would be a bring improvement. If we could bring say the Congo or the Central African Republic to the same level of development as Bangladesh, that would be a magnificent achievement.

Are you really here to make the claim that the poverty in sub-Saharan Africa has NOT ENOUGH influence from capitalism to blame?

 

[Lexicus]

You’re right, because it hasn’t existed on earth since the late 19th century, when European imperialism finally got capitalism to every corner of the world.

False. I mean, depending on what exactly you're asserting. "Pre-capitalist" material conditions persist on the globe even today, they certainly didn't disappear in the 19th century. If you're making some metaphysical point that in the 19th century "capitalism" replaced whatever came before it, and so existing poverty became "capitalist poverty" despite no actual change in conditions...that's a different argument.

 

[inthesomeday]

False. I mean, depending on what exactly you're asserting. "Pre-capitalist" material conditions persist on the globe even today, they certainly didn't disappear in the 19th century.

How do you define pre-capitalist? What square inch on earth is free from the influence of Western consumption?

 

[luiz]

Congo and CAR both contain active combat zones. Congo in particular was the site of the most deadly war since 1945, which ended less than two decades ago.

To present the problems in Congo and CAR as stemming from a simple lack of capitalism is to paint a rather incomplete picture...
[/IMG]

Fair enough, but look at other extremely poor countries that have been in peace for longer, then : Niger, Malawi, Guinea... No lack of examples. They'd all trade places with sweat shop powerhouses like Bangladesh or Vietnam in a heartbeat.

 

[luiz]

You’re right, because it hasn’t existed on earth since the late 19th century, when European imperialism finally got capitalism to every corner of the world. If you mean to say, “you’re not aware of what poverty looks like in countries that haven’t yet developed their own stable, native capitalist class” you might be a little more correct.

Are you really here to make the claim that the poverty in sub-Saharan Africa has NOT ENOUGH influence from capitalism to blame?

This is wrong on many different levels. Pre-capitalistic activities persist throughout the Third World, specially in Africa. You need to brush up on your understanding of capitalism (and of Africa).