tldr: vast numbers of Americans have no wealth and carry large debts. this is in fact evidence of how good and rich and advanced we are because finance. This is definitely not evidence of a society built on wage slavery
Yeah this is just shows how much of a debt trap millions of Americans are in.
And then we have to acknowledge that these numbers are all entirely wrong...We are not including, for example, any valuation of future Social Security benefits. Nor any value of human capital: that Harvard degree (if it was in, say, puppetry) might not be worth what was paid for it but it's worth something. Nor what is the greatest source of wealth for everyone in the developed countries: that happenstance that we were born into developed countries. Countries where if we go broke the children will still get educated, we'll still get medical care, food, shelter and all the rest: the value, in short, of being a citizen of a country with a developed welfare state.
lol imagine thinking that if you're broke in China you can't send your kid to school or get food. Or that the poorest of the poor in the US are going to even get their Social Security benefits (which you only get if you hold a job, and the amount you get is dependent on your income ie higher income higher social security) or that they have "human capital" like college degrees!!!
So, the correct answer is that there's simply no poor people in America or Europe, even though the way we measure wealth means that it appears that there're more poor people in those two places than there are in China.
:cope: :xi:
Countries where if we go broke the children will still get [...] medical care
The US, that country where it's famously easy for the poor to access healthcare.
even though the way we measure wealth means that it appears that there’re more poor people in those two places than there are in China
Except when similar measures of wealth shows capitalism in a good light (e.g. those fudged figures that show that global poverty has reduced), it's totally fine.
if we go broke the children will still get educated, we’ll still get medical care, food, shelter and all the rest
holy shit the only one of these that's true in America is education, and even then it's not like your kids get to have a good one when you're poor.
I'm in absolute amazement of the demented angle of this article. "Yes there are more poor people in the EU and the US but it's actually a sign of a more advanced society, China has less because they're less sophisticated" is one hell of a take.
He could have just saved a lot of time and words by writing "yellow man bad" instead.
I was only in china one month and just in a few cities near the coast and this totally vibes with my totally anecdotal experience.
The one thing I kept thinking was that there is definitely still poverty but it just seems like the chinese poor bottom out waaayyy higher than the American poor
how was this downvoted wtf
in my screen it showed 0 i was like whattt
I'm the only one in the entire website with downvoting privileges
I downvoted for putting one more than necessary y in waaayy
You can have a comment set to 0 if you remove your own automatic upvote on it. Like I did with this one for example.
everyday I stray closer and closer to Dengism, good for the Chinese ppl I guess
Imperialist or not has nothing to do with social democracy. There is nothing "Marxist" about "advancing productive forces" through capitalism. If you strip away all the propaganda and red flags, the basic functioning of the Chinese economy is just capitalism with substantial state investment, literally just like Norway or Finland.
The difference between Dengism and social democracy is that social democracy was only ever implemented in the context of imperialist nation, and that at least nominally it still strives for socialism and communism.
Social Democracy just means capitalism with substantial state owned sector and a welfare state. Imperialism is not necessary for this. You are right about nominally, Dengism is capitalism with red paint. China is as socialist as Bernie Sanders.
Proving me wrong by posting Dengist propaganda? China is just a capitalist country. Liberals are totally right when they say that the success of China is due to capitalism. China is following the same developmental path as South Korea, Taiwan etc only with more state investment. Socialism =/= govt does stuff.
Because China has more people than those two other regions put together and it's also much poorer than those two regions put together.
It's almost like you can do more with less by distributing resources more evenly.
China can never be seen to be Socialist because Capitalism can't handle another threat of a better world.
They're right tho. China is a capitalist society, specifically a social democracy. But the underlying economy is capitalist through and through.
"Yes, we have more poor people than China, but that is just because we have a sophisticated farcical financial system of indebted servitude so that is good actually"
Reading their spin on this as a positive was like reading the ramblings of a madman. When they were going on about how countries like the US were actually more developed, and how the poor could still get food and shelter and education (largest homeless population in developed world what?), or when they said there "were no poor" in America at the end I kept wondering to what extent this person is capable of perception.
At least we know we're free. We may be poor and dying, but we have what you call access to wealth.
Which, when you think about it, is really very odd indeed.
Really resisting the urge to post a Harry Potter quote.
