This is Jason Hickel's rebuttal to Steven Pinker's response [0] to Hickel's letter in the Guardian [1]. Pinker advocates that the quality of life for people is,

This is Jason Hickel's rebuttal to Steven Pinker's response [0] to Hickel's letter in the Guardian [1]. Pinker advocates that the quality of life for people is, on average, getting better worldwide. Hickel's responses are a little subtle but here's my interpretation: 1. Hickel argues that Pinker's $1.7/day poverty line is too low to be used effectively as a standard of poverty and proposed a $7.4/day rate 2. Excluding China from the period of 1981 to 2000 and using $7.4/day as a measure of the poverty line, the global poverty rate actually increased (from 62% to 68%) presumably because of exclusionary policies from the IMF 3. Hickel argues that Pinker is a a capitalist and neo-liberal "apologist" and that Pinker is providing a more optimistic picture of reality than is warranted (and presumably things could be getting better faster with more realistic appraisals of the world state) 4. The measure of success for poverty reduction should be our global ability to reduce poverty from our wealth rather than absolute or relative numbers of poverty reduction The point about the poverty increase from excluding China from 1981 to 2000 (point 2 above) is that this interpretation of data shows that poverty is not monotonically decreasing and that policy has drastic impacts on the rate of poverty reduction. I believe Hickel is arguing that pro capitalist or pro neo-liberal sentiment hides bad policy decisions, also presumably made with a pro capitalist or pretending to be done with a pro neo-liberal sentiment (IMF). I think Pinker provides compelling evidence but I appreciate counter arguments like Hickel's as it provides a fuller picture of some finer points that might get lost. The IMF excluding the global south is information I hadn't known before and I imagine has drastic implications for the rate of poverty reduction worldwide. I think Hickel falls into the trap of reducing Pinker to a neo-liberal cheerleader when Pinker is trying to convey some very basic information but I also haven't read any of Pinker's books so the critique might be valid. [0] https://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2019/01/31/is-the-world-really-getting-poorer-a-response-to-that-claim-by-steve-pinker/ https://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2019/01/31/is-the-w... [1] https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jan/29/bill-gates-davos-global-poverty-infographic-neoliberal https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jan/29/bill-g...