Kind of a miss that he doesn’t compare trends including and excluding China considering China is the largest contributor to poverty reduction stats.
To be fair, he’s specifically focusing on the role of capitalism and how markets are failing to live up to their promise.
That’s my point though. If my hunch is correct then the percentage point reduction in poverty would reduce, disappear or increase depending on how overwhelming their contribution is. It would make the indictment of the system more scathing if one country’s removal skews it so much.
Yeah that’s true, it would’ve been even more powerful article if it contrasted the capitalist world with China to show the difference in outcomes.
In fact, research shows that the world economy already has enough productive capacity to eliminate global poverty many times over. Indeed it is possible not only to eliminate extreme poverty, but also to eliminate deprivation at much higher thresholds. With these levels of production, we could ensure universal access to healthcare, education, modern housing, sanitation systems, electricity, clean cooking stoves, refrigeration, mobile phones, internet, computers, transport, household appliances and other necessities for decent living standards, for more than eight billion people. The fact that poverty persists at such high levels today indicates that severe dislocation is institutionalised in the world economy – and that markets have failed to meet the basic needs of much of humanity.
God I wonder why that is? Who would have ever written about how that is the inevitable outcome of this system?
🫢
Yes, in China, and only China
Globally, yeah, but not in the US. I drive for work
and see so much abject poverty everywhere. Urban, suburban, rural: it doesn’t matter. There are people just barely scraping by and every shock to the barely existent system socially murders more.Globally, yeah
Pretty sure it’s just China
Yeah, but they can’t just talk about facts without spinning it to look good for the west.
“World that is majority capitalist results in lower extreme poverty”
Ah, much better
