4 ms·
When I see millions, perhaps billions of people around the world living on less than $2 a day -- impossible in the west -- I can't help but disagree with you.
by pj 17y ago
When I see millions, perhaps billions of people around the world living on less than $2 a day -- impossible in the west -- I can't help but disagree with you.
How do you reconcile the poverty rate in the U.S. at $12,000 compared to $2 in india?
It would appear that the division of labor has actually increased the cost of living -- at any standard. If you only had $2 a day in the United States, you would probably die and that is not hyperbole.
- nostrademons 17y agoNumbers are just numbers - you can set the money supply at any arbitrary point, and it'll set the price level accordingly. The real question is how much an average income will buy in goods. I don't have an answer to this, but I do have a thought experiment. How many hours do you have to work in order to afford food for a month? My own case is a little odd because my employer provides food 5 days of the week, but even if I tripled my food budget, it would take me 6 hours of (pre-tax) work to afford a month of food. How does that compare with Poland or India? Similarly, you could price other goods in hours-of-time. It costs me slightly more than a week to afford a shiny new laptop computer, while even the bargain-basement OLPC laptops cost nearly 2 months for someone living on $2/day. It costs me about 3 minutes to afford fresh fruit (really, it takes me more time to pick it out than to work for it) - how much does it cost someone in Poland?
- wlievens 17y agoWhy would you use the pre-tax number? Also, at 6 hours that means you're definitely in some top percentile of income. For me that number is at least 20 hours, and I make an above-average income for the (first-world) country I live in.
- nostrademons 17y agoBecause tax rates vary across countries, so if you're trying to compare standards of living based on real income, it's slightly less misleading than using post-tax dollars. Only slightly, though. The idea is that one should separate out differences in SOL resulting from division-of-labor vs. those relating to government policies, since the original poster's argument is that division of labor results in less overall welfare.
- bokonist 17y agoI agree completely. All poverty statistics should be denominated in eggs.