The history of the end of poverty has just begun • Hacker News Board

Re: The history of the end of poverty has just begun

#61

Post by bryanlarsen » Tue, Jan 25, 2022, 9:35 PM UTC

gitfan86 wrote: post #51

chongli wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No such thing as a post-scarcity economy, even in the fictional universe of Star Trek. When you have replicators that can produce any food or clothing or small pieces of equipment you need, you end up bartering over planets, star systems, or wormholes [1]. [1] https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/The_Price_(episode)

The point is that If basic food and clothing and shelter and internet and housing were free, the economy would be very different.

But would it? In most of the developed world health care is free, and it's more expensive than food, clothing & internet, and almost as expensive as shelter.

Re: The history of the end of poverty has just begun

#62

Post by RealityVoid » Tue, Jan 25, 2022, 9:36 PM UTC

gitfan86 wrote: post #40

WalterBright wrote: post #33

The end of poverty began in the US around 1800, when the specter of famine was finally eliminated. Throughout the 19th century, Americans grew in height and life expectancy, resulting in America's poor being the richest poor people in the world. Today, America's poor have a better quality of life than medieval kings.

This is a hard pill for society to swallow. On the poor end people legitimately feel like they are not well off because they have so much less than many others. On the high end, rich people don't like the idea that 200 years from now they will be seen as relatively poor.

I think on the contrary, contemporary culture doesn't care as much about legacy or image as other cultures in the past. I think it glorifies "hustle" and "profit" much more than legacy.

Re: The history of the end of poverty has just begun

#63

Post by chrisco255 » Tue, Jan 25, 2022, 9:37 PM UTC

dane-pgp wrote: post #47

WalterBright wrote: post #33

The end of poverty began in the US around 1800, when the specter of famine was finally eliminated. Throughout the 19th century, Americans grew in height and life expectancy, resulting in America's poor being the richest poor people in the world. Today, America's poor have a better quality of life than medieval kings.

> Today, America's poor have a better quality of life than medieval kings. And today's rich are doing even better than that, so there's no harm in taxing their wealth, right?

Yes, because the government is generally bad at using capital and the ROI on higher tax rates reaches negative at some point, nevermind that it can print as much as it wants.

Re: The history of the end of poverty has just begun

#64

Post by coldtea » Tue, Jan 25, 2022, 9:37 PM UTC

buscoquadnary wrote: post #53

coldtea wrote: post #48

One problem, other comments hint on the same thing, is that poverty is not an absolute, it's relative. We would consider ourselves poor if we lived as a family of five in a tiny early 20th New York immigrant's appartment, even though we'd be much better off than a feudal peasant living in a straw hut with no electricity and a distant water well (the "working class" of its day), which in turn would be must better off…

In many of the places I have heard of the people who are moving to the sweatshops themselves are rejoicing in the change because the alternatives are subsistence farming or sex work, and staying around with their "tribe".

OTOH, I have heard of the people who are moving to the sweatshops, that they fought the destruction of their traditional lands and sources of income and ways of life with tooth and nail. That has been historically true from the forced industrialization of British peasants all the way to today, where many of such forced migrations plays are still on (from China and India to Chile and all around Africa) and there are plenty of books on those lamenting their forced entry into sweatshop labor, slums, etc.

Re: The history of the end of poverty has just begun

#65

Post by pchangr » Tue, Jan 25, 2022, 9:37 PM UTC

karaterobot wrote: post #11

It seems like the more meaningful advance in society has been to increase the quality of life of poor people, not to move more of them above some arbitrary cutoff. I'm talking about life expectancy, access to shelter, food, medical care, entertainment, educational and career opportunities. If the definition of poverty is that you live off less than the (adjusted) $30/day cutoff, who here would choose to live that way…

I encourage you to read his old article https://ourworldindata.org/extreme-poverty-in-brief in which he talks about the cutout and what he did to minimize the effect. (He adjusts per purchasing power through time and location)

Re: The history of the end of poverty has just begun

#66

Post by gruez » Tue, Jan 25, 2022, 9:38 PM UTC

coldtea wrote: post #48

One problem, other comments hint on the same thing, is that poverty is not an absolute, it's relative. We would consider ourselves poor if we lived as a family of five in a tiny early 20th New York immigrant's appartment, even though we'd be much better off than a feudal peasant living in a straw hut with no electricity and a distant water well (the "working class" of its day), which in turn would be must better off…

> One problem, other comments hint on the same thing, is that poverty is not an absolute, it's relative.

Seems like you're just trying to redefine "poverty" to mean "income inequality". Income inequality is an issue that's worth tackling, but it's also important to recognize absolute standards of living conditions. We already have a term for income inequality, it's called income inequality. It's unclear why you want to redefine "poverty" to also mean "income inequality".

>poverty must be estimated with regard to access to the standards and niceties of the era

That's fine. Other commenters have mentioned tackling about starting to address "basic poverty" after we address "extreme poverty".

Re: The history of the end of poverty has just begun

#67

Post by mortenlarsen » Tue, Jan 25, 2022, 9:39 PM UTC

sam0x17 wrote: post #19

throwthere wrote: post #3

I'll ask this kind of leading question that I have my own thoughts about but I want to hear others'-- is it capitalism that is eradicating poverty?

Definitely not. It's the regulation of capitalism that is driving this. This is why the countries where capitalism is most heavily regulated (nordic countries, some european countries) are cited throughout the article. Capitalism on its own with no regulation just devolves into corporate dystopia and corruption because the short term path of least resistance is always taken. When we experience progress it's because o…

I agree. If capitalism is the fuel that makes the car run, as some say it is (maybe it is? I don't know.), it needs to be regulated and applied in the right place and amount to make the car go forward.

Some people seem to think more is always better, and that we should just dowse the car in gasoline and light it on fire to make it go faster. Why they think that would work is beyond me.

Re: The history of the end of poverty has just begun

#68

Post by beepbooptheory » Tue, Jan 25, 2022, 9:41 PM UTC

bryanlarsen wrote: post #41

wintorez wrote: post #10

Are we transitioning to post-scarcity economy?

Even Star Trek TNG didn't have a true post-scarcity economy. At least 5 things were key parameters in their economy and were scarce: - dilithium crystals, which were used to power ships, and thus also powered the replicators - Enterprise class ships were definitely scarce/precious - labour - land, especially on Earth - hand-made goods STTNG didn't have a money economy. That doesn't mean they were post-scarcity. The c…

It's just a little funny to say an essentially communist society has a scarcity of labor... It's like yes, that's kinda the point!

They often note on the show itself that it is in fact replicator tech itself that sealed the deal for their era of post-scarcity, so yeah, that would imply some kind of scarcity in handmade goods.

I think when people generally talk about "post-scarcity" it isn't that literally everything that could possibly exist is plentiful, at your fingertips, its more talking about the things we find scarce now (housing, food) being plentiful.

Re: The history of the end of poverty has just begun

#69

Post by icefox11 » Tue, Jan 25, 2022, 9:43 PM UTC

otikik wrote: post #29

throwthere wrote: post #3

I'll ask this kind of leading question that I have my own thoughts about but I want to hear others'-- is it capitalism that is eradicating poverty?

I will answer your question with another leading question: What do you think created poverty in the first place?

Poverty will never cease to exist. Some people in the USA consider themselves poor, while having cars, houses, access to food and potable water. I myself had the opportunity to visit a indigenous tribe in Brazil. They would be considered poor by many people in the US, but they don't feel poor. I was offered shelter and food. They were happy to be able to offer me something, and that made them feel rich. We should do what we can to bring basic and humane conditions to all. What comes after that is harder to manage. A mutable definition of poverty will always make it a moving target that is impossible to fulfill.

Re: The history of the end of poverty has just begun

#70

Post by pchangr » Tue, Jan 25, 2022, 9:43 PM UTC

danschmitt wrote: post #24

It is always nice to see such narratives based on robust data. For similar stories backed by data I can also recommend the book "Factfulnes" by Hans Rosling [1]. When we talk about basic needs, our global community is making tremendous progress. At the same time, we should not forget that the same system that abolishes poverty also creates enormous inequality, which not only makes people unhappier, but also leads to…

It’s a shame I don’t know Max’s handle in HN but if you follow him on Twitter you’ll see he’s a very big fan of that book. I think it’s mentioned in the about page of OWID.