For the new people that may have missed it earlier this year, Jason Hickel is a beast and one of my top recommendations.
-The common notion that extreme poverty is the “natural” condition of humanity and only declined with the rise of capitalism rests on income data that do not adequately capture access to essential goods.
-Data on real wages suggests that, historically, extreme poverty was uncommon and arose primarily during periods of severe social and economic dislocation, particularly under colonialism.
-The rise of capitalism from the long 16th century onward is associated with a decline in wages to below subsistence, a deterioration in human stature, and an upturn in premature mortality.
-In parts of South Asia, sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America, wages and/or height have still not recovered.
-Where progress has occurred, significant improvements in human welfare began only around the 20th century. These gains coincide with the rise of anti-colonial and socialist political movements.
Extreme poverty yes. But most of that extreme poverty was created by removing the "iron rice bowl" during Dengist reforms in the 90s
Extreme poverty is a subset of poverty, it's included in it. If you reduce extreme poverty then you reduce poverty.
But most of that extreme poverty was created by removing the “iron rice bowl” during Dengist reforms in the 90s
Poverty jumped up after the reforms, but the numbers don't lie: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/75/Poverty_in_China.jpg. From 80% of the population in 1980 to 0% in 2019.
The specific inclusion of "Dengist" instead of Deng strikes me as trying to dunk on MLs who uphold today's China as AES.
Extreme poverty is a subset of poverty, it’s included in it. If you reduce extreme poverty then you reduce poverty.
This isn't actually true. It can (and in the time frame we're discussing, does) mean that the people under extreme poverty were bumped out of that category while remaining in poverty. This is part of why the Pinker/Gates etc neolib arguments that capitalism alleviates suffering are misleading, because over the time period where people living on less than $1.90/day or whatever decreased the number of people living on $5/day increased.
Thanks for sharing the graph, I hadn't seen the data represented like that.
And people are allowed to say Dengist when talking about Dengist policies it's not some dogwhistle to attack MLs
Marx never sat in a self driving car.
And Genghis Khan never had an only fans, it's almost like new technology doesn't retcon itself into always existing.
They think capitalism is the reason technology exists lmao :data-laughing:
It's such a spurious argument too: :very-intelligent: ”Capitalist countries invent lots of new stuff!” Yeah, no shit because of the world's countries are some form of capitalist, of course most new inventions are going to come from there.
Let's turn this argument on its head: why do we rarely hear about any inventions from poor capitalist countries like Moldova or Georgia, but Cuba seems to be doing well in the medical field? :soviet-hmm:
No capitalist enterprise ever put a man on the moon. And they never will. Because there is no economic reason to do so.
Marx never sat in a self-driving car.
This is just :very-intelligent: and we don't even have self-driving cars.
Millions live in poverty.
Nice self-own.
Bunch a folks dug an escape tunnel, right under capitalism's walls. We can't tell you where though in case :fedposting: finds out.
When you're definitely not concerned about growing socialist identification among the proles :marx-goth:
Marx never sat in a self-driving car
Marx, like every other person alive when he was, probably never thought about a self-driving car because regular-ass cars hadn’t been invented yet.
But you know what Marx thought (and wrote) about a lot? Technology. In the first volume of Capital, he outlines how the very technologies we develop are part of the superstructure and reflect the needs of the current mode of production. In his excellent podcast series Reading Capital With Comrades, Derek Ford uses the white noise machine as an example. The capitalist economy doesn’t really care about noise pollution any more than it cares about air and water pollution so workers are forced to just deal with it. We also have a premium on sleep because we all get worked to death and capitalism loves to take ever increasing amounts of our waking hours. So along comes the white noise machine. Something that, instead of solving the problems of noise and letting workers get more sleep, just allows them to cope with the situation and get to work.
So in that sense, the self-driving car is absolutely an innovation of capitalism. It doesn’t solve the problem of us destroying ever more land so everyone above a certain income level can have a quarter-acre of land and a “house” made of particle board and oil-based products. It doesn’t put automation to uses that allow for more productivity in the service of human flourishing. Nope. In fact, I guarantee you once self-driving cars become ubiquitous white collar workers will be expected to work the same number of hours in the office AND in the car to and from the office on top of that; and blue collar workers will have to watch ads or something. They’re not actually going to improve the quality of life, they will actually make things worse but more profitable for capital as they will be able to take over even more of our waking hours.
Marx saw that under socialism (and only under socialism), technology and automation could be unleashed to enhance our lives by making us more productive and thus allowing us to work less. Hell, even Keynes figured we’d have 20 hour work weeks by now. But what Keynes didn’t understand and Marx did is that only if the workers control the advancement of tech, can it be used to make our lives better.
If you gave people the choice of either working 5 hours and taking a bus, or working 10 hours but getting a heckin’ cool Muskmobile death trap, who would choose the latter other than the most bazinga-brained labor aristocrats who would rather die than sit next to a worker on public transportation?
Marx never considered thing that Marx discussed in excruciating detail
Remember when the ocean was LITERALLY ON FIRE for a few days?
Marx never watched in mute horror as a self driving car turned its self driving feature off 2.5 seconds before plowing into a child
Weak. You expect to survive with this attitude next to people going "our country has NEVER been better, capitalism is PERFECT and any problems we have are because we aren't capitalisming hard enough!"
No chance lol, the audience for this shit is no one.
No chance lol, the audience for this shit is no one.
The audience is yuppies, and a good chunk of them are for sure gonna swallow this hook line and sinker.
"Marx never sat in a self-driving car" I screech at a starving homeless millennial.
People don't need self-driving cars! They need food, healthcare and shelter! Your system is ass backwards! :meow-tableflip:
