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Dr. Jason Hickel has—I think—a pretty fair criticism of these graphs [1], that I'll try to summarize here: 1. Treating "poverty" as a binary "yes/no" thing, wh

Dr. Jason Hickel has—I think—a pretty fair criticism of these graphs [1], that I'll try to summarize here: 1. Treating "poverty" as a binary "yes/no" thing, where having > $1.90/day suddenly alleviates you from poverty seems like a bit of a stretch. $1.90/day is probably way too low a number to cover adequate nutrition, shelter, and basic human needs. 2. While the percentage of people in poverty by this measure has decreased, the total number of people is probably more important. And that number has actually increased in the past 40 years. 3. They didn't start collecting these numbers since 1981. All numbers prior to 1981 are highly dubious. 4. It ignores the effects of colonialism. Many people went from living lives with little need for money to one totally dependent on it. Enclosure of what once were public resources has eliminated many non-monetary forms of wealth these people once had. 5. Related to 4, it's not clear that going from a pre-monetary system to a much more capitalist system where money is necessary for virtually everything is an improvement. Especially when that transition was brought about by the threat of violence. 6. Virtually all of this reduction in extreme poverty occurred in China, which makes the notion that this was a triumph of capitalism / neoliberalism kind of silly. [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...

thaumasiotes 5y ago
> Virtually all of this reduction in extreme poverty occurred in China, which makes the notion that this was a triumph of capitalism / neoliberalism kind of silly. How so? Under communism, China ran itself deeply into the ground and tens of millions of people starved to death. Economic reform changed that, in a straightforward triumph of capitalism. When one of the major stimuli to the period of economic reform is the discovery that a little village notable for not starving to death is doing it by virtue of illegal enclosure of what was supposed to be public land, supported by a blood oath of secrecy because private landownership is so illegal... you think the takeaway is that China's modern success comes from their communist economic regime?
- the_gastropod 5y ago
  China's flavor of capitalism is, indeed, a vast improvement over their communist past. But it includes a lot more state-involvement than the more laissez-faire style of the U.S.
  - thaumasiotes 5y ago
    They're also much poorer than the US is. They have most of the reduction in poverty because they started so low, not because they've ended up so high.
bryanlarsen 5y ago
Re 5. Much of the global extreme poor are still primarily in a pre-monetary system. Subsistence farming is by its very definition, mostly outside of the monetary economy.
- beepbooptheory 5y ago
  Are you implying that those areas are not affected by point 4?
bryanlarsen 5y ago
#2 is incorrect. The absolute number of people living in extreme poverty was almost 2 billion in 1981, and under 700 million in 2017. https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/distribution-of-population-poverty-thresholds https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/distribution-of-populatio...
- ModernMech 5y ago
  $1.9 per day is extreme poverty, but there are other kinds of poverty as well. I think the article linked in your citation explains it nicely: https://ourworldindata.org/poverty-at-higher-poverty-lines https://ourworldindata.org/poverty-at-higher-poverty-lines > But that doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t care about what is happening relative to higher poverty lines. The evidence shows that there is a clear and continuous relationship between material deprivation and subjective well-being, so it would be wrong to celebrate shifting daily incomes from $1.89 to $1.91, even if this shift technically means abruptly reducing extreme poverty. People living on $3, $5, or $10 per day also face substantial hardships, and are still living in poverty. Taking into account these other bands of poverty, you can see the absolute number of people in the lowest bands of poverty has increased from 3.3 billion in 1981 to 4.66 billion in 2017.

thaumasiotes 5y ago

> Virtually all of this reduction in extreme poverty occurred in China, which makes the notion that this was a triumph of capitalism / neoliberalism kind of silly. How so? Under communism, China ran itself deeply into the ground and tens of millions of people starved to death. Economic reform changed that, in a straightforward triumph of capitalism. When one of the major stimuli to the period of economic reform is the discovery that a little village notable for not starving to death is doing it by virtue of illegal enclosure of what was supposed to be public land, supported by a blood oath of secrecy because private landownership is so illegal... you think the takeaway is that China's modern success comes from their communist economic regime?

the_gastropod 5y ago
China's flavor of capitalism is, indeed, a vast improvement over their communist past. But it includes a lot more state-involvement than the more laissez-faire style of the U.S.
- thaumasiotes 5y ago
  They're also much poorer than the US is. They have most of the reduction in poverty because they started so low, not because they've ended up so high.

bryanlarsen 5y ago

Re 5. Much of the global extreme poor are still primarily in a pre-monetary system. Subsistence farming is by its very definition, mostly outside of the monetary economy.

beepbooptheory 5y ago
Are you implying that those areas are not affected by point 4?

bryanlarsen 5y ago

#2 is incorrect. The absolute number of people living in extreme poverty was almost 2 billion in 1981, and under 700 million in 2017. https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/distribution-of-population-poverty-thresholds https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/distribution-of-populatio...

ModernMech 5y ago
$1.9 per day is extreme poverty, but there are other kinds of poverty as well. I think the article linked in your citation explains it nicely: https://ourworldindata.org/poverty-at-higher-poverty-lines https://ourworldindata.org/poverty-at-higher-poverty-lines > But that doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t care about what is happening relative to higher poverty lines. The evidence shows that there is a clear and continuous relationship between material deprivation and subjective well-being, so it would be wrong to celebrate shifting daily incomes from $1.89 to $1.91, even if this shift technically means abruptly reducing extreme poverty. People living on $3, $5, or $10 per day also face substantial hardships, and are still living in poverty. Taking into account these other bands of poverty, you can see the absolute number of people in the lowest bands of poverty has increased from 3.3 billion in 1981 to 4.66 billion in 2017.