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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

#191

Post by falcor84 »

spandrew wrote: post #169

It's a bit frustrating to read his follow-up letter because it largely ignores the root counterpoints Pinker made in favour of pushing the data integrity angle. Hans spends an awful lot of time poking holes in the historical accuracy of income data. But Pinker states in very basic, understandable terms that the benchmark isn't the point — setting the benchmark at $7 or 100k doesn't stop the fact that wealthy has tren…

I somewhat disagree, Hans does spend some time in this article refuting the claim that benchmark doesn't matter. In particular, he shows charts demonstrating how raising the benchmark changes the result.

Re: A letter to Steven Pinker about global poverty

#192

Post by inscionent »

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…

When is an apocalypse not an apocalypse? "...in India, where 30 million died..." "...in the Congo, which so upended local economies that 10 million people died – half the population."

We look at those with wealth, shrug and assume they earned it and continue to let them freely wield the wealth of our entire species; all the while the other eye is trained on those who have been ground into the dust and applaud that things are getting better, faster. Clutching our pearls we hope we don't become them.

Re: A letter to Steven Pinker about global poverty

#193

Post by juau »

blub wrote: post #140
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…

Rosling, Gates etc are right that things are overall getting better. The rich are getting richer and the very poor are also doing better, but this is coming at the cost of the middle class in Western Europe and the US, where the average couple of working adults can no longer afford to buy a home and have to live with the fact that their jobs are significantly less stable compared to the past. Many are forced to work…

Rosling was such a strong communicator that few people are left unimpressed by him. But his message was never one of complacency. His concern was that if people didn't realize that things were getting better they wouldn't think they could be.

I can see his point. I agree with you about housing. But if we conclude that things are getting worse it is hard to gather hope. There has never been more affordable quality housing as today. Everything of concern is better from financing and construction to communication.

So why is affordability down in these regions? Because the powerful has convinced us that there can be no other way. And we are, just as Rosling didn't want us to be, ignorant enough to believe them.

Re: A letter to Steven Pinker about global poverty

#194

Post by mistermann »

grecy wrote: post #96
pizza234 wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. This is a very simplistic extrapolation. There are significant factors, primarily social/cultural ones, that will halt the relative development of those countries, sooner or later.

> primarily social/cultural ones, that will halt the relative development of those countries, sooner or later. Hans addresses this in the book, actually. What you said has no basis in fact, and makes no sense. Do you think people said exactly the same thing about Sweden a generation ago? Why / why not? We in the West have this completely-made-up assumption that "they" can't develop like "we" did, with absolutely no g…

> We in the West have this completely-made-up assumption that "they" can't develop like "we" did, with absolutely no grounding in fact.

Some people do, that's true. It also seems to be true that some people have an assumption, not at all completely grounded in fact, that "all" people can and will develop "like we did". Two problems I see with this belief are that it is inherently speculative (a prediction of the future), and it assumes that other cultures Necessarily* _want_ to develop like we have. Personally, I believe there are significant imperfections in Western culture, the way we've developed and the way we operate today, I'd be extremely surprised if all cultures view our way as the best way to organize societies. You can see evidence of this all over the place, but Westerners have a habit of classifying dissenting opinions as "just wrong" and dismissing/ignoring them.

Re: A letter to Steven Pinker about global poverty

#195

Post by skybrian »

The part where he writes off East Asia as not really counting, somehow, while acknowledging its success, is rather strange:

"As it happens, the economic success of China and the East Asian tigers – as scholars like Ha-Joon Chang and Robert Wade have long pointed out – is due not to the neoliberal markets that you espouse but rather state-led industrial policy, protectionism and regulation (the same measures that Western nations used to such great effect during their own period of industrial consolidation)."

It's true that many of the countries there are state-led. (Some also have lots of corruption and many have extreme inequality.) But they also had spectacular growth via export-led economies.

I don't know what "neoliberal" means other as a term of disparagement, but there's clearly a lot of capitalism and international trade going on. Participating in the global system has been a huge win there.

Re: A letter to Steven Pinker about global poverty

#196

Post by dash2 »

The argument about the poverty line is a bit weird.

It's completely reasonable that $1.90/day is still very low, and that we might want to take a higher point as a poverty line.

But if the numbers below that line have decreased, that is still a huge win. Going from $1.80/day to $3.60/day, say, is a big improvement. That is true precisely because $1.90 is so low.

Jason Hickel's argument seems to show that there is still a lot to do. But it does not show that we have not got much better.

Re: A letter to Steven Pinker about global poverty

#197

Post by newsgremlin »

igravious wrote: post #157
mAEStro-paNDa wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why does criticizing capitalism not fly for you, assuming that is Hickel's position?

Capitalism is not the problem. The excesses of capitalism are. For example: we've known this since biblical times. Money is not the root of all evil, the love of money is. Money is not evil in and of itself. Money is a tool. Like a hammer, money can be wielded in bad ways or good. You can build a house or bash someone's skull in. Because you can bash someone's head in with a hammer does that make hammers bad? Private…

But that doesn't cross with free market types, to them the government should have little to no role in capitalism. Those that seized private property with their accumulated wealth don't choose to part with it, (because how much is enough to them? sometimes never) then that requires either the government to seize private property or have incredibly high tax brackets (if they aren't exploiting intentional loopholes) that will put a few hundred million or few billion back into public funding.

But even with millions at their disposal there doesn't appear to be any moral fiber on parting with their money, trusting the government or not, private individuals deeming who is worthy of their charity is not the type of society to strive for. If man can't be trusted with greed then how can we trust the philanthropy of a few high profile individuals to distribute wealth.

Re: A letter to Steven Pinker about global poverty

#198

Post by throwaway47861 »

spandrew wrote: post #169

It's a bit frustrating to read his follow-up letter because it largely ignores the root counterpoints Pinker made in favour of pushing the data integrity angle. Hans spends an awful lot of time poking holes in the historical accuracy of income data. But Pinker states in very basic, understandable terms that the benchmark isn't the point — setting the benchmark at $7 or 100k doesn't stop the fact that wealthy has tren…

> Do people have access to more wealth (things they desire) than before? The answer is yes.

You lost all credibility right here. I suppose people living in their economically-alright bubbles will never be able to look objectively at how awful things are in so many places in the world. You just prefer the cozy illusion that it's all getting better.

Statistical averages mean nothing to the millions of family barely making ends meet and not being able to pay for the kids' gyms and proper nutrition. But sure, "on average things are better" -- and even this outlandish claim is proven wrong by this article, with hard data.

Re: A letter to Steven Pinker about global poverty

#199

Post by throwaway47861 »

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…

How is anything you said related to the points defended -- and others debunked by -- by the article?

It was mostly talking about the amount per day needed to have proper nutrition. Why do you shift the goalposts to abstract terms like "it's improving faster"? Sure, if you are on the rock bottom, it's only up from there on, and obviously you want to go faster when distancing yourself from the bottom.

Zero relevance to the article.

Re: A letter to Steven Pinker about global poverty

#200

Post by esarbe »

jopsen wrote: post #154
andrepd wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm pretty sure regulation, protectionism and state intervention in a market economy is the definition of social-democracy.

No, not really. Social democracy is about solidarity. It does not conflict with a free market which needs regulation to stay free, it does not encourage protectionism, rather it seeks solidarity with others. I should know I live in one :)

I too live in a Social democracy.

And I'd say that the GP is pretty much spot on.

Social democracy, from Wikipedia, an excerpt: "The protocols and norms used to accomplish this involve a commitment to representative and participatory democracy; measures for income redistribution and regulation of the economy in the general interest; and welfare state provisions."

So, there you have regulation and and state-intervention.

If you then consider that every Social Democracy in Europe has some sort of protectionist policy with regards to it's agricultural sector, I'd say that GP is spot on.

For the European Union, the agricultural subsidies still make up about 38% of the budget. What's that, besides protectionist?

(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Agricultural_Policy)

So, there you have all three; regulation and state-intervention by definition, protectionism by fact.

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