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All poverty is institutional and societal poverty. People are poor not because of lack of energy, but because the societies they live in lack the inclusive inst

All poverty is institutional and societal poverty. People are poor not because of lack of energy, but because the societies they live in lack the inclusive institutions that can create those patterns for energy use, education, healthcare and anything else. When you put those institutions in place, the effect manifests itself as economic growth, energy use, increased education etc., which in turn strengthen those political institutions, which in turn beget more growth. Sorry to nitpick an article that primarily talks about energy, not development, but we need to agree on the root problem. If aliens drop an unmovable fusion reactor in Rwanda tomorrow that can output enough free energy to reach western levels, that will probably not lift the country out of poverty but start a bloody civil war about who owns it and can sell the energy to everybody else.

WalterBright 4y ago
It's not inclusive institutions, it's the people don't have the rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. I.e. free markets.
- manholio 4y ago
  Markets are just an abstraction that's built on strong institutions: property rights, an inclusive justice system that can settle commercial disputes and punish the antisocial, a state that can tax that commercial activity and reinvest the proceeds into infrastructure. Without those institutions, markets cannot exist, you are just at the whim of a connected competitor, local gang leader, extractive and corrupt government official or unavoidable private monopoly that will fleece everything you create. Therefore you don't waste energy investing and creating for the market, and focus on extracting from someone else.
  - WalterBright 4y ago
    Free markets require a government, and a government acts as guarantor of the rights needed for the free market to function. A free market is not a market without a government.
    - manholio 4y ago
      Some form of government exists in any place on Earth - lest that territory is claimed by some other government. Yet, a large number of such entities are unable to guarantee those rights. The gap between the minimum common denominator of a state - ability to claim and hold a territory - and the stable an advanced state is made up by inclusive political institutions.
      - WalterBright 4y ago
        You can have free markets without inclusive institutions. Free markets require the government to guarantee rights to do what one wants to do, as long as it does not harm others. It also requires a government to enforce contracts and property rights. It requires equality under the law. Note that when I say "requires" I don't mean absolutely. The closer to this a society is, the more free market it is, and the better the free market performs.
        manholio 4y ago
        > require the government to guarantee rights to do what one wants to do, as long as it does not harm others. It also requires a government to enforce contracts and property rights. That's far from sufficient for sustained economic growth. Most feudal societies had strong property rights - as long as you were on the good side of your king at least, and in times of peace. The population had strong individual autonomy and could even sell themselves into servitude, a right no modern state recognizes. But because all productive capital (land) was controlled by an extractive elite, and alternate forms of capital (human, technological) were undeveloped, such societies were not market economies in the modern sense and living in them was hell for most except select few. Freedom to do and own anything means nothing when you own nothing. > It requires equality under the law. A fair justice system is one of those fundamental inclusive institutions I talk about. We have problems achieving that goal even in the most developed countries.
  - WalterBright 4y ago
    > punish the antisocial What do you mean by that?
- dredmorbius 4y ago
  https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32731338 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32731338
dredmorbius 4y ago
Was Man of the Hole poor? Was that a social poverty? And if not that specific instance, consider a theoretical lone hermit or tribes (say, the Sentinelese), not subject to any social pressures or constraints, but lacking in the necessities of a thriving life. Or similarly isolated peoples in preindustrial times. I'll allow that much poverty is socially imposed, particularly since the Industrial Revolution. I balk at the claim that all poverty is.
- manholio 4y ago
  Poverty is by definition a relative notion. A middle class occidental has access to culinary diversity, healthcare, transport speeds and indoor plumbing that not even kings could dream of a few centuries ago. Poverty is defined relative to the technological frontier - what is known and achievable in a certain age with reasonable effort and access to common resources. > Was Man of the Hole poor? > Was that a social poverty? Yes, he was. He may have chosen poverty freely, as was his right, but there is no doubt he was materially poor compared to most his contemporaries. Furthermore, the main reason for that poverty was social - he lacked the very foundation onto which to build a productive economy, namely other people in his community. He was also constrained by repressive social institutions - his own life experience and culture and the unprovoked aggression by the farmers - and thus excluded from participating in the larger productive economy. We can of course speculate about his reasons and worldview, but IMHO it's very plausible he may have wanted not to die relatively young of some preventable disease.
  - dredmorbius 4y ago
    So, if you choose to define poverty as relative, that works. Checking via dict.org, the first given definition however is: "The quality or state of being poor or indigent; want or scarcity of means of subsistence; indigence; need." The second allows for a possible relative measure, in proposing both need and desire as conditions: "Any deficiency of elements or resources that are needed or desired, or that constitute richness; as, poverty of soil; poverty of the blood; poverty of ideas." (Based on 1913 Webster.) <http://dict.org/bin/Dict?Form=Dict2&Database=*&Query=poverty http://dict.org/bin/Dict?Form=Dict2&Database=*&Query=poverty> That's limited support for the relative definition you propose, unless one chooses relation to survival and thriving itself, though your definition would suggest a societal relation. I'll accept that Man of the Hole's circumstances being contemporary and having interactions with the broader human community introduce a social element. My intent was to consider his circumstances independent of that relation, which was why I'd proposed alternatives clearly absent that aspect. You've not addressed those in your response.

WalterBright 4y ago

It's not inclusive institutions, it's the people don't have the rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. I.e. free markets.

manholio 4y ago
Markets are just an abstraction that's built on strong institutions: property rights, an inclusive justice system that can settle commercial disputes and punish the antisocial, a state that can tax that commercial activity and reinvest the proceeds into infrastructure. Without those institutions, markets cannot exist, you are just at the whim of a connected competitor, local gang leader, extractive and corrupt government official or unavoidable private monopoly that will fleece everything you create. Therefore you don't waste energy investing and creating for the market, and focus on extracting from someone else.
- WalterBright 4y ago
  Free markets require a government, and a government acts as guarantor of the rights needed for the free market to function. A free market is not a market without a government.
  - manholio 4y ago
    Some form of government exists in any place on Earth - lest that territory is claimed by some other government. Yet, a large number of such entities are unable to guarantee those rights. The gap between the minimum common denominator of a state - ability to claim and hold a territory - and the stable an advanced state is made up by inclusive political institutions.
    - WalterBright 4y ago
      You can have free markets without inclusive institutions. Free markets require the government to guarantee rights to do what one wants to do, as long as it does not harm others. It also requires a government to enforce contracts and property rights. It requires equality under the law. Note that when I say "requires" I don't mean absolutely. The closer to this a society is, the more free market it is, and the better the free market performs.
      - manholio 4y ago
        > require the government to guarantee rights to do what one wants to do, as long as it does not harm others. It also requires a government to enforce contracts and property rights. That's far from sufficient for sustained economic growth. Most feudal societies had strong property rights - as long as you were on the good side of your king at least, and in times of peace. The population had strong individual autonomy and could even sell themselves into servitude, a right no modern state recognizes. But because all productive capital (land) was controlled by an extractive elite, and alternate forms of capital (human, technological) were undeveloped, such societies were not market economies in the modern sense and living in them was hell for most except select few. Freedom to do and own anything means nothing when you own nothing. > It requires equality under the law. A fair justice system is one of those fundamental inclusive institutions I talk about. We have problems achieving that goal even in the most developed countries.
- WalterBright 4y ago
  > punish the antisocial What do you mean by that?
dredmorbius 4y ago
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32731338 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32731338

dredmorbius 4y ago

Was Man of the Hole poor? Was that a social poverty? And if not that specific instance, consider a theoretical lone hermit or tribes (say, the Sentinelese), not subject to any social pressures or constraints, but lacking in the necessities of a thriving life. Or similarly isolated peoples in preindustrial times. I'll allow that much poverty is socially imposed, particularly since the Industrial Revolution. I balk at the claim that all poverty is.

manholio 4y ago
Poverty is by definition a relative notion. A middle class occidental has access to culinary diversity, healthcare, transport speeds and indoor plumbing that not even kings could dream of a few centuries ago. Poverty is defined relative to the technological frontier - what is known and achievable in a certain age with reasonable effort and access to common resources. > Was Man of the Hole poor? > Was that a social poverty? Yes, he was. He may have chosen poverty freely, as was his right, but there is no doubt he was materially poor compared to most his contemporaries. Furthermore, the main reason for that poverty was social - he lacked the very foundation onto which to build a productive economy, namely other people in his community. He was also constrained by repressive social institutions - his own life experience and culture and the unprovoked aggression by the farmers - and thus excluded from participating in the larger productive economy. We can of course speculate about his reasons and worldview, but IMHO it's very plausible he may have wanted not to die relatively young of some preventable disease.
- dredmorbius 4y ago
  So, if you choose to define poverty as relative, that works. Checking via dict.org, the first given definition however is: "The quality or state of being poor or indigent; want or scarcity of means of subsistence; indigence; need." The second allows for a possible relative measure, in proposing both need and desire as conditions: "Any deficiency of elements or resources that are needed or desired, or that constitute richness; as, poverty of soil; poverty of the blood; poverty of ideas." (Based on 1913 Webster.) <http://dict.org/bin/Dict?Form=Dict2&Database=*&Query=poverty http://dict.org/bin/Dict?Form=Dict2&Database=*&Query=poverty> That's limited support for the relative definition you propose, unless one chooses relation to survival and thriving itself, though your definition would suggest a societal relation. I'll accept that Man of the Hole's circumstances being contemporary and having interactions with the broader human community introduce a social element. My intent was to consider his circumstances independent of that relation, which was why I'd proposed alternatives clearly absent that aspect. You've not addressed those in your response.