4 ms·

Globalism is going to lead to an averaging out of the standards of living across the globe. People from wealthy nations are in for a rude awakening.

TaylorAlexander 9y ago
True story. I share a messy studio with my girlfriend in the Bay Area. We’ve both at times felt like it’s weird for us to live in a small cramped space, but any time I learn about life for poorer people the world over I realize that living in cramped messy places is the global norm. The fact that I grew up around clean single family homes is just an artifact of the wealth around me. I will say though that I hope robotics can increase global wealth dramatically enough for everyone that no one has to see their quality of life go down.
- Consultant32452 9y ago
  The statistic that constantly rattles around in my head is that 70% of the world lives on less than $10/day. There's an awful long way down from here.
  - nostrademons 9y ago
    Per capita world GDP is about $16K/year. That's significantly more than $10/day, but it's also significantly less than anyone in the Western world is accustomed to living on.
    - pcl 9y ago
      $16,000 / 365 = $44 / day. And wealth and income are non-linear [1], so 70% of the population could easily be below the mean. [1] citation needed
      - candiodari 9y ago
        You can't calculate it like that. That's total revenue, not the amount paid out to employees. That number can only be said to be strictly higher than average daily wage. But probably at the very least 50% higher than average wages.
    - closeparen 9y ago
      If cities were only productive enough to hit GDP per capita of $16k/year, construction workers only expected to make $16k/year, and other potential buyers made close to $16k/year, housing would be dirt cheap. If American urban planning were in line with global norms (i.e. not built around ubiquitous car ownership), transportation would be dirt cheap or free. And outside of housing and transportation, $16k/year is a ton of money. I maintain a pretty bougie standard of living on half that.
  - RestlessMind 9y ago
    Without adjusting for purchasing power, that number is meaningless. What is the PPP number?
toomuchtodo 9y ago
> Globalism is going to lead to an averaging out of the standards of living across the globe. People from wealthy nations are in for a rude awakening. In another couple decades, most definitely. Soon? Nah. China is rapidly aging, their economy is overheating, they're about to go through their own debt unwinding. Africa is just a mess. Maybe? I'll believe it when I see it. The United States, regardless of current events, is remarkably stable compared to the rest of the world. That has value. SF and NYC are a microcosm of the first world. You would have a much higher quality of living in any number of cities or smaller communities in the US or Europe. I'm partial to Berlin, Barcelona, Prague, and most of Portugal, but YMMV. I bang out comments on Hacker News while overlooking my backyard pool in Florida in a 4 bed/2.5 bath house for ~$1400/month. Why would I trade that for a dorm with shared bathrooms in the most expensive city in the world?
- Consultant32452 9y ago
  It's not just SF and NYC. The rust belt was gutted and what remains of those Union jobs are now slave wage jobs at places with suicide nets in China.
  - toomuchtodo 9y ago
    I agree, but for different reasons. Jobs went to third world workers, while the majority of the productivity went into shareholder pockets. That's an internal policy issue in the US, not a globalization issue (or rather, it's an unchecked capitalism issue). You can use policy to prevent unfettered blood letting of jobs to the cheapest labor sinks in the world. Globalization is not some foregone conclusion we have no control over. EDIT: First world workers aren't competing against third world workers; they're competing against first world owners/shareholders/capitalists cramming down wages, working conditions, and living standards.
    - Consultant32452 9y ago
      It didn't really go to shareholders. Maybe a little at first but a global market meant that prices of goods just dropped to compensate for the 'savings'.
jadedhacker 9y ago
That's only somewhat true. It will smooth out living standards as it crushes working people down by exploiting the lowest wages anywhere in the globe. Simultaneously, the wealthy bourgeoisie will become richer and richer until the internal contradiction in capitalism, that profits come from consumers that must work for wages, tears the system asunder. The system that follows will likely be fascism, the seamless merger of corporations with the state to force exploited workers to work, or socialism, the people taking control of the government and using it to expropriate the rich in favor of workers. EDIT: Note that this doesn't require central planning, the rad idea these days are socialisms based on co-ops where employees own the organization they are a part of. If the system is fascist, living standards will sharply drop for everyone subjected to that system. If the system is a form of socialism, then yes differences will even out. The GDP of the United States divided by its population is roughly 55k in today's dollars, though certain services like medicine and housing will have their profits expropriated so 55k will go much further. If we look at world GDP, the income of all people will be closer to 11k USD, which might be barely livable, but will eradicate extreme poverty across the globe. We have a lot of work to do to treat humanity well and in a way the planet can survive.
- Consultant32452 9y ago
  If any of the previous experiments with socialism are any indication, fascism and socialism have the same approximate outcomes.
  - jadedhacker 9y ago
    The old idea that occurred in the Soviet Union was not the only possible outcome. That idea was for a vanguard party to take control of the country and establish a dictatorship of the proletariat. Unfortunately, this dictatorship was exactly that... it concentrated power in the hands of a small minority and lead to tremendous abuses. However, it also lead to obscenely rapid industrialization in one of the poorest most besieged countries in the world. Russia, post WW1 and WW2 was not a happy place having lost millions of soldiers to invasions by Germany, Japan, the US, and others. It is an open question what would have happened had they not been besieged. However, that is counterfactual, and there were large abuses, especially in the Ukraine. Other countries, like China, have produced significant abuses, but notably they are also rising economic powers. They are no longer strictly communist, but nor are they totally capitalist. China recently announced a plan to eliminate poverty within its borders (https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/31/world/asia/xi-jinping-poverty-china.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/31/world/asia/xi-jinping-pov...). While you might say that they won't be able to do it, that would fly in the face of their 6+% (!) GDP growth. Can you imagine a US politician ever making a statement like that? Not since FDR have we seen anything like it. The closest we had was MLK's Poor People's Campaign in the late 60s. The new hip idea is for power to remain mostly decentralized to prevent this outcome. Hence, worker coops. If more stakeholders participate in decisions, hopefully fewer truly awful ones will occur. I could go on, but there is a lively debate going on right now that much of the US public is asleep to having been lulled into a zombie like state by Carter, Regan, Bush, Clinton, Bush, Obama, and Trump. It's acceptable to think about the shape of the new world that is coming and have a hand in shaping it. Otherwise the same old, frankly evil, behaviors will continue until something unimaginably terrible happens like a nuclear war or the seas and changing weather sweep our civilization away.
RestlessMind 9y ago
I don't think masses in western societies will accept that. There was already revolt against TPP by both left (Sanders) and right (Trump) in 2016. So much so that even Hillary had to renounce the pact she once praised as "gold standard". If globalization continues to decrease standard of living in the West, I will expect a massive political backlash (which I believe is already under way).
RickJWagner 9y ago
My thoughts exactly. A day of reckoning is coming.

TaylorAlexander 9y ago

True story. I share a messy studio with my girlfriend in the Bay Area. We’ve both at times felt like it’s weird for us to live in a small cramped space, but any time I learn about life for poorer people the world over I realize that living in cramped messy places is the global norm. The fact that I grew up around clean single family homes is just an artifact of the wealth around me. I will say though that I hope robotics can increase global wealth dramatically enough for everyone that no one has to see their quality of life go down.

Consultant32452 9y ago
The statistic that constantly rattles around in my head is that 70% of the world lives on less than $10/day. There's an awful long way down from here.
- nostrademons 9y ago
  Per capita world GDP is about $16K/year. That's significantly more than $10/day, but it's also significantly less than anyone in the Western world is accustomed to living on.
  - pcl 9y ago
    $16,000 / 365 = $44 / day. And wealth and income are non-linear [1], so 70% of the population could easily be below the mean. [1] citation needed
    - candiodari 9y ago
      You can't calculate it like that. That's total revenue, not the amount paid out to employees. That number can only be said to be strictly higher than average daily wage. But probably at the very least 50% higher than average wages.
  - closeparen 9y ago
    If cities were only productive enough to hit GDP per capita of $16k/year, construction workers only expected to make $16k/year, and other potential buyers made close to $16k/year, housing would be dirt cheap. If American urban planning were in line with global norms (i.e. not built around ubiquitous car ownership), transportation would be dirt cheap or free. And outside of housing and transportation, $16k/year is a ton of money. I maintain a pretty bougie standard of living on half that.
- RestlessMind 9y ago
  Without adjusting for purchasing power, that number is meaningless. What is the PPP number?

toomuchtodo 9y ago

> Globalism is going to lead to an averaging out of the standards of living across the globe. People from wealthy nations are in for a rude awakening. In another couple decades, most definitely. Soon? Nah. China is rapidly aging, their economy is overheating, they're about to go through their own debt unwinding. Africa is just a mess. Maybe? I'll believe it when I see it. The United States, regardless of current events, is remarkably stable compared to the rest of the world. That has value. SF and NYC are a microcosm of the first world. You would have a much higher quality of living in any number of cities or smaller communities in the US or Europe. I'm partial to Berlin, Barcelona, Prague, and most of Portugal, but YMMV. I bang out comments on Hacker News while overlooking my backyard pool in Florida in a 4 bed/2.5 bath house for ~$1400/month. Why would I trade that for a dorm with shared bathrooms in the most expensive city in the world?

Consultant32452 9y ago
It's not just SF and NYC. The rust belt was gutted and what remains of those Union jobs are now slave wage jobs at places with suicide nets in China.
- toomuchtodo 9y ago
  I agree, but for different reasons. Jobs went to third world workers, while the majority of the productivity went into shareholder pockets. That's an internal policy issue in the US, not a globalization issue (or rather, it's an unchecked capitalism issue). You can use policy to prevent unfettered blood letting of jobs to the cheapest labor sinks in the world. Globalization is not some foregone conclusion we have no control over. EDIT: First world workers aren't competing against third world workers; they're competing against first world owners/shareholders/capitalists cramming down wages, working conditions, and living standards.
  - Consultant32452 9y ago
    It didn't really go to shareholders. Maybe a little at first but a global market meant that prices of goods just dropped to compensate for the 'savings'.

jadedhacker 9y ago

That's only somewhat true. It will smooth out living standards as it crushes working people down by exploiting the lowest wages anywhere in the globe. Simultaneously, the wealthy bourgeoisie will become richer and richer until the internal contradiction in capitalism, that profits come from consumers that must work for wages, tears the system asunder. The system that follows will likely be fascism, the seamless merger of corporations with the state to force exploited workers to work, or socialism, the people taking control of the government and using it to expropriate the rich in favor of workers. EDIT: Note that this doesn't require central planning, the rad idea these days are socialisms based on co-ops where employees own the organization they are a part of. If the system is fascist, living standards will sharply drop for everyone subjected to that system. If the system is a form of socialism, then yes differences will even out. The GDP of the United States divided by its population is roughly 55k in today's dollars, though certain services like medicine and housing will have their profits expropriated so 55k will go much further. If we look at world GDP, the income of all people will be closer to 11k USD, which might be barely livable, but will eradicate extreme poverty across the globe. We have a lot of work to do to treat humanity well and in a way the planet can survive.

Consultant32452 9y ago
If any of the previous experiments with socialism are any indication, fascism and socialism have the same approximate outcomes.
- jadedhacker 9y ago
  The old idea that occurred in the Soviet Union was not the only possible outcome. That idea was for a vanguard party to take control of the country and establish a dictatorship of the proletariat. Unfortunately, this dictatorship was exactly that... it concentrated power in the hands of a small minority and lead to tremendous abuses. However, it also lead to obscenely rapid industrialization in one of the poorest most besieged countries in the world. Russia, post WW1 and WW2 was not a happy place having lost millions of soldiers to invasions by Germany, Japan, the US, and others. It is an open question what would have happened had they not been besieged. However, that is counterfactual, and there were large abuses, especially in the Ukraine. Other countries, like China, have produced significant abuses, but notably they are also rising economic powers. They are no longer strictly communist, but nor are they totally capitalist. China recently announced a plan to eliminate poverty within its borders (https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/31/world/asia/xi-jinping-poverty-china.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/31/world/asia/xi-jinping-pov...). While you might say that they won't be able to do it, that would fly in the face of their 6+% (!) GDP growth. Can you imagine a US politician ever making a statement like that? Not since FDR have we seen anything like it. The closest we had was MLK's Poor People's Campaign in the late 60s. The new hip idea is for power to remain mostly decentralized to prevent this outcome. Hence, worker coops. If more stakeholders participate in decisions, hopefully fewer truly awful ones will occur. I could go on, but there is a lively debate going on right now that much of the US public is asleep to having been lulled into a zombie like state by Carter, Regan, Bush, Clinton, Bush, Obama, and Trump. It's acceptable to think about the shape of the new world that is coming and have a hand in shaping it. Otherwise the same old, frankly evil, behaviors will continue until something unimaginably terrible happens like a nuclear war or the seas and changing weather sweep our civilization away.

RestlessMind 9y ago

I don't think masses in western societies will accept that. There was already revolt against TPP by both left (Sanders) and right (Trump) in 2016. So much so that even Hillary had to renounce the pact she once praised as "gold standard". If globalization continues to decrease standard of living in the West, I will expect a massive political backlash (which I believe is already under way).

RickJWagner 9y ago

My thoughts exactly. A day of reckoning is coming.