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Over a billion people out there live on less than 2 USD/day. Protectionism is the only force sparing us from an existence like that. Dividing the world's resour
by prodigal_erik 12y ago
Over a billion people out there live on less than 2 USD/day. Protectionism is the only force sparing us from an existence like that. Dividing the world's resources fairly would result in universal grinding poverty rather than luxuries like the Internet.
- logfromblammo 12y agoThat's 2 non sequiturs in three sentences. The reason why people live in grinding poverty is because they are, for a stunningly wide variety of reasons, unable to accumulate capital and bring their own resources to market. If you divide resources fairly today, they will be back to poverty tomorrow, because the very same people will take the distributed resources away from them that currently take their savings opportunities. Besides that, the flip side of your argument is that protectionism is the only force keeping poor people from becoming rich. Economics is not a zero-sum game. It is far more complex than you portray.
- prodigal_erik 12y agoScarcity itself is the force keeping all the poor from becoming rich. The resources to do that simply don't exist on Earth no matter how we might spread them around. Technology is a multiplier but it doesn't run on nothing. Hell, they can only eat until the oil to make fertilizer is gone.