Decline of Global Extreme Poverty Continues but Has Slowed

There is a lot more development, infrastructure, happiness and success here than the majority of "First Worlders" have any notion of. Even when I tell my family directly they don't really believe me.

4G Internet, chip n pin (or contactless) Credit card payments, multi lane freeways, high rise buildings and of course electricity and drinking water. That's not just South Africa either, all of those exist in Rep. Congo, Nigeria, Cameroon, Mali, Zambia just to name a few examples of where people think of "poverty".

I have come to the conclusion that anyone who hasn't actually set food on this continent (and ventured outside a guided "safari") has no way to discover the truth about this place. There is no media outlet that actual portrays an accurate picture, I have never even seen one that gets close.

However as Jeremy Grantham (the British Warren Buffet) warns, these current improvements may have been bought at the expense of future losses as we have destabilized the climate and mined the soils to achieve the gains of recent years.

Grantham projects 40% loss in soil productivity in a much more populated world.

This is not to knock these fantastic advances, but we now need to double down on ensuring they are sustainable.

Here’s Grantham’s paper. It’s a long but fascinating and wel-written read.

https://www.gmo.com/docs/default-source/research-and-comment...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FACK2knC08E

We should be careful to condemn too quickly a current system.

It reminds me of when a new developer comes to a code base and says it needs to be thrown out and rewritten completely.

Rewrites and revolutions are costly and shortsighted.

Let's first try to figure out what is right with what's here because usually it's like it is for a reason.

The biggest reason for reduction in extreme poverty over the last decades is the responsibility of the Chinese state. The fastest drop in family size ever was overseen by the totalitarian Iranian government.

Beware easy one line explanations.

1. More people now live in a market economy which produces more goods and services for everyone, even poor people

2. Better leadership. Eg. In 1976 Mao in a single act greatly improved the trajectory of most of the world's poor - he died.

3. End of cold war meant end of US and Soviet support for many civil wars and ugly dictatorships.

4. Globalization and industrialization

5. Science and technology

But the toxicity of capitalism often stems from the polarized debate, I don't actually think many wants capitalism without regulation, or communism without free property rights... but it's hard to argue for the sane middle ground when you're attacked from both sides.

This was in part natural advancement as it is exponential and we eventually just hit explosive growth, but the environment was helped along with capitalism, free markets, and major world wars which encouraged the spread of information and trade.

Keep in mind most of this extreme poverty was eliminated in Asia, and in particular China. Unfortunately China began to liberalize its markets and realize its demographic dividend in the early 80s, at the same time, so I'm not sure about that case.

Again in India, liberalization and falling birthrates happened together in the 1990s.

25 years ago was 1993, two years after the dissolution of the Soviet Union. It's an arbitrary time frame, perhaps conveniently selected. That said, market economies spread rapidly throughout the second world during the 90s, and the Soviet subsidies that had kept a number of command economy-leaning third world countries were cut off, forcing liberalization.

The most powerful effect of this was the widespread loss of belief in the effectiveness of command economies. With the end of the USSR the major ideological opponent of capitalism collapsed. World historical event -> world-wide change in outcomes is too big a correlation to dismiss.

That said it's tough to tease out what is driving what, economics or demographics. I do think that human flourishing occurs when ideology gets out of the way of individuals pursuing their own interests, whether their interests include opening a small business or not birthing children for the motherland.

So I am not able to say, "it's because of capitalism," or, "it's because of contraception and female education." I am confident that we can say, "ideology and authoritarianism make things worse."

The way new capital reaches the third world can be attributed to globalization of market circuits, for instance, China is currently investing into Africa much like the first world did to China in the past.

Of course, if you define the terminology differently, say you’re an Austrian Economist, the above explanation might appear unintelligable.

This is a tricky question. Easily the biggest factor is china. China being the most populous nation was the largest source of poverty a few decades ago and now is the largest source of reduction of poverty. They lifted 680 million people out of poverty by 2010. Today, that number is probably approaching 800 or 900 million due to their economic growth.

https://www.economist.com/leaders/2013/06/01/towards-the-end...

So do we credit the "communism" of the chinese communist party? Do we credit capitalism? Do we credit chinese communism management of capitalism? Do we credit foreign investment? Chinese entrepreneurship? It all depends on your political bias. Success has a thousand fathers, failure is an orphan.

Also, poverty is a very political/strange concept. A poor city dweller struggling to make ends but who has a smartphone and nice sneakers will not be in poverty. But a farmer who owns his land, is independent and grows enough food to live comfortably but has no smartphones or sneakers would be seen as being in exreme poverty. Ultimately, reduction of poverty is simply a result of moving farmers and stuffing them into large cities and how dependent they are on the "state". The less poverty you are in, the more you are dependent on society for life's essentials.

Also, poverty decreasing is great, but in the same time period, wealth inequality has increased drastically. Imagine poverty of weapons. Both of us are in extreme weapons poverty ( we have no weapons ). You get a nerf gun and I get a shotgun. Weapons poverty is wiped out. We should celebrate right? It's "great" that poverty decreased, but the differential in power between me and you skyrocketed.

Look at china. Their poverty has decreased dramatically. But the power differential between the powerful and everyone else has increased dramatically as wealth inequality skyrocketed. Is this really a good thing? The wealth inequality funding "digital dictatorship" and tyranny?

This is the same diversion tactic some people use about wealth not being a zero sum game. In purely terms of wealth, it is not a zero sum game. But wealth translates into power. And power certainly is a zero sum game. So if you got $10 and I got $10,000,000, in terms of wealth, both of us are doing better. But in terms of power, my power increased drastically while yours barely budged.

> I really feel like it's a shame that word is almost toxic in intellectual circles.

It is because it's opinions based on political biases. But economists and political "scientists" do a great job lying to us that their field is a "science" with the same credibility of physics. It is not. There is no objective truth because it's not in the realm of the empirical but societal/political. You'd have less toxicity in a debate between a christian, jew and muslim on who is the one true god.

And this didn't used to just be a story of Mideastern nations. This was the story of the world. The one thing that changed this was nukes. Mutually assured destruction is why the Cold War is now called the Cold War, and not World War 3. And it's why direct confrontation between developed nations has really become a thing of the past. Countries like China would never have been able to develop if not for the peace and stability that nuclear weapons have enabled. We can even look to nations like India. It's surreal to imagine that until 1947 that entire nation was just a property of the British Empire. Even the notion of a British Empire is surreal! But now that they have gained their independence and are a nuclear nation, they are also gradually increasing in prosperity as Indian decisions are being made to put Indians first. And as a nuclear power their decisions, independence, and developments are all effectively guaranteed, at least until we develop technology that can effectively render nukes harmless.

But it's also ethically skewed. I have friends who have travelled through the poorest parts of Africa, and they universally return with stories about how "poor" Africans are some of the happiest, friendliest, most generous, and most contented people they've met.

That may be rose-tinted, but it's naive to dismiss it out of hand.

Economic metrics aren't necessarily humane, and the Western economic treadmill - with its precariousness, acquisitiveness, and narcissism - isn't necessarily the ideal destination for any culture.

Edit: Evidence suggests thst it is indeed, semantic fuckery. The World Bank is really only saying that three quarters of a billion people earn less than $757 a year.