It's amazing to me how many political philosophies can be boiled down to: "Hey, you - thank your fucking stars you live in the present day. Imagine if you were a serf. That would suck, right? Now that you understand - get back to work."
I mean, it's generally great for the r/neoliberal crowd because they're primarily anxious pmc libs with email jobs. Yes, things are good for specifically them even if they have to step over the homeless or you never know when another black swan type event might just wipe them out (hence the anxiety). So, when you have commies reminding them that there is another way of life and a reactionary CHUD wave threatening to overwhelm them but you actually want things to stay them same (cause you're currently benefitting) and you went through the ideological car wash and came out self-styled neolib... well, your only option is "actually things are good mr homeless man, maybe you should try a drop shipping business, I'll make sure to vote for people who will implement a land value tax and lax zoning laws so you can have a house now please excuse me"
Damn are we really backsliding so fast that the neolibs have to compare things to literally 1800 to make themselves look good?
They always had to, in order to imply growth under capitalism is always expected to happen.
Their shoddy made-up data for anything before 1970 is so they can go "look how America was in 1900 vs now. All those 3rd world countries are now actually doing better than America was then, so this means clearly we don't need to change any ways or think of our relationship to exploiting the 3rd world since they'll get where we are now eventually".
They also like to conveniently ignore that the poverty line of $2 a day is too low (this $2 is actually already adjusted to buying power, and sets the global poverty level to how well someone in the USA lives on $2 a day). And that China drove most of that growth out of poverty.
Jason Hickle (degrowth economist, not sure if he's socialist but he seems cool) wrote a bunch about these neoliberal poverty statistics lies on his blog
it's also absurd/pathetic the numbers they give here. A 43% reduction in child mortality in 200 years equates to something like 0.215% change per annum. That's fucking disgraceful if you think that that's actually an achievement compared to the alternative system.
:soypoint-1: uhh actually have you considered you have it better than hunter gatherers eating their own poo :soypoint-2:
so the neolibs are taking credit for all these metrics since 1800? someone do one for the ascension of neoliberalism in the 60s-70s until now
They're capitalist bootlickers. They don't understand their own economic system to the point the concept of bartering is concidered capitalism.
They know. That's why they have to reach to preindustrial / prehisoric times.
Wait, so, according to that graph there's a decent chunk of upper middle income people and a tiny portion of high income people that still can't afford a healthy diet? :agony-minion:
Wonder if that's a relative global thing? Like is a minimum wage employee in the UK or Canada counted as "high income"?
That's probably it, I'm a dummy and didn't notice the data is for the whole world, not the US. I thought those numbers felt off, but nothing about amerikkka surprises me anymore :shrug-outta-hecks:
Still, :yea: . Humanity collectively produces enough food to feed everyone, and this is what capitalism does with that. Not even living in the more well off countries guarantees you a basic healthy diet. Sick and monstrous system.
Yep. Remember that every day Musk or Bezos could simply end world hunger with no change in quality of life for themselves, and they choose to inflict untold suffering and death instead.
Musk said he would end world hunger if presented a plan, he was presented one, he said no it didn't count.
That doesn't make sense to me. A healthy diet should be a fixed price... right? What are these people spending money on that isn't food?
I casually dated a rich girl for a couple years who told me she spent around $600 a month on food because she almost exclusively ate take out. I mentioned that I usually expensed out my groceries to $150-200 a month because rent and bills sucked up the majority and it looked like it physically pained her to try and visualize it.
This was like a decade ago as well. Her grand parents are loaded and were footing most of the bill while she was going back to college in wine country.
I'm wondering: is the income a fixed amount and this is high CoL areas?
Spending 51% of your household income on food alone is also considered "affordable"
upper middle income is like 10 dollar/day i think
world bank standards (esp lower income) are way too low even taking into account lower costs in the third world.
"Noooo capitalism is good, the world is better than it was 223 years ago you tankie fucks" :wojak-nooo:
part 1: hey not everyone is dead from Covid at least.
part 2: look at all these things the Soviets/Maoists did.
Comparing everything to fucking 1800 is hilarious outside of this though
1 trillion in medical costs
By whose fucking metric you ghoul
Imagine telling a starving and freezing mother who can't afford to keep their electricity on with two kids in 2023 that they should shut up about how capitalism isn't helping them because 200 years ago things were worse.
It's so utterly detached from anyone's actual current lives. It does jack shit for them and they should not be surprised when everyone that is seeing deteriorating conditions under capitalism turns leftwards when this is the response they get from liberals.
It's the statistical equivalent of sneering in their faces.
I wonder how they would react to get the same treatment. Next time they go "Well ackshually we need to fund billionaires and pump more weapons into Ukraine!" Try and tell them about how corporate profits have exploded compared to 500 years ago and how the Ukrainian arme have more stuff that goes boom today than ever before.
when everyone that is seeing deteriorating conditions under capitalism turns leftwards
I wish, but it ain't gonna happen with most western people
Hmm wonder why Bangladesh had a life expectancy of 25.5 in 1800 :thinkin-lenin:
Funny they use Bangladesh when they have been hit the worst by climate change. It's also wrong, life expectancy there is 73.29. So even with the country producing massive amounts of our products they are still far behind and not catching up. Almost like neoliberalism ensures these countries never get out of being a victim of the wealthy states.
Anyway now do China or Cuba
The vaccine stat, despite being confusing to no end as to what it's trying to tell anyone, is flat out wrong and a simple look at the wiki page for vaccinations would tell you as much.
1800's Ethiopian standard of living is what they think the proles deserve.
Hmm I will google Ukrainian GDP since the collapse of the soviet union :clueless :
That Bangladesh number better be inflation adjusted, otherwise that's actually a 400% decrease in GDP per Capita (which even most neolibs now know is pointless because a society with 100 million peasants making $10/day and 100000 aristocrats making $100,000/day would read as everyone making 10x what they actually are)
(which even most neolibs now know is pointless because a society with 100 million peasants making $10/day and 100000 aristocrats making $100,000/day would read as everyone making 10x what they actually are)
I think you're giving them too much credit
There is a bit of a shift with them to use PPP when the numbers are on their side, but they'll still use GDP as a fallback in a pinch
