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A letter to Steven Pinker about global poverty

jasonhickel.org

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Re: A letter to Steven Pinker about global poverty

#11

Post by barry-cotter »

barrkel wrote: post #7
colechristensen wrote: post #2

Can anyone summarize what is going on here? It seems like a flamewar with graphs, and not interesting enough to invest the time in reading.

I followed this a little bit when it popped up on Twitter last week. The fight appears to be about whether rising global prosperity is helping poor people or mostly just poor people in China; and around the edges, about whether your definition of poor is simply GDP, or includes other harder to quantify things like commons, or if you want to measure it against the US poverty line at purchasing power parity dollars. It…

GDP per capita has increased everywhere but Africa and that appears to be improving now in Africa. Living standards as measured by deaths in childbirth, infant mortality, lifespan, healthy lifespan, education and literacy have improved almost everywhere, even in places with no economy of more dependent on aid like Afghanistan, Niger or Chad. The absolute number of people in poverty may not be declining much outside China but that’s a function of massive population growth, not a failure of neoliberalism. Neoliberalism has brought more people out of poverty than anything else, and it’s not a close race.

Re: A letter to Steven Pinker about global poverty

#12

Post by smolder »

derriz wrote: post #9

Hickels rebuttal in the letter is that GDP cannot be used to gauge poverty which he claims has only been measured directly by the UN since 1981. But if you look around the world today, GDP/head is a remarkaby strong indicator of the level of poverty in a country. Nevermind that all the other quality of life stats: life expectency, child morality, average working hours, literacy, education levels, food affordability s…

Things are always getting worse in some way or another, at the same time they get better in other ways. Lowering poverty doesn't change that we're doing irreversible damage to major ecosystems.

Re: A letter to Steven Pinker about global poverty

#13

Post by grecy »

One of the most amazing things I learned reading the excellent "Factfullness" by Hans Rosling [1] is that the poorest countries in the world are currently improving faster than any country ever did, at any point in history.

That's correct - countries like Lesotho and Central African Republic are improving faster than his home country of Sweden ever did, at any time. In only his lifetime Sweden went from having an infant mortality rate similar to that of the poorest countries today, to being one of the world leaders. Those poor countries are improving faster than Sweden ever did... so in just one more lifetime they'll be where the world leaders are today.

The book makes it plainly clear that the world is improving much, much, much faster - even for the poorest - than the mainstream media would have anyone believe.

[1] https://amzn.to/2Ihb6jM - full title is great "Factfulness: Ten Reasons We're Wrong About the World--and Why Things Are Better Than You Think"

Re: A letter to Steven Pinker about global poverty

#14

Post by andrewwharton »

derriz wrote: post #9

Hickels rebuttal in the letter is that GDP cannot be used to gauge poverty which he claims has only been measured directly by the UN since 1981. But if you look around the world today, GDP/head is a remarkaby strong indicator of the level of poverty in a country. Nevermind that all the other quality of life stats: life expectency, child morality, average working hours, literacy, education levels, food affordability s…

To be fair, that's only a very small part of his rebuttal, dealing specifically with the period prior to 1970, as well as the fact that GDP estimates for this period "take little if any account of the goods and resources that people may have acquired from their land, from trees, from forests, from rivers and the sea, and in the form of gifts from relatives."

From 1981 onward, I would summarize his argument as being that:

- While some measures have improved, the picture is no where near as good as it is represented.

- Using $1.90 as the baseline to beat is too low for what we would consider as being out of poverty.

- Most economic successes have not been due to neoliberal markets but rather state-led industrial policy, protectionism and regulation.

- Most quality of life improvements have not been due to neoliberal globalization but simple public interventions including free healthcare and education.

- Progress is slowing relative to the resources available to tackle the problem.

Re: A letter to Steven Pinker about global poverty

#16

Post by Maro »

grecy wrote: post #13

One of the most amazing things I learned reading the excellent "Factfullness" by Hans Rosling [1] is that the poorest countries in the world are currently improving faster than any country ever did, at any point in history. That's correct - countries like Lesotho and Central African Republic are improving faster than his home country of Sweden ever did, at any time. In only his lifetime Sweden went from having an inf…

I read the Factfullness book, and I thought it's really poorly argued. I remember my BP was through the roof on the plane when I was reading that. HR is not believable imo. (I work in data, I'm a physicist.)

Re: A letter to Steven Pinker about global poverty

#17

Post by hannob »

grecy wrote: post #13

One of the most amazing things I learned reading the excellent "Factfullness" by Hans Rosling [1] is that the poorest countries in the world are currently improving faster than any country ever did, at any point in history. That's correct - countries like Lesotho and Central African Republic are improving faster than his home country of Sweden ever did, at any time. In only his lifetime Sweden went from having an inf…

> so in just one more lifetime they'll be where the world leaders are today.

This is where you are probably wrong and which so often is used in the narrative of "things are getting better". You make an implicit assumption that this development will go on. It probably won't. The reason is climate change.

Re: A letter to Steven Pinker about global poverty

#18

Post by woolvalley »

andrewwharton wrote: post #14
derriz wrote: post #9

Hickels rebuttal in the letter is that GDP cannot be used to gauge poverty which he claims has only been measured directly by the UN since 1981. But if you look around the world today, GDP/head is a remarkaby strong indicator of the level of poverty in a country. Nevermind that all the other quality of life stats: life expectency, child morality, average working hours, literacy, education levels, food affordability s…

To be fair, that's only a very small part of his rebuttal, dealing specifically with the period prior to 1970, as well as the fact that GDP estimates for this period "take little if any account of the goods and resources that people may have acquired from their land, from trees, from forests, from rivers and the sea, and in the form of gifts from relatives." From 1981 onward, I would summarize his argument as being t…

This shows it's not an apocalypse story, but a story debating the details, with a positive upside that humanity has more capacity than in the past to relieve this poverty too.
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